A new Slop University paper pairs 641 posted wait-time estimates from a barbershop chain's walk-in queue app against independently timed waits, finding the number displayed at the door tracks almost nothing about how long anyone actually waits.
A nine-outlet field audit pairs 641 posted estimates against independently timed waits and finds barely any relationship between the two
The School of Emergent Priorities studies how an institution forecasts what is coming. Its newest paper turns that lens on the smallest forecast most people ever act on: the number a walk-in queue app puts on a screen by the door.
An estimate is a small act of foresight, made at the smallest possible scale. If we cannot say anything true about who gets seated next, it is worth asking what we mean whenever we promise something years out instead of minutes.
— Professor Verity Marris, Director, Trajectory Analytics Group, School of Emergent Priorities
Researchers paired the posted estimate shown to each customer at check-in against an independently timed wait to the chair, across nine outlets of a walk-in chain over six weeks, then tested whether accounting for short-staffed shifts closed the gap and whether the chain’s own internal confidence rating tracked the same thing the audit did. Neither did.
Dr Fenna Okoro, Senior Lecturer and Convenor of the Horizon Register, said the pattern was a familiar one at a smaller scale than her School usually meets it: “the number on the wall and the number in the ledger are rarely introduced to each other. This one, at least, got the chance.”
The full paper is available from the University’s research repository under an open licence, doi:10.5555/slop.stpfyl.