
Locksmith gets less tips and more price complaints for being faster - lionhearted
http://danariely.com/2010/12/15/locksmiths/
======
davidblair
Coinstar is a great example of this.

The machine is able to calculate the total change deposited almost instantly.
Yet, during testing the company learned that consumers did not trust the
machines. Customers though it was impossible for a machine to count change
accurately at such a high rate.

Faced with the issues of trust and preconceived expectations of necessary
effort, the company began to rework the user experience.

The solution was fairly simple. The machine still counted at the same pace but
displayed the results at a significantly slower rate. In fact, the sound of
change working the way through the machine is just a recording that is played
through a speaker.

Altering the user experience to match expectations created trust and met the
customers expectation of the necessary effort to complete the task.

~~~
jrockway
Interesting. I always found those machines to be annoyingly slow and loud.

My theory with money: the less your customer has, the more important
appearances are. Go to your local bank and look at how nicely dressed the
tellers that are cashing grandma's $20 check, and then go to their trading
floor and look at the traders that are trading millions of dollars a day.

In the case of Coinstar, every penny is important to the customer, even though
a penny is worth approximately nothing. (And of course, they take 10% anyway,
so their incentive is to over-count, not under-count, but I digress...)

~~~
phsr
When you get a gift card from Coinstar, you are not charged the 10%. So when
I'm feeling lazy with a bunch of change, I just dump it in the Coinstar
machine for a Amazon gift card

~~~
jrockway
Interestingly, the Coinstar machine that I use is in a grocery store, and it
will give you free gift certificates for that store. I am not sure who would
not choose that :)

~~~
josephcooney
This is an interesting definition of 'free', since you have to pay for it.

------
mrspeaker
I know a locksmith and he says exactly the same thing. If he has to open
someone's front door he starts out with the lockpick keys and just fiddles
around with them in the door for a while. Then he goes out to his van and
brings in some other tools or cleaners and plays around for a while some more.
Finally, he goes out to his van and gets the jiggler gun thingo and opens the
door in 10 seconds.

The customer feels less ripped off, and the door is open. Win win.

Once when I locked myself out and needed a locksmith he went to do the same -
started with the picks and I said "just use the gun, I don't mind" and the
door was opened within the minute! They all do it I tells ya!

~~~
StavrosK
The gun does the exact same thing the picks do, only with less flexibility and
more easily. I don't see why a locksmith who had picks handy already would
have to run out to get the gun when you told him you didn't need the show. He
should be able to scrape it with the proper pick regardless...

Although, I realise I'm probably just nitpicking.

~~~
kbutler
As opposed to lockpicking, but they both involve putting on a show...

kb

------
jdietrich
I don't know about the US, but here in the UK the locksmithing trade has a
huge problem with what they call drill merchants - 'locksmiths' who can't pick
locks, but simply drill out the lock barrel and charge for a replacement. The
trade absolutely loathes such operators, on the basis that they're destroying
and replacing perfectly good locks and that they devalue the skills of
locksmithing.

This anecdote has got me wondering that perhaps the drillers have more
satisfied customers than real locksmiths. The driller makes a big noisy mess,
gets covered in brass chips and fits a shiny new lock for only a bit more
money than a professional charges to put a key in the lock and tap it with a
little hammer for ten seconds.

The human mind is weird.

~~~
jemfinch
> for only a bit more money than a professional charges to put a key in the
> lock and tap it with a little hammer for ten seconds.

In America, people without locksmith licenses can't legally buy bumpkeys,
sadly. If I had a problem that a locksmith could solve with a bumpkey, I'd be
quite annoyed that my payment to him is essentially a government subsidy
coming out of my pocket.

~~~
glhaynes
Shouldn't we then also consider that payment to cover the value of the things
that would have been stolen from you if any random thief could easily/cheaply
get a bumpkey? Who knows how those balance out, but if we're going to count
the costs we should count the benefits, too.

~~~
jemfinch
Burglars and those without concern for legality can _already_ easily and
cheaply get bumpkeys. Making them illegal only keeps law-abiding citizens from
getting them and using them legally.

------
ars
This is what happens when people don't know the right amount to pay (how often
do you call a locksmith?), so what they do is measure what they should pay
based on the effort taken by the provider.

When the provider is really fast, people feel like they were overcharged.

This would not happen with services that people have more experience with.

Also being faster doesn't always add value to the customer, but it does help
the provider, so people are unwilling to pay for it. They figure if he's fast
he can do more business per day.

(Obviously this depends on the situation, but if you wait for an hour for the
locksmith to arrive, him taking 1 minute or 15 doesn't really matter much to
you.)

