Aligning waiting management decisions with service demand context to improve perceived service quality

Abstract

Waiting in services is inevitable due to their nature. Service organizations see keeping customers waiting as a potential competitive problem. A position in this paper is that the focus should rather be on the pe rceived service quality. Three factors are identified that could influence the perceived service quality namely, ser vice demand conte xt, the queue management approach and the perceived waiting time. Relationships are proposed that constitute potential control points for achieving a high perceived service quality