A scientific approach to queueing - just what I've been waiting for.

Like the late Alan Clarke, who "would not queue for anything under any circumstances" I am driven practically insane by the time-wasting procedures of many service industries. For example the check-in procedure at hotels regularly induces a kind of Tourette's: "You've known I was coming for the last two weeks - why couldn't you have my twatting key ready, you ****s! " *.

If hotels are bad, car rental firms are worse. Far worse. Two weeks before my arrival I have dutifully logged on and, in my own time, typed in to the rental company's database every conceivable detail about myself. My driving licence number, my address, three telephone numbers, the address where we shall be staying, my credit card number and the number of my incoming flight..... so why in God's name does the person at the rentals desk need to spend six minutes incessantly tapping on a keyboard for before handing over the keys? Are they secretly writing a novel while pretending to work at an airport car-hire desk? Maybe a novel drawing heavily on their real life experiences and featuring an angry fat man from England who swears a lot?

Now, at the moment, I am probably unusual in this impatience. But - and here's something every service industry needs to know - my annoyance will become less and less rare in the next ten years. Why? Because one massive effect the Internet has had on all of us, but disproportionately more on the younger amongst us, is that our expectations of immediacy and speed of response have been transformed.

When you are accustomed to living life at an online pace, you live in a world where every action results in an immediate response. Click on the link and, after just a few seconds, up comes the page. Hence when you order a coffee and ten minutes later it hasn't arrived, your first response is no longer "Gosh, they must be quite busy!" No, your autonomic response is that "Something must have gone wrong" - or, if you're me, it's "They've f***ing cocked it up completely, the incompetent, c***ing bastards!"

Recently we at Ogilvy had an HR presentation on the foibles and peculiarities of Generation Y. This impatience, this expectation of instantaneous reaction is high among them. When they send an email, for instance, or text a client, they are reduced to complete befuddlement if they do not get an answer within twenty minutes - or at most an hour. They start emailing and texting incessantly. To older clients, this is unbelievably annoying. To the young, this is normal behaviour.

In the words of one twenty-year-old: "The trouble with McDonald's is it's too bloody slow."

In a few years time, young people may expect to text their burger order when they're ten minutes away.

Now, if you are any kind of service industry, you need to be preparing for this insane new expectation of speed. To do so, what you need to understand is that not all waits are equal. In fact it is possible to transform a customer's perception of speed by some clever behavioural psychology.

 The expert on this is a splendid man called David Maister, and his basic principles of queueing are to be found here:

There are a few splendid principles. For instance, if you let people at least make a start on the process, they mind waiting less. If Starbucks let me place your order when you walked in - ie at the back of the queue - I wouldn't mind waiting for my coffee nearly so much - what I find really annoying is waiting to tell them what I want.

A second principle: people dislike waiting much more when the length of the delay is uncertain. Tell them an expected wait-time and (as the London underground discovered) people are much less paranoid about any delay.

Another great book to read on this subject is Traffic by Tom Vanderbilt. He adds some superb insights into the psychology of traffic jams and why they are so frustrating.

These are both worth reading, especially in a recession. After all, by streamlining service, it's possible to reduce the cost of your service dramatically without reducing the price at all.

___________________________________

* The Beverly Wilshire Hotel has a system where the driver of your Lincoln Towncar furtively texts ahead to the hotel to announce your impending arrival. This meant that, even though I had never been there before in my life, the staff opened my car door for me with the words "Welcome to the Beverly Wilshire, Mr Sutherland." This was so cool I nearly soiled myself with the excitement. 

Is it time to turn wine bars back into banks?

As the great P J O'Rourke once remarked, “a principle is only a principle when it costs you money”.

In other words, everyone can posture around, claiming to believe in CSR, or ethical sourcing or some other fashionable stuff, but unless they actually put some money forward in furtherance of those ideals, it doesn't mean a thing.

The same applies to brands.

In fact the only really acceptable definition of a brand-owner is someone who, if necessary, would rather lose money than lose their reputation.

Reputation is the bedrock of trust. Without it, most transactions simply cannot take place. (Search Wikipedia for Akerloff and Information Asymmetries for more on this).

Be candid now. How many financial services businesses can you think of which would willingly sacrifice a little of this year's margin (and hence a chunk of their bonus) in order to do the right thing by their customers – at least without being threatened by the tabloids first. Nationwide and the Co-Op, maybe? Otherwise I’m not confident most people could name many more.

I’m not saying other financial institutions wouldn’t do the right thing. It’s just that most people no longer have any faith that they will. Faith in the sector is now eroded to the point of invisibility. Which is rather worrying for the future of the economy, since very few of us will be happy to invest in anything but the most banal financial instruments for decades to come.  

Most brands have a spark of idealism somewhere within their DNA. You feel they are motivated to do what they do by something other than naked self interest and greed: perhaps professional pride, social purpose, a belief in serving the community, the intrinsic pleasure of the job.

In finance, unfortunately, customers suspect that professional pride has become largely indistinguishable from personal self-enrichment. You are only as good as the size of your house.

This wasn't always the case. British financial services brands were the product of mutual societies, the Gentlemanly Ideal and the Presbyterian and Quaker religions. In other words they existed in pursuit of aims alongside immediate self-enrichment. They had what you might call a superior motive.

Today I think many people would entrust their money to almost anyone before giving it to a bank. Their failure to conceal their greed means that, however clever they may be, many would rather give their money to someone who knew less about finance and more about ethics. Also, many people - bizarre as it may seem - would prefer to get a return of 6% on their money from which their bank makes a profit of 12% than, say, get 7% on which their bank makes a profit of 50%. Repeated experiments show that people are prepared to pay a price for what they see as justice. 

If this is the case, and that a financial brand’s reputation for straight dealing is more important than its perceived expertise in finance, it seems to me there is a spectacular opportunity for a few new brands to get in on the act. After all a lack of experience in financial services may now be perceived as a competitive advantage.

Who should do it? The Church of England? A few leading charities? The Hare Krishna? Innocent? Your local pub?

In fact Peter Mandelson's suggestion - The Post Office - isn't a bad idea

PS My own favoured bank at the moment is Kiva.org. I get a 0% return, but I trust them completely.

www.kiva.org/team/Ogilvy if you're interested.

My favourite ad of the year - and it's by an Argentinian.

It's the perfect riposte to people who believe that only direct marketers understand segmentation.

For the non-Hispanophones among you, Jugo de Naranja is the Spanish for Orange Juice. Here a savvy Buenos Aires street vendor has cannily worked out that any passing gringo tourists can probably afford to stump up an extra peso for a glass.