A FRAMEWORK FOR RELATING

WAITING TIME AND CUSTOMER

SATISFACTION IN A SERVICE
OPERATION
Mark M. Davis

Thomas E. Vollmann
The customer's direct interaction with a A pure operations management viewpoint
service-producing process suggests that would focus on the tradeoff between customer
marketing concepts, such as customer waiting time and the number of workers to
satisfaction, should be incorporated into the schedule. A marketing focus, on the other
operational decision-making process. Such an hand, would address customer satisfaction
interfunctional approach might result in more directly, based upon customer opinions
improved solutions to managerial problems about the service. This article develops a
that were previously afforded only an framework for integrating the o p e r a t i o n s
operational perspective. One area where this management and marketing approaches within
combined view might yield important insights a service operation. It focuses on customer
is in defining the proper level of service that a satisfaction with waiting time, with the goal of
firm should provide its customers. providing improved satisfaction for a given

Mark M. Davis is assistant professor of operations management at Bentley College. He received his M.B.A. and D.B.A.
from Boston University's School of Management. He also holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Tufts University. Dr.
Davis has been a manufacturing engineer for the General Electric Company and a program manager for the U.S. Army
Natick Laboratories developing new food service systems for each of the branches of the military. His current research
interests focus on integrating marketing concepts, such as customer satisfaction, into the operating decision process for
services, and its resulting impact on worker productivity. He consults primarily for the food service industry and has
presented several seminars on increasing worker productivity for the National Restaurant Association and the American
Dietetic Association.
Thomas E. Vollmann. Ph.D., is currently professor of operations management at Boston University's School of
Management. Professor Vollmann received his B.S., M.B.A., and Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Prior faculty positions include Dartmouth College, University of Rhode Island, Indiana University, and INSEAD (France).
Dr. Vollmann is the author of five textbooks: Operations Management: A Systems-Model Building Approach, Operations
Research for Management, Master Production Scheduling: Principles and Practice, Manufacturing Planning and Control
Systems, and Master Production-Scheduling Reprints. He has also published numerous journal articles and case studies.
Dr. Vollmann has served as a consultant to many firms on manufacturing and computerized information systems, is a
CFPIM (Certified, at the Fellow level, Practitioner in Inventory Management), and has lectured in executive development
programs throughout the world.

Vol 4 No 1 Winter 1990 61

 THE JOURNAL OF SERVICES MARKETING
level of resources. An application of this
methodology is provided with an example in
the fast food industry, where waiting time is an
important determinant in the customer's firm
selection process. Finally, a procedure is
presented for extending this framework to
other service organizations.
Introduction
A common thread among many studies in
operations management has been recognition
of the need to c o n s i d e r services from a
perspective that includes marketing as well as
traditional operations management.3,8,12 One
major area where this combined perspective
might yield important insights is in defining
the proper level of customer service (in terms
of speed) that a service firm should provide its
customers. A pure operations management
viewpoint would focus on the tradeoff between
customer waiting time and the number of
workers scheduled, thereby assuming a linear
relationship between customer satisfaction and
waiting time. A combined approach, on the
other h a n d , w o u l d a d d r e s s c u s t o m e r
satisfaction more directly, basing it on
customer opinions about waiting time and
other aspects of customer service. Thus, there
may well be times when the use of waiting
time as a direct surrogate for c u s t o m e r
satisfaction is not appropriate.
Satisfaction appears to be the bridge
between today's operational
performance and its subsequent
impact on the customer's future
behavior toward the firm.
For example, in fast food r e s t a u r a n t s ,
customers may not mind waiting longer in line
on weekends than on weekdays, when time is
usually more critical. Similarly, in retail
merchandise stores, customers prior to
Christmas are willing to wait in line for periods
of time that they would not normally tolerate
during the rest of the year. In both of these
examples, the factor affecting customer
satisfaction with waiting in line is time; with the
fast food restaurants it is the day of the week;
with the retail stores it is the season of the year.
Another factor that may affect customer
62
satisfaction with waiting time is the type of
service p r o v i d e d . For e x a m p l e , in
supermarkets, customers with only a few items
usually cannot justify waiting long periods of
time to go through the checkout line, while
those w i t h an entire week's s h o p p i n g are
probably not as upset with a similar wait.
Therefore, express lines have been created for
customers with a limited number of items,
a l l o w i n g s u p e r m a r k e t s to c o m p e t e w i t h
convenience stores.
Still another example of the influence of the
type of service on satisfaction with waiting time
is provided with banks. On paydays some banks
provide a teller for "paycheck cashing only."
