Speaking of "waiting", many people think that it is synonymous with "waste time and inefficiency". Whether it is buses and elevators during peak hours, banks’ windows, and cashiers in large supermarkets, the act of "waiting" is full of every corner of people’s lives. Modern people have fast pace of life and time is precious. Therefore, in the concept of many people, fast and efficient are the solutions to the problem. But the fact is: in such an environment with a large population and limited resources, in many cases, "waiting" has become a solution to the problem without wasting more time.
Don't go away, wait for
As a simple and common example, for those who like to watch TV series, there is nothing more offensive than the advertisements that are inserted in the series. Some people even complain, "This is not an interstitial advertisement, it is a interstitial TV series in the middle of the advertisement." However, two years ago, a very subtle change appeared in the interstitial advertisement of the TV station, that is, a countdown prompt such as "Don't go away, there are still ×× seconds of advertising time" at the corner of the TV screen.
TV station may not have expected the audience to really "don't go away", but hoped that the audience could at least "come back" in time before the countdown ended. But for viewers, this humanized improvement of the TV station makes them no longer upset about the advertisements that are interspersed in the middle. Audiences can use this masterable time to get up and go to the toilet, pour a cup of tea, etc. Even if they wait, it is a hope to see the number getting smaller and smaller, and they don’t think the advertising time has been so long. In fact, the time to wait for the whole time has not changed, but the audience's mentality has undergone fundamental changes. We are more patient with the advertisements interspersed on TV. But why does people’s waiting mentality undergo a fundamental change? I'm afraid this starts with the psychology of waiting.
willing to wait
People's experimental research on waiting psychology can be traced back to the 1950s. By the 1980s, American psychologist David Meister made a relatively comprehensive summary and research on waiting psychology based on previous research. The results of psychologists tell us: no matter how long people wait for something, they can bear it as long as they think it is worth tolerating. There is a question here. Why are people willing to wait patiently for a long time? What is the key role in this?
From the perspective of waiting psychology, people want to have a waiting result from the deepest part of their hearts for what they are waiting for. And I also have a psychological expectation of waiting, that is, how long it takes to wait to be worth it, and after waiting for a long time, I feel that it is not worth it. When people don’t understand how long they need to wait, they will be upset, and waiting is tantamount to their torture. On the contrary, people will maintain a balanced mindset and continue to wait only when they understand how long they need to wait, and are shorter than or equal to their original psychological expectations. Especially if you know the time you have to wait, you can also use this time to do something else, which can make people wait patiently.
The TV audience above went from being upset to feeling hopeful for the TV commercial. The fundamental reason for this change is that the audience's psychology has changed. When there is no time prompt on TV, the audience is unsure of the time delay caused by the advertisement, so they will naturally be extremely dissatisfied with waiting. Once these humanized prompts appear, the audience will be clear about the time delayed by the advertisement, and waiting will become a tolerable thing.
Let people wait patiently for two tricks
In real life, many merchants will borrow this theory to deal with the waiting problem of customers during consumption.
Usually, the time for doing nothing will make people feel very long. People who are in free state will always feel that time passes too slowly. Therefore, in order to allow people to wait with peace of mind, merchants will take some measures to prevent customers from being idle. For example, in a hotel in , Switzerland, customers always complain about the length of time to take the elevator.After analyzing the reasons, the hotel staff did not replace the faster elevator, but installed mirrors and TVs in the elevator so that customers could check their appearance or enjoy interesting TV programs while riding the elevator. As a result, the complaint rate of customers plummeted. It can be seen that when customers are busy, the time they wait will pass quickly without realizing it.
On the other hand, regular communication with customers is also very necessary. There is often a phenomenon: when the customer's waiting time exceeds his psychological expectations, if the merchant does not have a reasonable explanation, the customer's complaint rate will increase significantly. In this regard, experts suggest that only by ensuring that customers enjoy the "right to know" and giving them a reasonable explanation can the customers' dissatisfaction be effectively alleviated. This is not difficult to explain why subway stations in developed cities (such as Taipei, Hong Kong, Shanghai, etc.) have set up obvious time notices. After the current subway is departing, the notice sign will show a prompt saying "There are 3 minutes and 15 seconds left before the next train arrives." Because the waiting customers will get psychological comfort because these prompts eliminate uncertainty, and they are balanced internally, and waiting can be tolerated.
