How should a supermarket organize its checkout lanes?

Is the express lane in the grocery store always the fastest lane?

That’s a great question and its the subject of a “Dear Mona” column over on FiveThirtyEight (Dear Mona, Which Is The Fastest Check-Out Lane At The Grocery Store?, Oct 16). Mona attacks this question by heading into the queuing theory weeds.

I couldn’t find much research on express lanes specifically, but one paper from Amsterdam found the reduction in wait times for express-lane customers didn’t offset the overall increase in wait times for everyone. Maybe life would be easier if the supermarket didn’t have an express lane — or, better yet, if it got rid of multiple lines altogether and had all customers join a single infinitely sprawling line where there were no winners and losers. That might sound nightmarish, but the math actually suggests it would be anything but.

That math comes from queuing theory, a subject of study that’s been around ever since Danish mathematician Agner Krarup Erlang discovered a method for managing telephone traffic in 1909. To answer your question, I’ve had to take a crash course in (more modern) queuing theory, including examining formulae that calculate how average wait times at the grocery store vary depending on the type of line you join.

I should state upfront Mona on the whole acquits herself quite well on this. But there are a couple of points worth mentioning. First, there in fact supermarkets that run with a single queue, like this Hannaford’s in West Lebanon, NH.

As you can see, that singe serpentine queue ends up chewing up a lot of space at the front of the store. That’s a lot of real estate to give up when you only have two people in line. As we have written about before, that is only one of the complications of having a single queue in a grocery setting.

But let’s suppose for the moment that we can get a single queue to work. Is that in fact the best way to run a supermarket’s checkout?

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Will extra cashiers work for Wal-Mart?

Wal-Mart has had a tough go over the last few years. Sure, they are still a huge force in retailing but they have run into a variety of operational problems largely related to in-store execution. (See. for example, this post.) Now the Wall Street Journal reports that Wal-Mart is gearing up for the holidays by trying to address some customer service pain points (Returning to Wal-Mart: Human Cashiers, Aug 15).

In an attempt to lure more customers this holiday season, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is promising to staff each of its cash register from the day after Thanksgiving through the days just before Christmas during peak shopping times.

The move, called the “checkout promise,” is aimed at addressing one of the retailer’s biggest customer complaints: long waits in checkout lines, which can cause even more frustration when positions aren’t fully staffed. The pledge will cover hours typically on weekend afternoons but which can vary by store.

“We feel good about price and having the top gifts of the season, so the next priority is about getting customers in and out of the stores quickly,” Duncan Mac Naughton, Wal-Mart’s chief merchandising officer, said in an interview. “Taking the possibility of waiting in long lines off the table will attract more people into stores.” …

On Thursday the retail giant said it allocated more hours to the front end of the store, to overnight stocking, and to deli and bakery to improve customer service during the most recent quarter.

Here are two questions that are worth thinking about.

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What happens when customers are given the option of jumping the queue at a call center?

If you live here in the States, you may never have heard of the telecommunications company EE. But they are a major player in the United Kingdom with brands like Orange and T-Mobile. According to their Wikipedia page, they have around 28 million customers. EE has a new service offering that I must admit is kind of intriguing. Here is how it is described on their web page.

Priority answer service

From 6 August 2014 we’re also introducing a priority answer service. It’s available to all customers on pay monthly and SIM only plans.

Our priority answer service gives you the choice to get support even faster for just 50p per call when you call 150 and want to speak to customer services. It’s always available so if there’s a queue, you can be moved towards the front – ideal if you’re in a hurry.

How much it costs

The charge for this is 50p. If you’re on a plan that includes standard charging for customer services at 25p, you’ll only be charged an extra 25p for priority answer – so the total for the call with priority is 50p.

The 50p charge applies regardless of how long the call lasts.

To save the Americans the trouble of Googling this, 50p works out to about 84¢. So what do you think happens when customers are given the chance to jump the queue for less than a buck?

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McDonald’s and the one-minute lunch

Would you be more likely to go to fast food restaurant if it guaranteed how long you wait at the drive thru? Some McDonald’s in South Florida are doing just that (McDonald’s offers a 60-second lunch guarantee on weekdays, Aug 4).

McDonald’s guests at participating South Florida restaurants will receive timers when paying for their order in the drive-thru. The timers are then returned to the McDonald’s crew member when their food is presented. This guarantee promises that customers will receive their meal within 60 seconds of paying for it, or receive a complimentary lunch item on a future visit.

