Title
To Wait or Not to Wait: The Theory and Practice of Ticket Queues.
Abstract
Ticket queues are prevalent in service industries. They enhance customer satisfaction by eliminating physical lines but may compromise efficiency. Existing studies offer mixed results on the cause and magnitude of such inefficiency. These results, however, are based on simplistic customer behaviors. Taking a holistic approach, we examine how realistic customer behaviors drive ticket queue performance. Our empirical studies reveal that (i) customers are capable of adapting their patience to the waiting context and (ii) they use dynamic updating to improve forecasting and decision making over time. Once we model these two behaviors, we find the ticket queue inefficiency is much smaller than the literature predicted. By testing and highlighting the central role of realistic customer behaviors, this paper advances our understanding on ticket queue theory and practice.
Year
DOI
Venue
2019
10.1287/msom.2018.0728
M&SOM-MANUFACTURING & SERVICE OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT
Keywords
Field
DocType
customer behaviors,service systems,ticket queue,Markov,dynamic updating
Customer satisfaction,Economics,Queue,Markov chain,Ticket,Tertiary sector of the economy,Compromise,Operations management
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
21
4
1523-4614
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
1
0.35
0
Authors
3
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Kaan Kuzu181.16
Long Gao2152.37
Susan H. Xu310.35