How Long Should a Customer Wait for Service?
提出了一个总成本模型，用于确定顾客的最佳等待时间，该模型考虑了等待成本和提供良好服务的成本，并应用于一家快餐连锁店，发现其理想等待时间远低于现行政策，建议加快服务以提升长期利润。
ABSTRACT A major concern for service managers is the determination of how long a customer should wait to be served. Services, due to the customer's direct interaction with the process, must face a trade‐off between minimizing the cost of having a customer wait and the cost of providing good service. A total cost model is presented for determining how long a customer should wait when these two conflicting cost components are considered. An integral part of this model includes a measure of customer satisfaction with waiting time which is used to develop a waiting cost function. The model is then applied to a major fast food chain, using data collected at several locations. Analysis of the data reveals that the “ideal” waiting time for this firm is significantly less than the current corporate waiting time policy. Thus, as indicated by the model, a corporate policy change is recommended to provide much faster service. The adoption of such a policy would result in increased labor costs, and would simultaneously increase the firm's overall profits. Although appearing contradictory, increases in current labor costs and long‐term profits are both possible when management takes the long‐range perspective suggested in this paper.