~~~
Alex3917
"This is what happens when people don't know the right amount to pay (how
often do you call a locksmith?), so what they do is measure what they should
pay based on the effort taken by the provider."

Except for that putting on a show is the key to success in almost every
industry, whether you're an author, entrepreneur, salesperson, financial
analyst, doctor, grocery store, etc. In fact the only area I can think of
where this isn't the case is in amateur sports, which is telling.

~~~
jessriedel
If I go to the grocery store and the cashier takes twice as long to ring me up
as normal (all the while sweating and looking like he's trying very hard) I
don't count it in favor of the cashier or the store. The reason is that I
_know_ how long it's supposed to take to ring me up, and this cashier is just
bad at it.

On the other hand, I have very little understanding of how much time/effort is
required by doctors and financial analysts, so I could easily be tricked by
them.

~~~
aquark
The cashier doesn't add any value to your transaction -- he is just there is
ensure the store gets your money.

I am willing to pay the sticker price for the groceries I pull off the shelf,
not the cashier's skill in ringing them up.

~~~
jessriedel
I, and I think most people, factor the time it takes to check out into the
price I'm willing to pay for goods. This is supported by the fact that grocery
store managers will often stop whatever they are doing to open new checkout
lines whenever they are getting full.

------
mcantor
A man asked an artist to paint him a fish. The artist agreed and told him to
return in one year.

After the year passed, the man returned and requested his painting. As he
watched, the artist produced a canvas and brushes and took five minutes to
create the most beautiful painting he had ever seen.

"This is perfect," said the collector, as he looked at the still-drying fish,
"but I must admit, I'm quite annoyed that you made me wait an entire year for
something that very clearly took you only five minutes to produce!"

Wordlessly, the artist gestured to a nearby cabinet. The man opened it, and
out poured thousands of sketches and studies of fish, more than he thought one
person could produce in a lifetime, much less 365 days.

He nodded in gratitude, and exited with his painting.

~~~
kragen
Is this story originally by Rémy Charlip in Arm in Arm?

~~~
gwern
I think the story is an expansion of a quip by the portrait artist Whistler:
<http://news.ycombinator.net/item?id=1716265>

------
edw519
This reminds me of the old story...

A factory is completely shut down, costing its owner $100,000 per hour. An
expert is brought in to get it up and running again. He walks around examining
many machines, then pulls a screw driver out of his pocket, and adjusts one
screw on one machine. The entire factory instantly starts running again.

"Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!" the plant manager exclaims, "Give me your
bill."

The expert presents him with a bill for $10,000.

The plant manager, surprised by such a large bill for so little effort, asked
for an itemized bill.

The itemized bill:

Turning a screw: $1

Knowing which screw to turn: $9,999

~~~
StavrosK
1) The factory owner should have been happy with the bill, given that it was
what six minutes of downtime cost him.

2) "I have found the problem, the fix will cost $10,000. Should I proceed?"

~~~
bmelton
Number 2 is a sticky wicket, of course, because what if turning the one screw
doesn't fix the problem?

It's extremely likely in the computer/PC world that your first inclination
doesn't fix the problem. Sometimes rebooting DOES fix the problem, and
sometimes it doesn't. What then? Another $10,000 for the next attempt?

Clearly, if he KNEW that turning the one screw would fix the problem, it's a
different case altogether, but I'm suggesting that it's rarely that cut and
dry.

~~~
StavrosK
Then the customer doesn't have to pay. If you don't know what the problem is
and aren't sure how much it's going to cost, you bill by the hour.

I've never in all my years had this problem. There never was something I
couldn't fix, but there were plenty of things that took more time than I
initially thought. I usually tell the client "it seems that I won't be able to
complete the task in the time of the original estimation, do you want me to
stop now and you don't have to pay, or do you want me to try for an extra 1-2
hours and get it fixed?"