Customers in this line typically wait in line less
time t h a n those w h o have a d d i t i o n a l
transactions to conduct. Nevertheless, both may
be equally satisfied with their respective waits.
T h u s , for a large n u m b e r of service
operations, the relationship between customer
satisfaction (or dissatisfaction) and waiting
time can be affected by exogenous factors.
By integrating the operations management
and marketing functions we will provide a
framework for b e t t e r u n d e r s t a n d i n g t h e
relationship between customer satisfaction and
waiting time, and the factors that affect that
r e l a t i o n s h i p . With t h i s i n t e r f u n c t i o n a l
approach, improved customer satisfaction can
be a c h i e v e d for a given level of staffing
r e s o u r c e s . We will also d e m o n s t r a t e an
a p p l i c a t i o n in a fast food e n v i r o n m e n t ,
recognizing that this framework can most likely
be applied to many other service organizations.
The Framework
The Service Operations Management
Context
With most services, operations managers
face a tradeoff between the higher operating
costs of p r o v i d i n g c u s t o m e r s with better
service and the costs of having customers wait.
This tradeoff is caused by the customer's direct
interaction with the service transformation
process. Thus, instead of using a finished
goods inventory to separate the customer from
the process, as is the case in manufacturing,
service firms "inventory" customers in the
form of waiting lines.
 A FRAMEWORK FOR RELATING WATTING TIME AND CUSTOMER SATISFACTION
In a m a n u f a c t u r i n g c o n t e x t , however,
waiting time problems usually involve
"arrivals" of parts or some other inanimate
objects, not people. In attempting to apply
queuing models, the service manager therefore
r u n s into the issue of w h e t h e r the use of
waiting time as a direct surrogate for customer
satisfaction is appropriate. Since customers in
service o p e r a t i o n s are typically i n v o l v e d
directly in the provision of the service, the
q u e s t i o n arises as h o w best to m a t c h the
various resources of the service firm with the
customers' expectations.
A Marketing Perspective
In t h e m a r k e t i n g l i t e r a t u r e , c u s t o m e r
satisfaction is conceived as one aspect of
customer behavior that evolves over time. 2,4,6
An illustrative model is shown in Figure 1.10
Figure 1 shows how customer satisfaction is
based upon expectations, performance, and the
difference b e t w e e n the t w o (i.e., d i s c o n -
firmation). Also shown here is the resultant
influence of satisfaction on updating customer
attitudes, customer intentions, and future
c u s t o m e r b e h a v i o r t o w a r d the firm. In
a p p l y i n g Figure 1 to a service operation,
satisfaction appears to be the bridge between
t o d a y ' s o p e r a t i o n a l p e r f o r m a n c e and its
subsequent impact oh the customer's future
behavior toward the firm.
In most service o p e r a t i o n s , c u s t o m e r
expectations and satisfaction with respect to
waiting time are dependent on many factors,
including the following:
•The customer's prior experience. The
customer's prior experience with waiting and
the perceived wait incurred is an important
contributor to customer satisfaction.
•The number of customers in the service
facility. Customers normally expect to wait a
longer time when an operation is very busy.
•Criticality of time to the customer. During
weekdays (as compared to weekends), for
example, time would probably be more critical
to working customers than it is for other types
of customers (e.g., shoppers) or at other times
of the day (e.g., evenings).
•Other distractions, intended or otherwise.
Examples of various distractions could include
slot machines next to waiting lines in casinos,
bars jn full service restaurants, and mirrors
beside elevators in hotels.
Successful service managers use their labor
resources to differentiate themselves from
competitors in terms of satisfaction. Moreover,
t h e r e is n o a b s o l u t e level of a c c e p t a b l e
customer satisfaction; instead, it is relative to
other alternatives. One has only to compare the
long waiting times of Russian consumers with
t h o s e in the U n i t e d States to see the
differences in both expected and desired
performance levels.
Combining Operations Management
and Marketing
In a t t e m p t i n g to relate waiting time to
customer satisfaction, an assumption of linear
proportionality between these two variables
may be naive. There are exogenous factors, as
was stated previously, that may also influence
the relationship between the two.
A service manager needs to understand the
form of this relationship. If customers expect
to wait at certain times of the day, for example,
the service manager is well-advised not to
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 THE JOURNAL OF SERVICES MARKETING
reduce waiting times below that level if this
reduction comes at the expense of longer
waiting times that exceed customer
expectations at other times of the day.
Successful service managers use
their labor resources to differentiate
themselves from competitors in
terms of satisfaction.
