Lateral Thinking

[Chyi]

Would like to discuss about lateral thinking here, check Edsard De Bono if interested.

First and foremost, would like to give 2 questions here.

Q1:
There was a hotel in town, quite popular and with certain amount of customers. However, the manager was receiving complains everyday. which is, the hotel has only one elevator, the customers had to wait long for it. How should they solve the problem?

Q2:
There is a big drug store, they have certain amount of customers coming in everyday, but the customers usually only buy one or two items, which means they only buy what they need. How should they do to make the customers buy more?

I think they are quite common questions and many people may know the answers. Actually I am looking for how you guys think bout the questions, and look for more this type of stories.

[Ic3b3rg]

A1
create a health awareness program and promote the stair case use as a unique feature of the hotel....in fact, use it as an advertisement strategy..... a lot of postive messages about health and exercize....spend money on changing the appearance and ambience of the stairs

A2
eh...dunno.. creativity maxed out for the day...tata

[littlebigone]

shoot the people who complain to make an example out of them. Then no more complain lorr...

[Ic3b3rg]

heh.... only and only because i am covering the topic of genocide in these few weeks...you suggestion sounds eerily disturbing to me...

[ElansarGelmir]

1. Charge an elevator fee? Or make the elevator only function for floors 3 and above while charge a lower price for rooms on levels 1 and 2 where the occupants have to use the stairs instead? maybe the health care awareness works, but I don't see how old people would enjoy that.

2. Are there any more specific information? Like what does the society like? What is the most popular item that they buy?

The co. should advertise the complementary products together with the things that customers buy. If they buy like uhmm... some plasters, then display (what's the name liao?) anti-bacteria ointments like savlon beside the plasters... Advertise them together... like this guy applies Savlon on his cut before plastering that cut... Something like that. So when people got cut, they would go and get the plaster and Savlon at the same time.

Or they can sell more disposable things like disposable socks and tooth brush (for traveling purposes)...

Or do like what some pharmacies do... Give free health check (specialize in something like glucose level, or blood pressure), then say, "Oh, u are marginally below the health level. You can improve your health if you apply this this and that"...

Other than that, I think the co. will have to depend on R&D to discover new effects of the products or lifestyle...

[flibbertigibbet]

2. Are there any more specific information? Like what does the society like? What is the most popular item that they buy?


I once read that lateral thinking questions require us to ask questions and thus will only provide limited information for that to work. I can see it is really working with this question posted by Chyi.

[bp_ffei]

Q1:
There was a hotel in town, quite popular and with certain amount of customers. However, the manager was receiving complains everyday. which is, the hotel has only one elevator, the customers had to wait long for it. How should they solve the problem?


Build another elevator? And encourage people to use stairs.

Q2:
There is a big drug store, they have certain amount of customers coming in everyday, but the customers usually only buy one or two items, which means they only buy what they need. How should they do to make the customers buy more?

Sell a greater variety of stuff, have promotions, free health checks... aiyah... dunno lar...

[littlebigone]

i got another one. occasionally sabo the elevator.

sometimes make it jam. sometimes make it crash to the ground level. then people will be afraid of taking the elevator and start using the stairs.

[lolilo]

Q2:
There is a big drug store, they have certain amount of customers coming in everyday, but the customers usually only buy one or two items, which means they only buy what they need. How should they do to make the customers buy more?

Do this:

first item 10% discount, second item 30%, third item 40% and fourth item 50%. rules and regulation applied.

[cra]

i got another one. occasionally sabo the elevator.

sometimes make it jam. sometimes make it crash to the ground level. then people will be afraid of taking the elevator and start using the stairs.
hey that's what i had in mind, destroy the cause of the problem and tada, there you have it, problem solved.

[wwhong]

to solve the long waiting time for elevator problem, how bout install a mirror outside the elevator? the customer will have something to do (checking themselves out which a lot of people actually enjoy doing it) and won't feel like they are waiting for a damn long time. save the hotel money and keep the customer happy.

[youngyew]

1. Spread some ghost stories of the lift!

2. Put more interesting stuff near the cashier, so people would be enticed when they are queueing up (a lot of shops already do this). And also, don't sell the "flagship product" individually, pack them together with another not-so-popular but related product, forcing customers to buy them at once!

[littlebigone]

for question two, only sell two kinds of items...that way you sell most of your inventory whenever a customer comes into the store.

[Chyi]

the answer for the 1st question was install a mirror in front of the lift as wwhong said. the lesson of this question is, instead of thinking how to solve the problem by lessen the time waiting for the elavator, we should think of ideas to make the people feel that they are not waiting.

Thinking of a question in different angles.

and there are ideas like putting beautiful ladies each floor to talk with the customers. Or put some shoe brushes in front of the elevators, to make the customers occupied, and won't complain that low performance of the elevators.

[qy]

and there are ideas like putting beautiful ladies each floor to talk with the customers. Or put some shoe brushes in front of the elevators, to make the customers occupied, and won't complain that low performance of the elevators.

Handsome hunks too. (pardon for being in such an inconstructive mood now :D )