Simulation

Methodology
Simulation: Transactions of the Society for
Modeling and Simulation International
2017, Vol. 93(2) 91–101
Modeling and simulation of customer Ó The Author(s) 2016
DOI: 10.1177/0037549716678477
dissatisfaction in waiting lines and its journals.sagepub.com/home/sim

effects

Jorge A Alvarado-Valencia1, Gabriela C Tueti Silva1 and Jairo R Montoya-Torres2

Abstract
A combination of discrete-event and agent-based simulation analysis using a field-tested psychological model for evaluat-
ing the effects of customer dissatisfaction in waiting lines beyond balking and reneging was developed. The proposed
model assessed the effects that different psychological parameter values and business decisions in waiting lines have on
the evaluation of waiting and, therefore, in customer satisfaction and mid-term profit. This model hence becomes a
decision-support tool for businesses wanting to model their costs of customer dissatisfaction due to waiting lines in
repetitive and competitive environments.

Keywords
Customer behavior, hybrid simulation, decision-making modeling, customer dissatisfaction, waiting lines, queue analysis

1. Introduction usually assign probability distributions to the impatience

In situations where waiting is inevitable, understanding
the psychological factors that influence the evaluation of
waiting is of great importance in order to avoid customer
dissatisfaction and the costs associated with it. Waiting
evaluation, even more than the actual time waited, is a
key factor associated with customer dissatisfaction.1–4
Customer dissatisfaction leads to loss of loyalty and nega-
tive references, which impacts income and profits.5–7
However, it is challenging for businesses to quantify the
aforementioned costs of dissatisfaction and, therefore, it is
difficult to determine how these costs affect their results
and their operations.
Developing service evaluation models based on Quality
of Experience (QoE), rather than on Quality of Service
(QoS), has recently attracted the highest interest of acade-
mia and industry.8 The literature has proposed frameworks
to evaluate customer behavior given their QoE through
simulation (e.g., Montreuil et al.9). However, queuing sys-
tems analysis is not frequently focused on modeling wait-
ing time evaluation or customer dissatisfaction. Models in
the literature typically focus on ‘‘impatient’’ customers
who balk and/or renege; with scarce exceptions, these
models do not include the evaluation of waiting times or
other possible behaviors of customer dissatisfaction when
waiting evaluation is negative, beyond balking or reneging.
Furthermore, simulation models of impatient customers
of users or define fixed rates of balking without consider-
ing the psychological or psychophysical mechanisms of
wait evaluation as developed in psychology.
There is a long tradition of queuing system analysis
through discrete-event simulation techniques. As a conse-
quence, code/software to simulate virtually any queuing
system configuration is easily available and attachable to
other models, and performance measures are calculated
quickly at the service level. On the other hand, agent-
based models are more appropriate to model behaviors at
the customer level, which is a lower level of the system.
From these lower levels, the emergence of properties to
the higher level and the dynamics over the time of the
whole queuing system can be discovered or illustrated.10
Developing a hybrid (agent-based and discrete-event)
model allows one to simulate specific customer behavior
at the micro level with agents, while the analysis at the
1
Industrial Engineering Department, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Cra.
7 No. 40–62, Bogotá, D.C., Colombia
2
School of Management, Universidad de los Andes, Calle 21 # 1-20,
Bogotá, D.C., Colombia
Corresponding author:
Jorge A Alvarado-Valencia, Industrial Engineering Department, Pontificia
Universidad Javeriana, Cra. 7 No. 40–62, Bogotá, D.C., Colombia.
Email: jorge.alvarado@javeriana.edu.co
92 Simulation: Transactions of the Society for Modeling and Simulation International 93(2)
service level is facilitated, using the power and standardi-
zation of discrete-event simulation.
For the aforementioned reasons, this manuscript shows
the development of a hybrid (agent-based and discrete-
event) simulation model for waiting lines with impatient
customers contributing three important results. Firstly, a
psychological waiting evaluation mechanism was inte-
grated into the queue model based on psychological
research findings. Secondly, we developed a response to
the evaluation of waiting time in terms of several customer
behaviors beyond balking and reneging. Thirdly, we inte-
grated a cost function that includes hidden costs of cus-
tomer dissatisfaction due to waiting evaluation, based on
the modeled behavior responses. We believe that these
contributions can be helpful for any business to quantify
the losses generated by customer dissatisfaction in the
