Earticle

The paper intends to fill a void in the research area of waiting, which is dominated by mathematical models that lack consideration of human factors. It calls for integrating psychological perspective into the waiting issue. This conceptual paper focuses on the structure of customer's service waiting time estimation. Although the Maister's first proposition on waiting time estimation continues to dominate research and managerial practice, several limitations indicate that it is not a complete picture of customers' waiting time estimation. The authors propose a new model of the structure of customer's waiting time estimation by specifying a more comprehensive model that includes the concept of time perception in psychology. The conceptual framework enables service operations managers to rethink service waits from customers' perceptions of actual waiting time.

The discussion about patrons' expected and acceptable wait time has been in the spotlight in the restaurant management research. The purpose of the study is to examine the differences between American and Thai with regards to the expectations and the acceptable wait time of fast-food restaurants service. First of all, service quality literature was thoroughly reviewed. Then, based on Hofstede's cultural dimensions, potential cultural differences between America and Thai were proposed, thus hypothesized. To empirically test the hypothesized argument, data was collected from 151 US fast-food consumers and 160 Thai consumers. In total, 311 samples were used for the data analysis. The independent sample t-test and the Mann-Whitney U test were conducted respectively. The results show that even though the service expectations were fairly similar between both groups, Americans and Thai,cultural differences still played an important role in shaping the service expectations of customers. Also, there is a significant difference of the acceptable wait time for the entire order transaction at a fast-food restaurant. Also, Thai expected the shorter wait time than Americans for the entire order transaction at a fast food restaurant. Therefore,international franchising restaurant companies should reduce wait time in the collectivism-oriented countries. Based on the findings, the theoretical and empirical implications were discussed. The findings provide new insights into cross-national comparison study in the food service area. Also, it is expected that restaurant managers can have practical guideline in the management of expected/acceptable wait time.

This study examined the effect of justice(distributive justice, procedural justice, interactional justice) on perceived waiting time and the effect of perceived waiting time on negative emotion and acceptability of the wait and effect of negative emotion and acceptability of the wait on service quality evaluation in restaurant. The results indicated that the justice significantly affects the perceived waiting time. The results also showed that the perceived waiting time affects negative emotion and acceptability of the wait. The results also showed that negative emotion and acceptability of the wait affects service quality evaluation in hotel's food & beverage and restaurant. Therefore, the longer waits in hotel's food & beverage and restaurant, greater the chance that they feel anger in restaurant. Therefore, it is suggested that the restaurant manager tactfully manage the perceived waiting time of their customers.

공공서비스 품질과 고객만족에 관한 대부분의 연구는 서비스 품질의 측정이나 주민만족도 조사를 통한 지표개발에 국한되어 있어 통합적 관점에서 모형개발이 필요하다. 본 연구는 대기시간의 새 변수가 공공서비스 품질과 고객만족에 미치는 영향을 실증적으로 검증하여 통합적 고객만족 모형을 제시하였다. 서울시 A 구청의 민원행정서비스의 사례를 대상으로 한 연구결과, 대기시간은 부정적 감정이라는 매개변수를 통하여 공공서비스 품질과 고객만족에 영향을 미치고, 고객만족은 사회경제적 변수보다 서비스 품질과 부정적 감정에 의해 영향을 받는 것으로 나타났다. 특히 대기시간이 영향을 미치는 부정적 감정은 예상보다 오래 기다렸다는 느낌의 기대불일치에 의해 높아지고, 기다리는 동안 즐길 거리가 제공되는 대기시간 활용에 의해서는 낮아지는 것으로 나타났다. 그러나 대기시간 비용과 대기시간 통제는 부정적 감정에 영향을 주지 않는 것으로 나타났다. 본 연구는 사례연구로서 외적타당도의 한계가 있지만 대기시간이라는 새 변수와 부정적 감정의 매개변수를 이용한 통합적 관점의 고객만족 모형을 제시하였고 민원행정서비스를 담당하는 일선행정기관에 효과적 대기시간 관리를 위한 방법을 제시하였다는 데 의의가 있다.

Most research on service quality and customer satisfaction in the public sector has focused on the measurement of service quality and indicators for customer satisfaction survey. However, few research has been done on developing a unitive model describing the factors affecting customer satisfaction. The purpose of this study is to offer a customer satisfaction model which incorporates wait time as a new variable affecting the customer's affective response. This new conceptual model integrates key variables derived from recent studies of service quality and customer satisfaction. Also incorporated are relevant constructs from the extant services literature, including the role of the disconfirmation of a customer's waiting time expectation, waiting costs, controllability of the cause, and the waiting environment. Data from actual customers queuing at a county office in Seoul are used to test the theoretical framework. Analysis of data, with the use of multiple regression analyses, demonstrates a strong pattern of support for the hypotheses, confirming the important role of wait time management in customer satisfaction. This study shows that there is a strong correlation between wait time and a customer's affective response. As customer satisfaction is, in turn, related strongly to service quality and affective response, the customer's affective response is essentially a "mediator" between wait time and service quality. Furthermore, this study has found that while the role of the disconfirmation of a customer's waiting time expectation and waiting environment are supported, waiting costs and controllability of the cause are not. Future studies may include more variables such as prior service encounter, acceptability of waits, etc. to investigate factors affecting customer satisfaction.