Customer waiting time can be managed by
varying crew schedules and the number of
personnel assigned to particular tasks at
different times of the day. Within a given time
period, such as a week, the service manager
as considerable latitude as to when and
where to assign personnel. These real-time
deployment decisions influence both customer
satisfaction and worker productivity.
Model Development
The goal of this research effort is to develop
a model that relates waiting time and customer
satisfaction as a function of the various
conditions (i.e., factors) under which that
relationship can change. A fast food operation
is used as an example, and the model is
developed with several different statistical
methods, specifically factor analysis and
regression analysis.
Application to a Fast Food
Operation
In the fast food industry, the amount of time
customers wait before placing their order is
believed to be an important determinant of
customer satisfaction.1,7,9
Existing operating rules for fast food
operations typically focus on a fixed waiting
time, or its surrogate, line length, to establish a
nonvarying customer service level. The
alternative is to develop operating rules based
on a constant customer satisfaction criterion,
resulting in a variable waiting time.
Data Collection
Two different locations of a major fast food
chain were selected for data collection. Store
location was defined by the predominant
64
characteristics of its customers. One was a
downtown store where customers were
predominantly workers with short lunch
periods. The other was adjacent to a suburban
shopping center where the customers were
primarily shoppers and/or parents with
children. The issue here is whether different
demographics associated with individual store
locations can influence the relationship
between satisfaction and waiting time. If so, a
national fast food chain might be able to equate
longer customer waiting times to a given level
of satisfaction in rural or suburban areas, as
compared with waiting times in urban areas.
Another exogenous factor that could
influence the relationship is the day of the
week. As was suggested by other studies of fast
food operations,5,11 the days of the week can be
divided into two categories, weekdays and
weekends. Weekday customers at lunch, for
example, are typically on their lunch hour and
are within close proximity to where they work.
On the other hand, lunch time customers on
weekends either live nearby or are out
shopping in the area of the restaurant.
Time of day is a third potential factor. All
weekdays tend to follow a similar demand
pattern throughout the day, with very dramatic
swings occurring between the peak and slow
periods. This occurs because most people eat
their meals at about the same time during the
week. Weekend demand patterns, however,
tend to be more evenly distributed, since
customers typically have more flexible
schedules.
On-site data were collected in two parts.
First, actual customer waiting times were
recorded with a stopwatch. Those customers
who were observed waiting in line were
subsequently asked to complete a self-
administered survey just as they finished
eating. The survey asked for their opinions
about the performance of different facets of the
operation, including their waiting time. These
opinions were measured on a scale from 1
(very poor or very dissatisfied) to 5 (very good
or very satisfied).
A total of 723 waiting times and cor-
responding surveys were collected at the two
locations. These data represented a response
rate in excess of 90 percent. (As an incentive to
complete the surveys, customers were given a
 A FRAMEWORK FOR RELATING WAITING TIME AND CUSTOMER SATISFACTION
coupon for free food when the surveys were
turned in.)
Analysis and Conclusions
Analysis
Factor analysis was used to identify those
survey questions that related to customer
satisfaction. The customer responses to these
questions were subsequently combined into a
single Customer Satisfaction Index (CSI).
With customer satisfaction defined, the
next step was to establish a relationship
between satisfaction and waiting time.
Regression analysis was applied here, and it
revealed, as was expected, that customer
satisfaction was inversely related to waiting
time, that is, the longer a customer waits, the
less satisfied or more dissatisfied he or she
becomes with the service.
Additional analysis revealed that time of
day and store location significantly affected
the relationship between waiting time and
customer satisfaction, but that type of day
(weekday or weekend) did not. As is seen in
Figure 2, customers arriving later in the day
tended to lose satisfaction faster with
increased waiting times. On the other hand,
customers at lunch time appeared to be the
least dissatisfied with longer waiting times.
Customers visiting during the slack period
between lunch and dinner fell in-between.
Conclusions
Initially it was thought that the relative level
of customer satisfaction between lunch and
dinner would be the reverse of what occurred.
That is, it was expected that customers at
lunch would be less satisfied with a given
waiting time than would those at dinner.
Two factors with opposite effects were
identified as potentially influencing customer
satisfaction throughout a day. The first was
criticality of time to the customer. Under this
scenario, customers at lunch would be more
dissatisfied with longer waiting times than
customers at slack and dinner times. The other
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 THE JOURNAL OF SERVICES MARKETING
factor was the number of customers in the
store. The logic here is that customers would
expect to wait longer during busy peak periods
and therefore would be less dissatisfied with
longer waiting times. This second explanation
is apparently the more dominant influence at
any given location. Weekend customers, as was
anticipated, tended to be less dissatisfied with
longer waiting times, as is seen in Figure 3.