long term and provide businesses with a tool to support
their decision-making.
This paper is organized as follows. Firstly, we present a
literature review of models that have been proposed for
waiting evaluation and the possible responses of dissatis-
fied customers in Section 2. Secondly, we explain the con-
ceptual framework of the simulation and the modeling of
the customer dissatisfaction cost in Section 3. Thirdly, we
present a case study and analyze the results in an experi-
mental design in Section 4. Finally, the manuscript pre-
sents the primary conclusions of the study and it suggests
lines for future research in Section 5.
2. Literature review
2.1. Waiting evaluation in psychology
The relationship between waiting time and perceived time
is a key psychological factor behind waiting evaluation. In
1985, Maister11 suggested that customer satisfaction is the
difference between the perceived waiting time and the
expectation of customers. In the theoretical work by Nie,4
and based on the theory of assimilation and contrast, it is
suggested that the perceived waiting time is related to the
waiting time estimated by the customer (expectation) and
that the general evaluation of the service will be the differ-
ence between those two times. Subsequently, other studies
found that comparing perception and expectation is more
important than the length of the line when determining
customer satisfaction.12–14
None of the previous works suggested a specific mathe-
matical model for this relationship. Two mathematical
models were found in the literature relating waited and
perceived time. Pruyn and Smidts7 developed a model to
evaluate waiting, in which the actual waiting time and
environmental conditions in which waiting time occurs
were the primary factors that affect customer satisfaction.
The actual waiting time and the distractors directly
affected the perceived time, and the perceived attraction
affected the acceptable wait time (maximum time that a
customer is willing to wait). Evaluation of waiting time is
determined by the difference between the perceived wait-
ing time and the acceptable waiting time. However,
Antonides et al.15 proposed that the perceived time can be
better modeled using a psychophysical function, where the
evaluation of waiting time was a function of the difference
between the logarithm of acceptable waiting time (expec-
tation) and the logarithm of the perceived waiting time.
This function also included an asymmetry that depends on
whether the final evaluation was positive or negative,
transforming it in a non-linear non-continuous function. In
turn, perceived time was affected by the actual waiting
time, time fillers, and environmental factors. We base our
work on the model of Antonides et al.15
Different research studies have been conducted to test
the effects of time fillers on evaluating waiting times.
Time filler effects seem to be context-dependent, but there
is evidence that time fillers such as music,15 TV screens,16
or clock presence17 can exert a psychological influence on
customers and customer satisfaction and, therefore, the
proposed model included fillers to be evaluated.
2.2. Queuing systems with psychologically modeled
customer behavior
Queuing systems analysis with impatient customers has
focused mainly on the phenomena of balking and rene-
ging.18–20 When modeling balking and reneging, these
behaviors are usually seen as birth–death processes.21 As a
consequence, Poisson or exponential random variables are
used.22,23 These birth–death processes might be affected
by queue length,24,25 waiting time for each customer,26 or
both,27 leading to a model of waiting evaluation. More
sophisticated approaches included an evaluation between
the reward of the service and the cost of waiting time,
which is a positive, increasing, and continuous function.28
Other simulation approaches made a comparison between
expected/tolerable and experienced time as a basic func-
tion to define an abandonment threshold29 or to model
behaviors such as word of mouth or consumption fre-
quency change.30,31 Some of these assumptions have been
found to be partially valid in simulated tasks,17 but have
not been tested in real environments. Furthermore, these
approaches did not include the possible asymmetry and
non-linearity of the relationship between perceived and
actual waiting time in waiting evaluation proposed by psy-
chological approaches tested in the field.15
2.3. Customer behavior after satisfaction/
dissatisfaction
Hirschman’s model of responses to dissatisfaction32 pro-
posed three possible types of responses from dissatisfied
Alvarado-Valencia et al.
customers: ending the relationship with the company or
reducing purchasing frequency; complaining; or maintain-
ing their loyalty to the company in spite of their dissatis-
faction. Another form of a dissatisfied response is negative
word of mouth (NWOM), which involves communicating
dissatisfaction to others, without including the service pro-
vider.33 This communication could cause the loss of cred-
