TY - JOUR
T1 - Investigating the impact of service line formats on satisfaction with waiting
AU - Kumar, Piyush
AU - Dada, Maqbool
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Elsevier B.V.
PY - 2021/12
Y1 - 2021/12
N2 - In this paper, we examine whether the format of service lines affects customers’ satisfaction with their queuing experience. Using a goal-theoretic approach, and data from a series of experimental studies, we show that the duration of the wait moderates the psychological tradeoff between the initial queue length and its rate of movement, such that customers prefer a single line format for shorter waits but a multiple line format for longer waits. We also show that satisfaction declines with an increase in the number of stages in service lines. This adverse effect of multi-staging can be mitigated by using information devices as well as orienting customers away from local, stage-specific, sub-goals towards the overall goal of receiving service and exiting the system. We synthesize these findings about the psychophysics of queuing to generalize a model of satisfaction with waiting that accounts for the effect of service line formats and can represent customers’ utility functions in models of queuing systems.
AB - In this paper, we examine whether the format of service lines affects customers’ satisfaction with their queuing experience. Using a goal-theoretic approach, and data from a series of experimental studies, we show that the duration of the wait moderates the psychological tradeoff between the initial queue length and its rate of movement, such that customers prefer a single line format for shorter waits but a multiple line format for longer waits. We also show that satisfaction declines with an increase in the number of stages in service lines. This adverse effect of multi-staging can be mitigated by using information devices as well as orienting customers away from local, stage-specific, sub-goals towards the overall goal of receiving service and exiting the system. We synthesize these findings about the psychophysics of queuing to generalize a model of satisfaction with waiting that accounts for the effect of service line formats and can represent customers’ utility functions in models of queuing systems.
KW - Customer satisfaction
KW - Goals
KW - Queues
KW - Service lines
KW - Waiting time
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U2 - 10.1016/j.ijresmar.2020.12.003
DO - 10.1016/j.ijresmar.2020.12.003
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85100420083
SN - 0167-8116
VL - 38
SP - 974
EP - 993
JO - International Journal of Research in Marketing
JF - International Journal of Research in Marketing
IS - 4
ER -