EVERYONE HAS THEIR own limit for queuing. We look a queue up and down and in a split second decide whether it’s worth the wait or not. It’s a problem for bars and cafés that rely on walk-in trade, because it means being popular can harm business long-term.
In his book The Psychology of Waiting Lines, David Maister shares his theory on queuing and ordering. He explains that no matter how efficient and courteous businesses are to customers, “the bitter taste of how long it took to get attention pollutes the overall judgments that we make about the quality of service.”
As a result, Maister says people are less likely to return if they have to queue to order. Before high-tech machine learning solutions, self-checkouts and robot bartenders came on the scene, Disneyland theme parks were lauded for solving this problem. They distracted the masses waiting in line with famous Disney characters who would parade the waiting line, taking pictures with fans and entertaining them.
It has proved an effective way to keep impatient kids happy. However selfies with Goofy as you wait for your pint on a night out aren’t a one-size-fits-all solution. But new applications of machine learning tech and the internet of things are now reinventing how we order.
Irish startup Bamboo has started to make ordering easier by waging war on queuing. Its service allows users to order ahead for their coffee or sandwich at lunch, collect rewards points in the process, and skip the queue minutes later. The startup’s co-founder Luke Mackey says his service already has thousands of users who use the app an average of twice a week.
“I think people are going to become more and more focused on time and convenience,” says Mackey. “All we have to look at is Deliveroo and Uber. People are pressing a button on their phone to get their food and taxi brought to them, the same thing will happen in restaurants and cafés. I’m going to want to walk in and have everything sitting there waiting for me.
Look at Twitter, we refresh constantly for the next thing to come up, our concentration has gotten so short. We’re so driven by the now, so the same thing is going happen when I get my morning coffee. I’m going to be annoyed I have to stand in a queue for five or ten minutes.
Bamboo is taking on daytime ordering, making it easier to pick up lunch in a jiffy. But there are other companies worldwide tackling the same problem for your night out. For instance, a common service used by Irish restaurants called OpenTable allows people to book their table with a few clicks.
But for those who forgot to book and want a table as quick as possible, queue tracking app Eet actually monitors footfall at food joints in London and tells users if there’s a long waiting time.
Another interesting approach that could more dramatically overhaul your night out – that bartenders won’t be fond of – is Nino, a robot that can make nearly any drink in seconds. People place their orders through their phone, choose a traditional recipe or create their own concoctions from 170 bottles of spirits and then collect moments later.
It sounds like stuff of the future, but early models of Nino were first unveiled in 2013 and since then the robotic cocktail maker has been installed on Royal Caribbean cruise liners and in some high-end hotels.
Similarly to Nino, there’s already a coffee joint in San Francisco called Café X being run by a $25,000 robot barista that can make over 100 espressos or flat whites an hour.
What’s next?
A big experiment being run by Amazon could set the tone for how quickly queuing is phased out and normalise the behaviour of ordering everyday items from your phone on-the-go.
In its new Amazon Go grocery stores, there’s not a cashier desk in sight and as a result, no queues. Each shop, which is the size of your average Spar or Centra, uses the same tech built into driverless cars. When you’re finished shopping, you just walk out the door and your card is automatically charged. No queues, no waiting.
Although these stores and the likes of Nino speed up ordering, the personal touch is gone, but should businesses be worried about that? The results are mixed.
A survey of 24,000 people in a dozen countries by tech website CRM Buyer showed that 80% of people preferred customer service from a person instead of a robot. However, research by the Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services showed that although people detest using self-service checkouts, they actually want more of them.
So it’s hard to tell if an army of Nino robots are about take over your local. Mackey says he’s certain queuing will be largely phased out, but he thinks cashiers can breathe a sigh of relief because that personal touch of ordering in some settings is still too valuable – a human touch is needed.
I think there will always be someone. Only a certain amount of ordering will ever be done through mobile ordering I think because there are different sides of the trade. Take full-service restaurants for instance where the service and food is important – they’re not really focused on take-out trade.
“But if it’s a restaurant that’s trying to get people in and out of the door, I can see them investing in self-service ordering kiosks or ordering ahead from your phone.”
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say