ibility of an organization, affecting its reputation within
the market and significantly reducing its profits.34 In the
case of satisfied service, there can also be positive word of
mouth (PWOM).35
However, all of these effects require a business model
where customer loyalty is important, which is expressed
through their repeated consumption of the service, and the
possibility of finding an alternative for the customer to pur-
chase, that is, competitors exist that can absorb the reduced
demand due to the dissatisfaction-associated behaviors of
the customer. For this reason, it is necessary to stress that
the developed model applies particularly well in repetitive
and competitive environments, for example, in a restau-
rant. In this way, dissatisfaction has a cost associated with
negative or positive decisions that the consumer may make
in the future.
This repetitive and competitive environment has a
remarkable resemblance to the El Farol Bar problem,36
where a fixed group of customers independently and repe-
titively decide, based on a set of strategies grounded on
past information, whether to go to a bar. Bar service will
be satisfactory only if the attendance does not surpass
some threshold. In the presented model, a group of cus-
tomers decide, based on prior information, whether to pur-
chase repetitively a service. However, (a) the decision
process is not completely independent, because there is
some degree of communication between customers; (b)
the satisfaction threshold is not the same for each cus-
tomer, due to diverse expectations; (c) customer satisfac-
tion is time-dependent (i.e., in the same iteration, some
customers might be satisfied and some might be dissatis-
fied); and (d) the attendance strategy is fixed. The El Farol
Bar problem has proved to be a situation where simple
individual rules lead to unexpected properties in the col-
lectivity and a rich structure of emergent and dynamic col-
lective behavior.37 Simulations for this kind of problems
are enlightening, because theoretical results are difficult to
develop for them.38 Therefore, we expect to find also a
similar rich collective behavior. In particular, we expect
possible stochastic fluctuations around an equilibrium
point, where fluctuation behavior depends on agent char-
acteristics such as the possibility of communication39 or
the biases of its predictions.40
Several simulation models have addressed the issue of
customer behavior as agents and their impact in operation
performance41 or marketing research.42 However, to the
best of our knowledge, none of them have addressed this
specific issue of waiting evaluation and customer
93
satisfaction over time in queues, with the notable excep-
tion of Ackere and Larsen.30 Adding to this work, we
included a better tested psychological model of waiting
evaluation, added a valuation of financial performance,
and developed our simulation in a study case in a particu-
lar context based on real data.
3. Model description
The model description follows the ODD (Overview,
Design concepts, Details) protocol.43,44 The discrete-event
model is integrated in the model description as input data
(see Section 3.6). The following sections describe the dif-
ferent components of the ODD protocol.
3.1. Purpose
The model is designed to evaluate the effects on company
results of customer dissatisfaction in waiting lines based
on several customer behaviors, which in turn are based on
psychological models of waiting time evaluation.
3.2. Entities, state variables, and scales
Customers (acting as agents) are the entities in the model.
State variables of customers are frequency of purchase fi,
expected waiting time ji , actual waiting time ti , and cumu-
lative number of dissatisfactions CDi. fi is measured in
purchases per time unit (purchases per day); expected and
actual waiting times are in time units (minutes), and CDi
is a counting variable. Notice that fi and ji can be different
for each customer, leading to a diverse population of
customers.
One time step represents one day, and each simulation
replication was run for 20 days. One time step implies an
interaction with the queuing system.
3.3. Process overview and scheduling
The general process scheduling of the system is depicted
in Figure 1, which is also computationally represented in
the following pseudocode. Initial values of parameters are
indicated in Section 3.5.
3.4. Design concepts
3.4.1 Basic principles. The described model allows for eval-
uating the consequences of two underlying basic princi-
ples. Firstly, customer waiting evaluation on a queuing
system is a non-trivial psychological process that depends
on the comparison of expectations and perceptions. Real
waiting time is just a component of this process. Secondly,
there are customer responses to dis/satisfaction in queuing
systems beyond balking and reneging, which can impact
business performance through hidden costs. These
94 Simulation: Transactions of the Society for Modeling and Simulation International 93(2)