People always seem to pick the latter, and I haven't had any unresolved
problems or unsatisfied customers yet....

------
dschobel
It's all about perception. I had a friend who used to run a restaurant in NYC.
They used to get complaints every once in a while about the serving size for
their wine by the glass.

The solution? Smaller glasses of course. Complaints dropped to zero.

~~~
ovi256
That seems incredibly counterintuitive though, and can't see the mechanism
that explains it. In the locksmith's case, the mechanism is that clients
believe the duration of the task is directly related to the effort, and they
are willing to reward greater effort.

~~~
RyanMcGreal
To the magical thinker, a small glass filled up has "more" wine in it than a
large glass half-full.

~~~
BahUnfair
This is why we should be eating off small plates at home and buying the small
donuts instead of the regular sized one. You get more satisfaction for the
same sized meal or equivalent satisfaction for a smaller one.

~~~
FiddlerClamp
I admit to using smaller forks and smaller plates when I'm grabbing a quick
meal for in front of the PC - makes the food look larger, and it's easier to
handle, too.

------
zacharycohn
My girlfriend is a locksmith, and she talks about this all the time. One of
the techs will go out on a call, show up, look at the lock and know they can
open it in 5 seconds flat. But if they do that, the person will A) Be
embarrassed it was so easy, B) annoyed that they have to pay so much for 5
seconds of work, and C) will not feel safe with that lock ever again. The
combination of these three things makes them not want to pay the quoted
amount, let alone tip or be happy about it.

So, they'll sit there jabbing at the lock with various pieces of metal, blow
into it with compressed air (This does nothing. It's simply for show), or tap
it lightly with their knuckles for about 5-10 minutes. Then "POP!" it comes
open, and the client is SUPER GRATEFUL.

Normally I think someone misrepresenting their job would be bad, but in this
case I can totally understand how a lot of customers would argue about paying
$100 for a lockout (10pm at night, the tech has to get out of bed, put clothes
on, get in his car, drive an hour, pick the lock, then drive an hour home)
when it only took 5 seconds to open.

~~~
lmkg
> C) will not feel safe with that lock ever again.

My pop-psychology spider sense tells me this is the important factor. People
don't like to be made aware that their locks are actually useless. This
unhappiness gets taken out on the locksmith, because he happens to be around.
It's shooting the messenger, which is less than useless, but still very
common. Conversely, putting on theatrics to open the lock makes people feel
secure. A false sense of security, obviously, but one that results in better
tips.

~~~
awj
> People don't like to be made aware that their locks are actually useless.

They aren't useless. They raise the bar from "able to open a door" to "able to
pick a lock or willing to break the door down". That cuts out like 99.9% of
people on the planet (and a vast swath of actual criminals). That's a good
deal for twenty bucks, even if the bar being raised is almost comically low.

What people don't like is paying for someone else to do something which
appears trivial enough that anyone could do it. That it's a skill which takes
time and practice to hone until the process _looks_ that trivial is
irrelevant, it looked too easy to need to pay someone else to do it.

~~~
ZoFreX
The better you are at something, the less effort it looks like it took you,
I'm sure every programmer here knows this. Designers have it even worse, the
better a job they do, the less work it looks like it took.

~~~
awj
Yeah, I'm definitely not arguing that. The point is that, at least when people
don't critically think about something (which happens depressingly often),
people neglect training and skill in evaluating the difficulty of tasks that
_appear_ easy.

------
noblethrasher
I remember reading somewhere that one of the online tax preparation
applications (Turbo Tax I think) actually has a superfluous "progress page" so
that people will value/trust the results more.

EDIT: Found the source, <http://businessofsoftware.org/video_09_dnorman.aspx>

at 52:30

Don Norman discussing delays they put in some H&R block tax preparation
software for the emotional benefit of the users.

~~~
lionheart
I know how they feel. I have to do this for my software all the time.

Most of my products are "wizards" that generate code for advanced functions
that my customers can then add into their websites.

Even though the generation process for most of them actually is very complex
it's still nothing that the server can't perform in 10 ms. But people don't
like that. So I always put in a spinning progress bar for 5-10 seconds and
then they're happy.

------
Kudose
This topic transcends Locksmithing, obviously. Being a faster programmer means
people expect more in less time for less pay.

