Apparently starting services on time is a common problem for churches. So imagine how impressed I was when visiting one recently to see behavioural economics in action, and working!
In their famous book Nudge (book review to follow shortly) Dick Thaler and Cass Sunstein suggest many creative ideas for using behavioural economics to 'nudge' people into making better decisions. The church in question, instead of starting 5-10minutes late as people wander in and sit down, created a 'nudge' of their own...
Two and a half minutes before the scheduled start time of 7pm, a video pops up on the big screen. This video has a clock counting down the 2.5minutes, and in the background a speeded up video taken from a car dashboard as it drove around the town (you know the kind of thing). The service started exactly as the video ended, dead on 7pm.
This is genius on many counts.
Firstly, it tells people that you are serious about the start time and that you will stick to it (this of course relies on you sticking to it).
Secondly, it is a reminder to people that the service will start very soon.
Thirdly, it gives people a couple of minutes to end their conversations and find a seat (better than just a 10 second warning).
Fourthly, the video of the town is fast-paced, which sends out the right message; be quick!
In conclusion, genius. And (admittedly on the basis of quite a small sample) it works!
Recommended listening:
Clocks by Coldplay
maybe if we had something similar during sermons?
ReplyDeleteHaha! I recently heard of a church leader that would put an alarm clock under the pulpit when one particular person preached - but when they would just turn it off when it went off and carry on preaching anyway!
ReplyDelete