Figure 1. Simulation conceptual model. PWOM: positive word of mouth; NWOM: negative word of mouth.

Algorithm 1. Pseudocode for the general process.

1. FOR time step = 1 to Maxtime DO

2. All customers go through the queuing system with frequency fi (*see Section 3.6*)
3. SET N := Actual number of customers
4. FOR customer i=1 to N DO
5. WHEN customer i leaves the service system DO:
6. Compute perceived time of customer i (*see Section 3.7*)
7. Compute wait evaluation of customer i (*see Section 3.7*)
8. IF Wait evaluation ui < 0 (*customer dissatisfied*) THEN
9. Generate three Bernoulli random variables Ak with parameter pk (*each one representing the probability of taking
a dissatisfaction action*)
10. IF A1 =1 THEN
11. fi = fi* reduction (*the customer will reduce their future purchasing intent*)
12. IF A2 =1 THEN
13. Actual number of customers = Actual number of customers − 1 (*A customer leave the simulation from the next time
step on due to NWOM*)
14. IF A3 =1 THEN
15. Complaints = Complaints + 1 (*The customer complains, generating a paperwork cost for the service system*)
16. CDi = CDi + 1 (*Cumulative number of dissatisfaction increases*)
17. IF CDi ≥ M (* number of dissatisfactions threshold*) THEN
18. Actual number of customers = Actual number of customers − 1 (*Customer leaves the simulation from the
next time step on*)
19. ELSE
20. IF wait evaluation > = 0 (*customer satisfied*) THEN
21. Generate two Bernoulli random variables Ak with parameter pk (*each one representing the probability of taking a satisfaction
action*)
22. IF A1 = 1 THEN
23. IF fi < Maximum frequency THEN
24. fi = fi* increase (*customer increases its purchasing intent*)
25. END-IF
26. IF A2 = 1 THEN
27. Actual number of customers= Actual number of customers + 1 (*A new customer is created due to PWOM*)
28. END-IF
29. END-FOR
30. END-FOR
Alvarado-Valencia et al.
responses can include actions such as word of mouth,
complaints, and reduction of purchase frequency.
3.4.2 Emergence. System performance measures are
expected to vary in complexity due to individual customer
behaviors. In particular, satisfied customers bringing new
customers and dissatisfied customers making other cus-
tomers leave the system are expected to change service
demand over time. In addition, customers differ in their
waiting time expectations, leading to different customer
actions even with the same objective waiting time. As a
consequence, waiting time and queue length are expected
to deviate from a convergence to a steady state and will
probably show fluctuations around an equilibrium point,
unpredicted by classical queuing theory but expected in
emergent behaviors, with an impact on company profits.
3.4.3 Adaptation. Customers adapt themselves to the queu-
ing system in response to their waiting evaluation. If wait-
ing evaluation is positive, they might increase their
purchase frequency or give PWOM to a potential cus-
tomer; if waiting evaluation is negative they might reduce
their purchase frequency, complain, give NWOM to actual
customers, or even stop purchasing the queuing system
service. Notice that adaptations are independent of the
magnitude of the positive/negative waiting evaluation.
Several studies have shown that complaining behavior
seems to be loosely related45,46 or unrelated47 to the inten-
sity of dissatisfaction.
3.4.4 Objectives. The goal of adaptive traits is generating
customer satisfaction. Such satisfaction is generated by a
positive waiting time evaluation. Notice that word of
mouth seeks to help other individuals to predict their wait-
ing time evaluation, encouraging or discouraging them to
go through the queuing system; complaints are intended to
give satisfaction feedback to the queuing system (although
in the current model this is an unsuccessful action) and
purchase reduction – or even system abandonment – looks
for a reduction of dissatisfaction experiences, under the
assumption that the service can be purchased somewhere
else (i.e., there is a competitive environment).
3.4.5 Learning. Each customer has a memory of the num-
ber of previous dissatisfactions, which helps one to decide
when to stop purchasing the queuing system service. Also,
frequency of purchase changes with experienced waiting
evaluation.
3.4.6 Prediction. There are several hidden predictions of
waiting evaluation in the model. In fact, when customers
decide whether to purchase or not, there is an implicit
95
prediction of dis/satisfaction in the next queuing system
experience.
3.4.7 Sensing. Customers sense real waiting time through
their perception filter (see Section 3.7). They can also
sense PWOM/NWOM from another agent.
3.4.8 Interaction. The main interaction between agents is
through PWOM/NWOM on a one-to-one basis. After each
service experience, an agent with positive wait evaluation
can bring a new agent into the system, whereas an agent
with negative wait evaluation can influence another differ-
ent agent to leave the system. Therefore, agents can com-
municate their service experience to other agents and
influence their decisions about entering or leaving the
system.
3.4.9 Stochasticity. Customer behaviors after waiting eva-
luation are taken (or not) depending on random uniform
variables. Perception and waiting evaluation models have
random noise (see Section 3.7)
3.4.10 Observation. All output data is collected and freely
used.
3.5. Initialization
Initial values of the model system are presented in Table
1. Table 1 also shows parameter values of submodels and
variable parameter values for the experimental design (see
Section 4.1).
3.6. Input data
The service system is a discrete-event-based model of a
waiting line. Any service model following the Kendall
notation48 can be coupled with the agent-based model. It
can be also extended (and it was for the current model)
with a possible vector of fillers Xi whose only function is
to modify time perception according to the submodel pre-
sented in Section 3.7.1. For the case study, input data cor-
respond to an M/G/1 queue (i.e., a queue with Markovian
arrivals, service times with a general distribution and a
single server) where a possible time filler can be presented
to the customer. Arrival and waiting time distributions
were extracted from Aparicio and Ortiz.49
The service system receives the customers from the
agent-based model in each time step. Depending on the
service system performance, the service system assigns a
current waiting time ti for each customer in each time step.
Performance of the service system is measured through
classical waiting line measures, such as the average wait-
ing time and the average queue length, along with the
96 Simulation: Transactions of the Society for Modeling and Simulation International 93(2)

