Please don't make me wait! Influence of customers' waiting preference and no-show behavior on appointment systems

Zhang, Ruijie1; Han, Xiaohua2; Wang, Rowan3,6; Zhang, Jianghua4; Zhang, Yinghao5

2023

10.1111/poms.13928

PRODUCTION AND OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT   Impact Factor & Quartile

1059-1478

1937-5956

Appointment systems are widely adopted in many service organizations. The simplest and most common format is the equally-spaced (ES) system, in which the inter-appointment times between consecutive arrivals are equal. One major drawback of such a system is the long expected waiting time for later arrivals, which makes later appointment positions unappealing to customers. As a result, customers who take these positions are more likely to abandon their appointments, leading to a higher no-show rate. To address this issue, we examine a novel equal-waiting (EW) scheduling system under which the expected waiting times are equal across appointments. Through a series of controlled lab experiments, we establish that the EW system increases the attractiveness of later appointments and that customers who are willing to take these appointments are more likely to show up. We then incorporate this individual-level preference and no-show behavior into models to evaluate its impact on the system-level performance. We find that, compared with the traditional ES system, the EW system can significantly increase customers' show-up rate and improve system utilization.

appointment systems behavioral experiment no-show waiting time

SCI

English

Corresponding

National Natural Science Foundation of China["72210107002","71871068","72293580","72293582"]

Engineering ; Operations Research & Management Science

Engineering, Manufacturing ; Operations Research & Management Science

WOS:000919243300001

WILEY

ENGINEERING

Web of Science

1.China Europe Int Business Sch, Shanghai, Peoples R China
2.Guangdong Univ Foreign Studies, Sch Business, Guangzhou, Peoples R China
3.Southern Univ Sci & Technol, Dept Informat Syst & Management Engn, Shenzhen, Peoples R China
4.Shandong Univ, Sch Management, Jinan, Peoples R China
5.Univ Cincinnati, Carl H Lindner Coll Business, Cincinnati, OH 45221 USA
6.Southern Univ Sci & Technol, Dept Informat Syst & Management Engn, Shenzhen 518055, Peoples R China

Zhang, Ruijie,Han, Xiaohua,Wang, Rowan,et al. Please don't make me wait! Influence of customers' waiting preference and no-show behavior on appointment systems[J]. PRODUCTION AND OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT,2023.

Zhang, Ruijie,Han, Xiaohua,Wang, Rowan,Zhang, Jianghua,&Zhang, Yinghao.(2023).Please don't make me wait! Influence of customers' waiting preference and no-show behavior on appointment systems.PRODUCTION AND OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT.

Zhang, Ruijie,et al."Please don't make me wait! Influence of customers' waiting preference and no-show behavior on appointment systems".PRODUCTION AND OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT (2023).