~~~
Natsu
Yes, definitely. In systems administration, too, you become less valuable the
better you are at your job. People only value "firefighting" and so the people
who set up systems that don't need constant maintenance are penalized, while
those who constantly make trouble are rewarded for their "heroics" ... even if
they caused the problems to begin with.

Upper management neither knows nor cares to be informed, sadly.

~~~
roqetman
You're certainly correct there, but they only value "firefighting" for a brief
moment too. Unless you've been firefighting directly for upper management -
they'll forget, or not even know of your effort shortly after it happens.
You're only likely to get rewarded for efficiency in smaller companies where
the management has enough technical knowledge to appreciate your efficiency.

------
jessevondoom
There's something to be said about the service feeling worth it. With a
product you can game the feel, like extra weight in a remote. But with a
service...

I worked for years as a bike messenger. There's some minor vocational mystery
as with the locksmith, but clients generally understood that our job was
dangerous and that we did it well. Still...the only time we saw a tip was when
we got documents to an office just in the nick of time — too early lacked the
drama. There's a perception of extra effort, which anyone appreciates when
you're paying a professional to do something that's impossible for you but
easy for them.

------
rograndom
I had a consulting job a few years ago where I was replacing "the web guy" at
a place that wasn't really a tech shop. My agreed upon time was 2 days per
week at 8 hours per day at a flat day rate. I came in the first day, met with
the department head and was given my first assignment: Upload this week's
content to the website.

I got myself orientated with the internal document system and located the
content to post. I then poked around a bit and found that their site was
running MoveableType. I found the login information left by the previous
employee and posted the content.

Start to finish time: about 20 minutes. I then went to find the department
head to get the next assignment. I was met with "You're done already? (The
person I replaced) would take 2 or 3 days to get everything up. Are you sure
you didn't miss anything?"

I ended up taking the moral high road and explained that it was actually very
simple work and my consulting time would be better spent training existing
employees how to post the data themselves.

I sometimes think that was a foolish decision.

------
forinti
I read once about a custom bike builder from Japan (Panasonic I think it was)
that offered millions of combinations and still managed to deliver the bikes
the following day. People thought they were being had, so Panasonic started to
let people wait 3 days before delivering.

~~~
qntm
The smart move would be to make people wait 3 days by default, and then charge
a premium for "overnight construction".

~~~
btilly
I believe it was FedEx which does something like this. For 2 day delivery they
stick the package in a storage room for a day, then put it into the normal 1
day delivery system. Which costs them more than 1 day delivery, but lets them
sell to a broader market.

~~~
ZoFreX
Price differentiation strikes again! I like the reversal on this one, though
(that the cheaper product actually costs more to produce).

------
ghshephard
I think there is something to this. I used to lock myself out of the house all
the time and end up calling a locksmith. A lot of the locksmiths didn't even
bother with your typical rake/pry, they just jammed a gun like mechanism, hit
a button, and about 1/10th of a second later the door opened. Others, though,
dragged it out into a 2-3 minute exercise - and I was always wondering whether
they were trying to justify their $150 3:00 AM surcharge.

~~~
ZoFreX
It is hard to justify a $150 surcharge if you're using a tool that costs less
than that (of course, knowing how to use the tool is a skill worth far more,
but most people think it is as easy as putting it in the lock and pressing a
button). I'm reminded of the apocryphal tale of the mechanic who, after some
um-ing and ah-ing, hits the engine just once with a small hammer and fixes it.
He presents his bill for $100, and is asked to justify it, so produces:

Hitting engine with hammer - $1 Knowing where to hit - $99

~~~
khafra
Skill? Really? I learned in about two hours how to use plain old picks well
enough to open my Kwikset front door lock in 15 minutes. From everything I
read, the gun is much simpler to use.

~~~
ZoFreX
It's a skill I've never managed to crack (perhaps in part down to my very
unsteady hands). From what I've read, a lot of people buy pick guns expecting
them to be a one-button solution, and are disappointed to find they can't open
locks with them without training and practice.

------
1gor
There is an 'enterprisey' Ruby on Rails plugin that introduces random delays
in your webapp. It turns out not to be a joke, after all.
<https://github.com/airblade/acts_as_enterprisey>

~~~
cosgroveb
Reminds me of the "speed-up loop" <http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/The-
Speedup-Loop.aspx>

------
praptak
One of my previous employers understood this well (too well perhaps.) A
customer needed automatic over-the-network synchronization of directories. It
was implemented as a behemoth Windows application with a complicated GUI.