Table 1. Model parameters, variables, and factors.

Entity (parameter or variable) Role (Initial)Value/probability function

Maxtime Global parameter 20 time steps

M (number of dissatisfaction threshold) Global parameter 2 dissatisfactions
Maximum frequency Global parameter 2 per time period
Reduction Global parameter ½
Increase Global parameter 2
Complaints Global parameter Starts in 0
Actual number of customers (N) Global variable Starts in 58 initial customers
fi Entity variable Starts in 1 per time period
CDi Entity variable Starts in 0
Expectation times (ξi ) Entity Random variable Normal (3.68; 1) – in minutes
Ak Global Random variable Bernoulli random variables with pk = 0.5 for all cases.
Arrival and service times Input Random variables Based on Aparicio and Ortiz49: exponential(0.392) &
lognormal(0.36;0.154) – in minutes
CQ; CBB; CDC; CSD Submodel parameter Based on the survey of Cabezas Chaparro52
a1 Submodel parameter Ln(1.2). 20% time overestimation. Based on Hornik54 and
Whiting and Donthu55
a2 Submodel parameter Ln(2). A customer is satisfied if perceived time is one
standard deviation below average waiting time found by
Aparicio and Ortiz49
b1 Submodel parameter 1
b2 Submodel parameter –1
b3 Submodel factor Low = 0.3; Medium = 0.75; High = 1.2
b4 and b5 Submodel factors Low = 1; High = 2
gi * X1 (time filler effect) Submodel factor No filler = 0; low effect = − 0.12 (1.13 min. reduction);
high effect = − 0.44 (1.55 min. reduction) Based on
Aparicio and Ortiz49
εji Submodel random variables Normal (0;0.2)

