One of the important lessons they teach at the Donald J Trump Soviet training center in Leningrad is the importance of understanding human behavior and how to manipulate behavior. Back in the Soviet days, when the stores had nothing to sell, managing expectations was very important.
People would instinctively join any line with no idea what the purpose of the line was. Billions of person-hours were wasted waiting in lines to buy goods that didn’t exist instead of spending the time making goods.
Kiasu is the same irrational behavior that occurs in Singapore. Singapore was a British colony similar to Hong Kong. Singapore is situated on an island and connected by bridges to the mainland of Malaysia. Kiasu was a consequence of Japanese occupations during World War II. “They just drove over the causeway and that was that”. It somewhat mirrors the behavior of people who lived through the Depression dong irrational things 40 years later like collecting used aluminum foil.
After the war, Singapore struggled to find its role – no natural resources and too many people on too little land. Most everything people needed had to go over the bridges, which meant chronic insecurity about consumer goods. After fending off Islam from Malaysia and Communism from China, they settled into being a global banking center and global trading center. People jump in lines not because there is a shortage of anything, but an innate sense of self centered greed that has been carefully cultivated by the culture.
So I’ve concluded that this is why people will queue in line in a drive thru – you see the same thing in Disney World/Land, at least in the good old days. Once in a line, people become invested with the time they already spent in line, only to round a corner to find yet another 30 minutes of line. People block the aisle in a shopping center for 5 minutes to get “that” parking space which is only 5 steps closer to the front door.
Today, while killing time playing Pokémon in between Starbucks and a Sprint cellular store (both sponsor pokéstops), I decided to whip out a stopwatch to see how long people were waiting to avoid walking 20 steps to go inside. The answer was 15 minutes, and the line was shorter today.
Radio applies a similar “scientific” principle to measure how many commercials in a row they can play before you tune out. Four minutes into commercials, you hope maybe this is the last one, so you cling to hope. Eventually people wise up, and they don’t just leave today, they unplug and don’t come back.
First, are you talking about waiting 15 minutes in the drive-thru queue versus going inside, or ‘circling’ and waiting for a vacant parking space near an entrance?
As for drive-thru, I’ve notied something about many fast food establishments in recent years: the drive-thru service gets priority. I stopped going inside 10+ years ago, because even if I was the only customer inside at the counter, the people in the drive-thru got their order first… often, cars which arrived after me would be served.
On both issues (drive-thru and waiting for a space) I’ve found that behavior to be regional. In Michigan, jockeying for a close space and waiting for a car to back out is well ingrained. In Arizona, it’s considered rude and you’ll get a horn blast. i.e. move on, find a space and park…. walking from the far end of an aisle is not a big deal here.
In this particular Starbucks, they have a lane that circles the building completely. My sense is a drivethru at Starbucks is not common. When I started my measurement, the white van was probably four vehicles from where the orders were taken, then probably another 5 vehicles to reach the pickup window. I don’t remember seeing an initial window to take the money.
Your perception is right – the drivethru window is being driven by the wait time metric. With a single lane funneling all your customers, the only way to increase revenue is to move more cars through per hour, or increase the average purchase per vehicle.
But that’s where the stupidity of corporations comes in. So you want to discourage small orders in the drivethru – so you instead get a customer buying food for everyone at the office and that car ends up taking 10 minutes to pull the order together, and now the line is backing up into the street and causing a traffic jam.
The cycle just reinforces itself. As interior service falls apart, the pressure to push the drivethru faster goes up. The menu and food quality suffer. Everything must be precooked.
I went to McDonalds a few days ago for breakfast, and noticed a pretty big difference. Maybe the messages are starting to get through. The seating was redone again – the dating game stools were gone, replaced by comfortable seats. The 27 things beeping in the kitchen to “hurry up!” were turned down. There were people inside in line, although only one person taking orders. She wasn’t doubling as a drivethru order taker, although the order assemblers were and were focused on the drivethru orders.
So I’m sadistic about the shopping center thing. I always park pretty far out because I don’t have depth perception, so don’t like parking between two cars if I have a choice, or in a place where it is likely cars will park beside me.
If I notice that someone is trailing me walking to my car, or if someone is waiting in the aisle for me to back out, I get in the car and sit in the driver seat and do nothing. If I had started my engine, I turn off the ignition and just sit. One of the good things about vision issues is I never see people give me the bird.