Quality-Speed Conundrum: Trade-offs in Customer-Intensive Services

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Anand, Krishnan S.; Pac, M. Fazil; Veeraraghavan, Senthil
• 署名单位: Utah System of Higher Education; University of Utah; University of Pennsylvania
• 刊物名称: MANAGEMENT SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0025-1909
• DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.1100.1250
• 发表日期: 2011
• 页码: 40-56
• 关键词: strategic customers; Queueing Games; service operations; cost disease

摘要

In many services, the quality or value provided by the service increases with the time the service provider spends with the customer. However, longer service times also result in longer waits for customers. We term such services, in which the interaction between quality and speed is critical, as customer-intensive services. In a queueing framework, we parameterize the degree of customer intensity of the service. The service speed chosen by the service provider affects the quality of the service through its customer intensity. Customers queue for the service based on service quality, delay costs, and price. We study how a service provider facing such customers makes the optimal quality-speed trade-off. Our results demonstrate that the customer intensity of the service is a critical driver of equilibrium price, service speed, demand, congestion in queues, and service provider revenues. Customer intensity leads to outcomes very different from those of traditional models of service rate competition. For instance, as the number of competing servers increases, the price increases, and the servers become slower.