"Patience is a virtue," we are taught. And when you think about it, much of our life is spent waiting for something rather than experiencing it, so that waiting becomes an experience in itself, filled with anticipation, annoyance, boredom or fear.
Waiting is a ripe subject for business researchers, it turns out. One effect of waiting is that people place more value on what they are waiting for, says Ayelet Fishbach, a professor of behavioral science and marketing at the University of Chicago. "If you give people exactly what they want at the moment they want it, they might want it less," she says.
In one study she helped conduct, two groups of people were given a choice between waiting six days to get a box of Godiva chocolates and waiting 48 days for a bigger box. One group was asked questions meant to accentuate the idea of waiting, like "When was the last time you ate a Godiva chocolate?" Those who were primed to be more conscious of waiting were more likely to delay gratification and choose the bigger box.
If companies can find ways to artificially introduce waiting into the buying process — building excitement without giving the impression of bad service — customers may spend more, Professor Fishbach says. Apple is a master at this, she says, providing details of models before products are available.
Of course, many companies unintentionally do the opposite: they antagonize customers seeking help by forcing them to wait — whether in physical lines, on the phone or online. This leads to ill will and lost sales across many industries.
One researcher has studied this phenomenon in an area that can mean the difference between life and death: hospital emergency rooms.
Hospitals keep track of a category of patient known as "left without being seen," a high number of which is a bad sign. To help keep that number low, Christian Terwiesch, a professor of operations and information management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, studied how emergency rooms might improve their admissions processes.
In E.R.'s, people are seen based on the severity of their medical condition. If you are otherwise going to die in the next half-hour, you get to jump to the front of the line. But fellow patients may not realize this, and seeing someone who only just arrived go first can upset people's sense of fairness. Some may leave the waiting room because they feel cheated, Professor Terwiesch says.
Typically, hospitals don't tell patients how long they may have to wait, and patients waiting in the E.R. have no idea when they will be called: "Every time the door opens, your adrenaline goes up."
He found that people in E.R.'s are constantly seeking visual clues as to who might be treated next. But these clues can mislead. At peak hours, an E.R. at full capacity may be able to handle 10 people quickly, yet it may not initially look that way to the 10th person in the waiting room.
Professor Terwiesch recommends that hospitals create multiple waiting rooms so that patients don't try to monitor one another this way. He also says that more hospitals should share waiting-time estimates with patients — something that is relevant across a broad range of industries: if customers know the probable wait time, their uncertainty and anxiety are reduced, along with the likelihood that they will leave the line.
Or, if they are on a call-center phone line and the automated voice says the wait will be 45 minutes, they may choose to hang up and do something better with their time. After all, so long as you're not on the brink of death in the E.R., deciding to stop waiting can be a virtue all its own.
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