percentage of satisfied customers and the profit calculated
in the submodel explained in Section 3.7.2.
3.7. Submodels
3.7.1 Wait evaluation submodel. To calculate the perceived
time and the evaluation of waiting time, we used the model
proposed in the study by Antonides et al.15 However, these
equations are undefined when waiting, perceived, or
expected time are 0. Furthermore, if any of the aforemen-
tioned times are less than one, the original equations of
Antonides et al.15 can generate negative perceived times or
inappropriate values in the difference between perceived
and expected times, due to logarithm properties. As a con-
sequence, we decide to add one time unit to make the
equations work properly in the simulation.
Perceived time:
lnðui Þ = a1 + b1 lnðti + 1Þ + gi Xi + e1i ð1Þ
where ui is the perceived waiting time; ti is the actual
waiting time, and Xi is a vector of possible time fillers that
influence the perceived waiting time. b1 allows for distor-
tions on time perception due to psychological factors.
Evaluation of waiting time:
ui = a2 + b2 lnðui + 1Þ + b3 t i + b4 t i ðlnðji + 1Þ
ln (ui + 1)Þ + b5 ð1  t i Þðlnðji + 1Þ  lnðui + 1ÞÞ + e2i
ð2Þ
where ui refers to the evaluation of waiting time by cus-
tomer i, ji represents the expectation of the customer
regarding the time they want to wait, ti is a Boolean vari-
able that is 1 if the expectation is higher than the percep-
tion and 0 if the opposite is true, and ui represents the
perceived waiting time. It can be seen that the structure of
the equation allows for asymmetries to affect the evalua-
tion of the size of positive or negative differences between
perception and expectation (through parameters b4 and
b5). Also, b3 allows giving an additional effect for positive
differences between perception and expectation. Finally,
notice that a customer might have a negative evaluation
even when expectation is below perception, due to time
perception effects modeled by b2. All these elements gave
a higher flexibility for modeling wait evaluation over the
classical approaches of real time thresholds or the simple
difference between perceptions and expectations.
3.7.2 Profits submodel. Profit calculation is made in an
aggregate manner for each simulation replication, as
follows:
Alvarado-Valencia et al.
Table 2. Effect sizes of significant factors.
Factor Contrasted effects Cohen’s d
b4 High vs. Low 0.23
b3 Medium vs. Low 0.21
High vs. Medium 0.12
High vs. Low 0.30
Time filler Low vs. Control 0.17
High vs. Low 0.33
High vs. Control 0.45
Profit = Income  Costs =
ðIV + IBP Þ  (CQ + CBB + CSD + CDC Þ ð3Þ
where IV is the total income during the whole simulation
replication due to purchases of current customers (i.e., cus-
tomers generated at simulation time = 0), IBP is the total
income during the whole simulation replication due to pur-
chases of new customers (i.e., customers generated at
simulation time 6¼ 0), CQ is the total cost at the end of the
simulation replication of all complaints (complaints vari-
able multiplied by the unitary cost of a complaint), CBB is
the aggregated loss over all customers on expected future
purchases (i.e., until the end of the simulation) at the initial
frequency of purchase (shown in Table 1) of any customer
that does not return to the system, CDC is the aggregated
loss over all customers on expected future purchases at the
initial frequency of purchase (shown in Table 1) of any
period of purchase frequency reduction of each customer,
and CSD is the aggregated cost over the whole simulation
replication of idle service of personnel, calculated from
the discrete-event simulation
4. Experimental design
4.1 Case study
The simulation to be developed represents the service of a
business restaurant. The description of the system under
study is based on the data collected by Aparicio and
Ortiz,49 and corresponds to an M/G/1 queue in a restaurant
where time fillers are presented to the customer. The
model was validated based on the data from Aparicio and
Ortiz,49 where waiting time expectations and perceptions
were collected in a restaurant environment, and from
where arrival and service time distributions were extracted.
As shown in Table 1, we decided to define the same
probability (pk = 0.5) for any satisfaction/dissatisfaction
action in the case study. We were unable to find studies
showing a general preference towards a given specific
action, let alone in restaurant environments. A single study
in the services sector shows pretty similar percentages of
response for our modeled dissatisfaction actions.50 By
using pk = 0.5, dissatisfied customers who do not take any
action are 12.5% of the total customers. This percentage is
97
in accordance with several empirical studies showing per-
centages between 10% and 20% of inactivity.50,51
The simulation was run during 20 consecutive time
periods. At the end of the total time period, the total profit
is calculated using Equation (3), based on the costs found
by the customer survey in Cabezas Chaparro.52 An experi-
mental design of 22* 32 was proposed to evaluate the
effects of b3, b4, b5, and time fillers on profit. Table 1
show the parameters, random variables, and factors used
in the simulation case study, based on Equations (1)-(3)
and the simulation conceptual model, presented in Section
3. Analyses of variance (ANOVAs) were conducted for
analysis, along with descriptive statistics.
Our hypotheses were as follows.
H1: A larger magnitude additional effect for positive
differences between perception and expectation (higher
b3) will lead to higher profits.
H2: A larger magnitude effect of positive differences
between perception and expectation (higher b4) will
lead to higher profits.
H3: A larger magnitude effect of negative differences
between perception and expectation (higher b5) will
lead to lower profits.
H4: A time filler of larger magnitude effect on reducing
time perception will lead to higher profits.
4.2 Experiment results
Larger magnitude effects of positive difference between
perception and expectation (b4) increased profit F(1) = 64,
p \ .01, supporting H2, whereas larger magnitude effects
of the negative difference (b5) were not significant F(1) =
0.36, p . .10, not supporting H3. The additional effect of
positive difference (b3) was also significant on their incre-
mental effect on profit F(2) = 41.8, p \ .01, supporting
H1, along with the time filler effect F(2) = 100.67,
p \ .01, supporting H4. The effect sizes of profit increases
are small (below half a standard deviation) and are shown
in Table 2.
Normality assumption held for all subgroups; homoge-
neity of variances did not. However, ANOVA results are
robust to this assumption, providing that sample sizes for
subgroups are the same.53
Higher b3 and b4 implied a tendency of being satisfied
even in longer waits (as long as wait does not surpass
expectation), encouraging the arrival of more customers or
increasing purchase frequency; on the other hand, larger
time filler effects made waiting time more tolerable, lead-
ing to higher satisfaction and, therefore, increasing queue
length and waiting time. As a result, the model captures
the possibility that psychological phenomena might allow
poorer QoS (until a certain level) with increased QoE.
Given the nature of the psychological model, profits
increased when waiting times and queue length increased;
98 Simulation: Transactions of the Society for Modeling and Simulation International 93(2)

