You’re Touring Hogwarts: The Psychology of Illusions (Part 2)

This is the second of two posts on the psychology of illusions. Read the first post here.

I hate waiting. I'll bet you do, too. My vision of hell involves waiting in a long line that never ends.

Smart marketers know people hate to wait, so they create illusions to trick us into thinking that we're not waiting. Theme parks have gotten really good at this.

These days, every major new ride created at a theme park includes things to see and do right in the line.

Example: Touring Hogwarts
When Universal Studios Islands of Adventure opened its Wizarding World of Harry Potter park in 2010, my wife, sister, and I were among the first to visit. We happily waited in line for nearly two hours to ride the main attraction: Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey. Why were we happy to wait in line? Because it took us on an awesome tour through Hogwarts.

In each room we waited, magical things happened to us. The Sorting Hat sang us a song. Harry, Hermione, and Ron cast spells in a classroom — one of which caused snow to fall from the ceiling. Portraits on the wall talked to each other and to us. It was fantastic. We even stayed in one of the rooms longer than we had to just so we could see everything.

We were waiting in line the whole time, but it was an illusion: we were being entertained.

The "You Are Not Waiting" Illusion
This illusion is meant to distract us. Brilliant theme park employees have created lines that are sometimes just as good as the ride. They're entertaining us and it doesn't even feel like we're waiting.

Add This To Your To-Do List
Sometimes we can't prevent our customers from having to wait. But we can entertain them in the process. We need to get creative about it. Uber shows customers exactly how far away their ride is after ordering it. And it's kind of entertaining to watch our ride navigate the streets around us as it makes its way to pick us up. If we have to wait, we might as well follow along.

Take a page from theme parks and Uber: When it comes to handling a waiting customer, distract her, entertain her, and set reasonable expectations. She just might find a little joy.

There's never a lack of ideas.

Photo: The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Credit: Me.

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