The guarantee doesn’t apply all day. Indeed, it is only in effect for an hour — but it is the hour that matters, noon to one.

Let me acknowledge upfront that this is clearly a gimmick. McDonald’s has been in a funk and their drive thru times have been climbing (along with the time of many in the industry). So this offers customers some assurance and maybe puts a little competitive pressure on some of the other players in the industry.

But as gimmicks go, I kind of like this one.

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A culture of polite waiting

Why do you stand in line? In many Western countries, that is a silly question. You stand in line because that is what you do. Whether waiting to check out at the supermarket or get into a ballgame, standing in line is the norm. You stand in line because everyone else is standing in line. However, as a National Post article points out, standing in line is very much a cultural phenomenon and not just some inherent human trait (Everyone line up: Canada’s tradition of orderly queuing ‘foreign and strange’ to many newcomers, Jul 25).

“Lining up is seen as a universal sort of truth,” said J.J. McCullough, the Vancouver-based author of J.J.’s Complete Guide to Canada, an online primer for newcomers. “And if someone doesn’t adhere to the protocol then it must be because they’re uncouth or uncivilized, rather that this is a sort of idiosyncratic tradition that we’ve internalized.” …

At the Canadian School of Protocol and Etiquette, located in London, Ont., lineup training comes on the same day students are taught about North American-style introductions. Students are taught where to line up, how to maintain one’s proper place in the lineup and — most importantly — how close to stand.

“In certain cultures, queue etiquette is just not on the radar,” said school director Wendy Mencel.

So where does this tradition come from?

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Tell the TSA what to do with their lines!

Have you ever wished you could tell the TSA what to do with itself? Now, you have that opportunity — at least when it comes to how they organize and manage their queues. To make things even better, they might actually pay you! The Transportation Security Administration has posted a challenge asking for people to develop a simulation model to tackle the capacity management issues of getting people through airport security. If you are interested in the challenge, the official call is here. Here are some of the specific considerations that need to be tackled:

TSA is looking for the Next Generation Checkpoint Queue Design Model to apply a scientific and simulation modeling approach to meet the dynamic security screening environment. The new queue design should include, but not limited to the following queue lanes:

• TSA Pre✓™
• Standard
• Premier Passengers (1st class, business class, frequent fliers, etc.)
• Employee and Flight Crews
• PWD (wheelchair access)

The Challenge is to provide a simulation modeling concept that can form the basis to plan, develop requirements, and design a queue appropriately. The concept will be used to develop a model to be applied in decision analysis and to take in considerations of site specific requirements, peak and non-peak hours, flight schedules and TSA staffing schedules. Solvers are expected to provide the concept and provide evidence that it works as described in the requirements.

According to Nextgov.com, there are specific performance targets for different classes of customers (Attention, Passengers: $15,000 Prize for Whoever Can Speed TSA Screening, Jul 18)

The line, in this scenario, extends from the point where a passenger joins the end of the queue to the metal detector or body scan machine.

The rules for the challenge state wait times cannot be more than 5 minutes for PreCheck and 10 minutes for standard lines.

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Do people join a line because it is long?

Have you ever heard of VidCon? Turns out it is, in the words of Wikipedia, “a multi-genre online video convention, held annually in Southern California since 2010. Originally conceived by Hank and John Green of the “Vlogbrothers” YouTube channel, the convention is the largest of its kind in the world, gathering thousands of online video viewers, creators, and industry representatives worldwide.”

My wife and I had never heard of it either until our teenage daughter (who for the sake of this post we’ll call Magenta) put on the full-court press to attend. For better or worse, we caved and today Magenta is Anaheim for the start of the conference with her mom in tow. They have in hand tickets that were purchased months ago. However, they also need to get their IDs for the conference. That was the first order of business today and led to a text I received a little before 9:00AM central time (which, allow me to point out, is not quite 7:00AM in Anaheim):

Just what does the longest line that Magenta’s Mom has ever seen look like? Take a gander (and see if you can spot Magenta).

So why bring this up? Beyond being able to publicly thank Magenta’s Mom for falling on this particular parenting grenade, it serves as a nice lead in to a recent Business Insider article on “Why People Wait In Hours-Long Lines For Shake Shack, Cronuts, And iPhones” (Jun 25).

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