Nowadays I would implement it as a behemoth Linux application with an AJAX-
abusing complicated web GUI :)

~~~
StavrosK
I'd add a cronjob to run Unison.

------
happywolf
Rings true for programming also. My manager would think the task I completed
was very simple if I got back to him within a day. But if I made noise on how
difficult the task was and took a while to get it done, he would be more
appreciative of my effort. This is especially true if the manager has weak
technical background.

~~~
vib
Yes. My father used to write encryption tools in the 80's. I remember when I
was a kid he would tell me how much he got customers complaining that he was
overcharging for software. Because it looked like something simple that
completed the encryption and decryption really fast. So he added a few useless
routines to delay the encryption on a timer just for it to take longer. And
magically his costumers stopped complaining about overcharging.

Something to always remember when dealing with consumer products.

~~~
joelhaasnoot
Sounds like what I've heard called a "speedup loop". In iteration 1 add sleep
calls, and remove then in iteration 2 after the customer complains.

------
tocomment
The last time I called a locksmith they told me it would be 100 dollars over
the phone. When he came out he told me it would be 400. It wasn't even a
deadbolt just a regular front door.

I'm still mad about that.

~~~
there
was it one of these companies?

<http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19714358/>

~~~
tocomment
Wow good find. It sure sounds like it was.

------
algoshift
Reminds me of a trade-show where we exhibited a new product about ten years
ago. The product in question was designed from the ground-up for the real-time
processing of very high resolution images. This entailed custom FPGA boards
with gobs of custom and innovative Verilog code to make it all go. We also
took pride in designing a very nice lightweight aluminum enclosure for the
product. Price was about US $8,000. All up, about a year and a half of
development time and a non-trivial financial investment.

The product was introduced at this trade-show and it was a success. However,
of the hundreds of people I spoke to at the booth only one made a lasting
impression that I remember ten years later. This Italian buyer comes over to
get a demo. After a 20 minute presentation he asks for the price. Then he
picks-up the unit and says: "8000 dollars! Why so light!".

He actually thought we were charging too much based on how light the thing
was. Never mind that there was a year and a half of heavy-duty development
behind it. He had a mental image of what an $8,000 product was supposed to
weigh and that was the end of it.

We switched to heavier steel enclosures (cheaper too!). I couldn't count the
number of times I heard people make comments about the weight corresponding in
some way to the price of the product.

~~~
qwzybug
I've noticed the same thing with audio amplifiers. I just moved into a
relatively small apartment, and have been shopping around for a compact stereo
amplifier that apparently doesn't exist—good-sounding audio seems to exist in
this weird market niche where the hugeness of the black metal box that used to
house vacuum tubes and now is just ICs and empty space is a feature, not a
bug.

Frustrating!

~~~
ZoFreX
I think there is still a need for higher quality audio hardware to be larger.
My amplifier isn't that old (certainly not old enough for vacuum tubes) and I
can assure you, there is not a lot of empty space. Power necessitates large
transformers and capacitors, and produces more heat, all of which would be
challenging in reducing size.

That said, while there aren't many high quality amplifiers with a smaller
footprint, there are a few on the market much reduced in height that are still
good quality.

The same goes for speakers. Generally quality requires size (although a lot of
that is due to the increased volume that is expected to come with expense),
but there are a few neat tricks to make small ones that buck the trend.

------
philwelch
Some cars have a "continuously variable transmission" where, instead of
shifting gears, it has a system that continuously varies the equivalent of the
gear ratio.

Supposedly, people would complain that these felt "underpowered" because the
engine noise would just increase in pitch gradually instead of revving up,
pausing, and starting again at a lower pitch like a normal transmission with
gears. So they doctored the CVT-based cars to make them sound like that.

------
johngalt
Non technical managers are also guilty of this. An IT guy I knew would create
the giant "system architecture proposal" binders; even for smaller requests.
Heavy detailed beasts that had 500-1000 pages. His requests were always funded
before any of the other IT staff who would just create a single page summary.

Funny part was that a significant portion of the binder would be things like
all the associated RFCs in their entirety. Even pages of dilbert comics.

------
ahi
I locked myself out of my apartment so I called a locksmith company and got a
quote for $100. The locksmith showed up and tried to pick it by doing nothing
more than ramming a pick in and out for a couple minutes. Complete amateur. He
eventually got it open by hammering a wedge into the door frame, leaving it a
little bent. He then billed me $150; "it was harder than expected." "My door
is open and I have my keys so I'll pay you what I was quoted." He proceeded to
threaten me with police and lawyers until we agreed on $120. I have never had
an interaction with a locksmith that didn't leave me sketched out. Presumably
it's a regulated profession to protect us from the incompetent and shady yet
it's full of them.

edit: I guess my point is that the locksmith profession is so screwed up that
it's difficult to take too many lessons from them.

