Hints:

 Larson

American

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Passengers told that there will be a half-hour delay are less unhappy than those left waiting even 20 minutes without an explanation. But even knowing how long we have to wait isn't the whole answer. We must also believe that everything is being done to minimize our delay. Larson cites the example of two neighbouring American banks. One was highly computerised and served a customer, on average, every 30 seconds. The other bank was less automated and took twice as long. But because the tellers at the second bank looked extremely busy, customers believed the service was faster and many transferred their accounts to the slower bank. Ultimately, the first bank had to introduce time-wasting ways of appearing more dynamic.
那些知道会耽搁半小时的乘客会比那些莫名其妙等候二十分钟的乘客情绪要好一些。 但是即使知道了我们得等多长时间也不能解决所有问题。我们还必须相信人们正在采取一切措施来减少耽误的时间。拉森引用了美国两家相邻的银行为例。一家高度计算机化，为每个顾客服务的时间平均为30秒。另一家自动化程度比较低，为顾客服务需要两倍的时间。但是因为第二家银行的出纳员看起来非常忙碌，顾客们以为它的服务更快，而且许多人把账户转到了这家效率低的银行。最终，第一家银行不得不引进费时但看起来却更具活力的工作方法。