Table 3. Performance measures of the system.

Factor Level Waiting time (Wq)a Queue length (Lq) Satisfied Profit (G) US$

M SD M SD % M SD
b4 Low 3.54 1.10 5.64 3.30 .336 226.5 81.0
High 4.34 1.17 7.51 4.10 .340 248.7 52.9
b3 Low 3.29 1.01 5.20 2.95 .332 219.8 89.7
Medium 4.10 1.17 6.94 3.94 .340 241.8 55.4
High 4.43 1.14 7.59 4.10 .342 251.3 52.6
Time filler Control (no filler) 3.00 .73 4.78 2.45 .327 214.7 52.6
Low 3.45 .80 5.52 2.87 .336 227.1 51.7
High 4.90 1.07 8.53 4.36 .345 259.6 84.2
a
Waiting time units are minutes.
M: mean; SD: standard deviation.

however, the percentage of satisfied customers did not
really change among treatments (Table 3).
b3 and b4 can help model the important effect associ-
ated with the type of customer of the company and his/her
psychological characteristics, that is, the degree of satis-
faction received by different types of customers of the
companies when wait expectations surpass perception.
Varying b3 for each customer, it is possible to model the
personal or social characteristics of the company’s cus-
tomers regarding the satisfactory effects of simply surpass-
ing expectations. On the other hand, varying b4 for each
customer, it is possible to model the satisfactory effects of
the degree of such expectation surplus.
The effect of b5 was not significant, implying that dif-
ferent effect sizes when expectations are not fulfilled were
not very important on changing profits. A possible expla-
nation is that expectations not fulfilled are usually associ-
ated with longer waiting times, and longer waiting times
had an additional negative effect in evaluation through b2,
that is, passing of time already has a negative effect on
evaluation regardless of expectations fulfillment. As a con-
sequence, the negative evaluation added by differences in
b5 was unimportant (for the chosen levels).
From the time filler results, one can infer that no matter
the nature of the filler, as long as it has a strong effect on
perception, it will help maximize profits. As a result, cer-
tain time fillers can be useless in terms of satisfying the
objectives of the company, and it is necessary to evaluate
the effects of time fillers before applying them in a waiting
line.
Figure 2 shows a cyclical behavior in perceived time
and waiting evaluation over the time with ascending and
descending cycles. Given that perceived time is closely
related to actual waiting time, performance measures such
as queue length and waiting time also show this cyclical
behavior. These system performance behaviors resemble
the behavior of attendance in the El Farol Bar problem,
suggesting that there might be a larger kind of system
behavior with this emergent oscillating property, even
when key factors of the original problem are modified.
Despite reaching a steady state, the system oscillates
between sudden waves of interested customers, followed
by customer recessions due to long queues. This result is a
reliable confirmation of the validity of the model when
compared to reality, because if waiting time evaluation
was the only deciding factor to remain in line, one would
expect that after the first satisfied customers, the line
(queue) would begin to lengthen due to the satisfaction of
the customers. This rise would increase the length of the
line, which in turn, would lead to customer dissatisfaction
and, subsequently, a lower demand. This lower demand
would in turn reduce waiting time, leading to a new cycle
of satisfaction–dissatisfaction.
These cycles increase in frequency and amplitude with
increases in b3 and b4. Amplitude increments show a
higher tolerance to longer perceived waits, whereas fre-
quency increments show sudden increases in the number
of customers or their frequency of purchase due to cus-
tomer satisfaction, followed by drops in consumption due
to these sudden longer lines. As a consequence, customer
traits related to their valuation of shorter-than-expected
waits can have an effect on system predictability, making
operation management and planning more difficult.
All the results show that the simulation in the case study
exhibits the expected behaviors of the model and, therefore,
the simulation model is useful in evaluating the psychologi-
cal phenomenon of satisfaction. Moreover, the model
becomes useful in discussing at least three aspects in the
design of a waiting line: the cyclic nature expected of cus-
tomer satisfaction with waiting time when the services are
no different from the competition; how time fillers in the
waiting line affect profits; and the consequences of psycho-
logical and cultural aspects of customers that may affect the
performance of the waiting line, which is represented by the
satisfaction bonus and the possible satisfaction asymmetries
in the differences between perception and expectation.
Alvarado-Valencia et al.
Figure 2. Behavior of wait evaluation, perceptions, and expectations in time.
5. Conclusions and perspectives