~~~
kragen
Suppose you'd called the police to report that the locksmith was trying to
extort money from you. Do you suppose the situation would have improved?

~~~
ZoFreX
I suspect that, stood in your own house with keys in hand, faced with an angry
man with a wedge who has just broken your door open, the police might be
persuaded to take your side...

------
wisty
I read somewhere that this is a useful trick for web apps - if the user gets a
null result it can help to give them a tiny timeout - then they think that at
least the computer _tried_ to find some results.

~~~
ars
I do it - when the site is using ajax I add a deliberate wait, especially for
saves. I often do it for reads as well (depending on what it's doing).

------
rcavezza
I'm interested in the "do it yourself" mentality and its effect on these
experiments. For example, I can probably pick a few types of locks with credit
cards and I could probably recover files on my computer after a few google
searches and some trial & error.

The less time an expert takes to perform an act, the more likely someone is to
think that they could have done the job themselves with a minimal learning
curve.

As a takeaway, if I owned a computer repair shop, should I tell everyone 5
days to increase their perceived utility even if a fix could potentially take
two hours?

~~~
bad_user
If you can can pick a lock with a credit card, that's a pretty shitty lock.

~~~
crocowhile
Have you ever called a locksmith? Usually it's because you left your keys
inside and you closed the door without realizing. When a door closes this way
it doesn't matter what lock it sports: could be the best in the world but is
still unlocked and easy to open. If it is not a credit card, is something
slightly more sophisticated.

The price of a service is always dictated by competition. Obviously, there is
not enough competition in the locksmith world.

~~~
StavrosK
I've found that almost all doors open with a business card, which bends around
the corner. The only ones that don't open are the ones that fit the casing too
well to squeeze in and manipulate the card through.

That trick has saved my friends' money on _many_ occasions.

------
bh23ha
The headline saddened me, but then I red the article and it takes the
locksmith only a moment! You can't really fault people for not comprehending
how much training went into that and how much more expensive it could be if he
broke the lock.

Dare I suggest he spend some time telling his customers about his time as an
apprentice, the broken locks, and how long it took to get good. Then after
that pick the lock. Educate your customers.

~~~
Psyonic
I'd imagine most people aren't in the mood to hear your life story while stuck
out in the cold at 3 AM waiting to get inside.

------
sami_b
This reminds me of a locksmith featured on BBC's Rogue Traders who is now
sentenced to 4 years in prison after he was found guilty of defrauding
customers since 2002.

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/watchdog/consumer_advice/rogue_traders_...](http://www.bbc.co.uk/watchdog/consumer_advice/rogue_traders_mark_makowski_convicted.shtml)

------
iwwr
Agree on a fixed fee before the lock is picked. Add that if the locksmith
broke the lock, he would have to replace it out of his own pocket.

However, if the fee is higher than the price of the lock, why not break the
lock yourself?

~~~
ars
Presumably if you had the tools etc to do that with you, you also have your
key.

~~~
iwwr
A screwdriver and a hammer or simply kicking the door in. Replacing the lock
can be cheaper than calling in a locksmith.

~~~
shub
I've seen doors kicked in where it was the jamb that broke and not the lock. I
think I'd rather call a locksmith...

~~~
zerohp
I've never seen the lock break in this case. It's always the jam or the door.

~~~
ZoFreX
If you've seen a fair few kick-ins, do you have an opinion on the
effectiveness of kickstops?

