Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Waiting Lines, Queue management, Management of Queues, Reneging, Balking, Calling Population,
Queue discipline
5. Explain Balking.
6. Define Reneging.
7. Differentiate between single line-single stage and single line- multiple stages.
8. How does Calling population affect the waiting line management?
9. What is the impact of arrival on Managing the waiting lines?
f) Customer selection process- Generally, the consumers in a waiting line are served on first come,
first served basis. It is considered to be a fair system as the consumers who are waiting in a line
since long may resent having new consumers come in and served before them. However, there
may be formal policies designed to prefer a given set of consumers for serving prior to others.
This is also called as „Queue discipline‟. For instance, elderly consumers may be preferred to be
served in a waiting line. Similarly, there could be different processes designed to serve a
prospective consumer out of the queue as per the following basis:
i) Urgency of the Service: At many service counters, while a waiting line works in a
sequence, some consumers may be preferred over others in case they are in an urgent
need of the service. Let us take the example of a Hospital where the emergency cases
may be attended on a priority basis. This is ensured by having a regular OPD waiting
lines and the emergency arrival section having a separate registration and such cases are
attended on priority basis. We may think of waiting line at the ticket counter of a
multiplex. Customers who want to buy tickets for the movie show which is about to be
started, may be given a priority and they may be asked to buy the ticket at a separate
counter.
ii) Service Duration: The services which may need a shorter time duration may be
separated from the bulk business. For example, a number of banks have installed locked
boxes for the cheques to be dropped in for account deposits instead of the account holder
waiting in the queue to handover the cheque to the counter.
iii) Premium Payment : There could be an extra charge for a separate or a shorter line. As
for the check ins in the Airplane, the business class form a separate line than the economy
class and the passengers in the business class are normally less than the economy.
iv) Regular customers- For the customers availing of the services more frequently, some
token or a pass may be issued which entitles them for being served separately. Such an
arrangement is very commonly found at the toll booths.
g) Flexibility- This element relates to the design of the service process and the flexibility granted to
vary the service delivery system according to the demand. For example, a self service restaurant
may offer to table serve in face of long waiting lines on counters. For allowing flexibility, a
service manager may design a service flowchart and try to assess the likelihood of occurrence of
delays at various stages. Such an analysis can also be done after going through the consumer
complaint record of the past. Such bottlenecks should be highlighted and the service personnel
should be well trained to overcome a delay at these points. For managing a waiting line a Service
manager may work out on the following service design issues :
i. Consumer numbers: This is to assess the approximate number of consumers to be served in
one go. Depending upon the service, either the consumer will be served individually or in a
group.
ii. Equipments used: The consumer may be served manually by the staff, with equipments
alone or a combination of personnel and equipments. Identifying the degree of dependence on
technology and amount of involvement of the personnel is assessed.
iii. Capacity: For management of waiting lines, it should be evaluated as to how many service
transactions can be successfully completed in how much of time. This facilitates in working
out the number of customers who can be efficiently served at a time.
iv. Service delivery location: The manager proceeds with working out the place at which the
service is delivered to the consumer. For instance, whether the consumer comes to the service
site as in a restaurant or a Bank or if the service is delivered to the consumer doorstep as in
the case of free home delivery of food, opening of bank account at the consumers doorstep.
There could be a third location for the service delivery as in eth case of cash withdrawals at
ATM.
v. Waiting experience: This refers to the experience a waiting consumer goes through. A smart
service manager ensures enough distractions in the comfortable waiting zone for pleasing the
waiting consumers. For example, at the car service outlet, drivers may be offered free meals,
a comfortable waiting area equipped with mobile charging points and with magazines and
television to keep them occupied.
10. How can waiting line be managed on the basis of urgency of services sought?
11. What is single and multiple service delivery locations? Explain with the help of
an example.
12. Can you think of any interesting ways to keep the waiting customers satisfied in
the line.
13. Describe the capacity identification of any service transaction of your choice.
1.6 Conclusion
Waiting in a line for getting serviced for something is not only boring it is also frustrating as
it wastes a lot of time of the consumer and may even be physically uncomfortable. Despite
this, one has to wait on several occasions starting at a Bank or a restaurant or even wait on
phone or internet for various service processes. Almost every successful service organization
faces the complaints of waiting. Smart service organizations know that improvement in
business may increase the waiting lines, which needs to be managed before they start
adversely affecting the service quality. Two very frequently used methods of managing the
waiting lines adopted by the service organizations is to ask the consumers to have patience
and wait in line to be served on first come basis. The second method could be to offer the
consumers get an appointment or book their interaction before coming on phone or on web.
A service manager can identify various means to manage the waiting lines. The first step in
this direction is to identify the internal factors affecting the duration of the service delivery at
different counters. The second is to understand the service level expectations and the
characteristics of the potential consumers. After a due understanding of these two factors the
service manager can attempt to reduce the total service transaction time as much as possible
and also plan a creative way to keep the waiting consumer pleasantly occupied.
Summary
For enhancing the overall service quality at a Bank, a number of consumers were surveyed to
find out one basic improvement desired in the service delivery system of the Bank. Majority of
the consumers felt that the waiting time in the Bank should be reduced for better services. For
managing the waiting time, the Bank took a few initiatives. The first one was to improve the
service delivery technology. The teller was trained to work on customized softwares, where
extraction of the customers details would take a few seconds from their own service station.
Currency counting machines were also installed to save the time of counting notes and bills ,
which further saved the time of the teller in each service transaction. Secondly, the Bank
personnel was trained in expediting the consumer service transactions. They were told to hand
over the complicated tasks at the back desk designated officer, a new job description created to
work on daily rotation basis, to avoid any delays in the service delivery. During peak days, table
lunch was catered and the overall lunch time reduced to half to reduce the consumer waiting
time. The third set of changes included the creation of many quick desk services like depositing
of cheques in the drop box, withdrawing cash from the ATM, checking balance of account online
etc. This ensured that the regular service seeking consumers would be separated from the other
consumers, thereby reducing the waiting line size. In the brief description a Banks successful
management of waiting lines has been described. Hence, it is important for the service manager
to check the waiting time in the service transaction to improve the customer satisfaction.