The present research work proposes a simulation model
applicable to competitive and repetitive business environ-
ments where the queue is an important part of customer
satisfaction. The model incorporates one of the most
recent and influential psychological models for the evalua-
tion of waiting times using a customer response model that
includes several customer behaviors that affect business
performance over time. This model could provide busi-
nesses with a valuable simulation tool that allows them to
model the costs of customer dissatisfaction associated with
waiting lines.
The simulation model evaluates the effects of different
values of psychological and time filler parameters on the
evaluation of waiting time in an actual environment. For
example, it is possible to simulate different types of inter-
ventions and different types of customers. In the applied
case, in fact, one can see the effect of different levels of
time fillers with more or less effectiveness; the results also
compare different psychological types of customers and
their effect on the cost. Similarly, it was possible to
observe the cyclic behavior that would be exhibited by
waiting time evaluation if one could isolate it from service
evaluation, and compare it with similar problems of emer-
gent behavior present in the literature.
99
At least three limitations of the work should be
pointed out. Firstly, customers might differ in their
response due to diverse personal and societal factors not
included, not only by different expectations about their
waiting time. However, we believe that our work is a
good first step towards personalized modeling of cus-
tomers. Secondly, we are evaluating only the waiting
time, but the service experience might in fact completely
modify this evaluation. In fact, we are bringing light
only to repetitive and competitive services where service
experience is less important, but improved models
should include service experience as an important factor.
Thirdly, time filler effects are not necessarily linear and
additive, and their specific effects are still unclear in the
literature. Despite that, the model might allow the inclu-
sion of more sophisticated relationships of time fillers
and perception, where they become clearer from psycho-
logical research.
Several lines of research arise based on the results
obtained in the present article. The first research perspec-
tive consists of taking into account the value of the service
as a mediating factor in user satisfaction. In addition, the
high and low levels of the psychological factors that affect
waiting time evaluation, which are represented in the
equations by coefficients b4 and b5 , were selected by the
100 Simulation: Transactions of the Society for Modeling and Simulation International 93(2)
relationship between them when expectation surpasses
perception and vice versa. For future research, a focus on
determining the real values of these psychological factors
and how they affect customer satisfaction and costs in
actual cases is suggested, in order to increase external
validity of the model.
Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency
in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
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Author biographies
Jorge A Alvarado Valencia is Associate Professor of
Analytics at the Industrial Engineering Department at
Pontificia Universidad Javeriana. He has an MSc in
Analytics from North Carolina State University and a PhD
in Engineering from Pontificia Universidad Javeriana. His
research interests are analytics of databases of human
behavior and human–computer interaction with business
implications.
Gabriela C Tueti Silva is a Production Engineering and
graduated from Universidad Simon Bolivar – Venezuela.
She holds a master’s degree in Industrial Engineering
from Pontificia Universidad Javeriana – Colombia. Since
2011 she has worked as project leader at Avianca airlines.
Jairo R Montoya-Torres is Professor within the School
of Management at Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá,
Colombia. Since 2014 he has been a member of the
Executive Board of the Colombia Association of
Operational Research (ASOCIO), and Vice-president for
the period 2016–2018. He holds the postdoctoral diploma
‘‘Habilitation for Research Direction’’ (HDR) in logistics
and operations research from the National Institute of
Applied Sciences (INSA) of Lyon, France, and a PhD
degree in Industrial Engineering from École National
Supérieure des Mines de Saint-Etienne, France. His
research interests lie broadly in simulation and optimiza-
tion of logistics and production systems, scheduling, and
supply chain management under collaborative and sustain-
able environments. He was co-editor of the Proceedings of
the Winter Simulation Conference in 2010. His email
address is jr.montoya@uniandes.edu.co and his web page
is http://jrmontoya.wordpress.com.