Similarly, as is noted in Figure 4, suburban
customers tended to be less dissatisfied with
longer waiting times than were downtown
customers. Again, the relative relationship
between suburban and downtown customers
was initially anticipated.
Other Factors Influencing Waiting
Time/Satisfaction Relationship
Although it is clear that time of day and
store location significantly affect the
relationship between customer satisfaction and
66
waiting time, subsequent analysis was
conducted to provide additional insight into
the underlying reasons as to how and why this
relationship is affected.
Additional data were collected in the.
questionnaire regarding customer
activities/locations before and after visiting the
fast food restaurant. These activities/locations
included: Shopping; At Work/School; At
Home; Out for a Walk/Drive; Doing Errands;
and Visiting Friends/Relatives.
Only the At Work/School activity
significantly affected the relationship between
waiting time and customer satisfaction in both
the before and after activities. Customers in
this category tended to be more impatient than
other customers, as might be anticipated.
A substantially greater percentage of
customers at the downtown location fell into
the At Work/School category. Thus the impact
 A FRAMEWORK FOR RELATING WAITING TIME AND CUSTOMER SATISFACTION
of location on customer satisfaction can
probably be attributed to a specific customer
characteristic that can be associated with
particular locations.
Analysis was also performed on another set
of customer characteristics to determine their
influence on waiting time and customer
satisfaction. These characteristics included:
Any Children in the Party; Special Order
Requests; Sales Volume during Customer's
Visit; and Whether or Not the Customer was
Eating Alone.
Only the store's Sales Volume, which
reflected how busy the store was during the
customer's visit, had a significant effect on
customer satisfaction, with satisfaction
increasing as the store became busier. Thus, as
was suggested previously, customers can better
justify their waits during busy periods.
To further illustrate the impact of these
factors on the relationship between waiting
time and satisfaction, Table 1 provides the
waiting times calculated from the fast food
example that yield the same level of customer
service (i.e., customer satisfaction) for different
times of the day, days of the week, and
location (suburban versus downtown). As can
be seen, the manager in a suburban location
would provide constant customer service
levels by varying the expected waiting times
from a low of 1.60 minutes to a high of 5.44
minutes (240 percent). There is less variation
for the downtown location, where the waiting
times should vary from 2.54 to 3.49 minutes
(37 percent).
The difference between the two locations
means that the suburban manager has greater
potential to vary the waiting times required
by the customer. Accordingly, this manager
has more latitude in deciding when and how
to deploy workers. This decision would
relate in some degree to shift scheduling, but
to a larger degree in deciding when to deploy
workers to service the customers versus the
alternative types of work required, such as
restocking and cleaning.
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 THE JOURNAL OF SERVICES MARKETING
Table 1
Waiting Times That Provide a Constant Level of Customer Service
Waiting Time (in Minutes)
Suburban
Time Period Weekdays Weekends
Lunch 4.34 5.44
Slack 2.21 2.61
Dinner 2.82 1.60
Managerial Implications and
Recommendations
The results of the foregoing analyses lead to
several major c o n c l u s i o n s about the
relationship between customer satisfaction and
waiting time.
The stated p r a c t i c e in most service
operations is to provide a constant level of
customer service, but that statement is made in
terms of providing a constant waiting time,
such as three minutes. The implications of this
research are that the service manager should be
providing a constant level of customer service
in terms of customer satisfaction, which may
r e s u l t in a v a r i a b l e w a i t i n g t i m e t h a t is
situationally dependent.
The service manager should be
providing a constant level of
customer service in terms of
customer satisfaction.
Although this specific study addressed
waiting time in a fast food operation, the
framework for relating customer satisfaction to
w a i t i n g time can be a p p l i c a b l e to other
operational parameters in a variety of services.
The first step, for the manager, in applying
this framework to his or her firm is to identify
the potential factors that might influence the
relationship between customer satisfaction and
the parameter of interest. This list of factors
can be developed through interviews with
workers, customers, and managers within the
68
Downtown
Weekdays Weekends
3.49 3.12
2.60 2.94
2.54 2.88
industry. Next, a customer survey is designed
that includes measures of customer satisfaction
at various factor levels. After the survey is fine-
tuned, it is administered to customers under a
variety of operational conditions, and these
conditions are specifically noted. Finally, as in
the fast food example described, measures of
satisfaction w i t h a p a r t i c u l a r o p e r a t i o n a l
characteristic are obtained, and any factors that
affect c u s t o m e r satisfaction w i t h t h a t
parameter are identified.
Thus, this framework can be extended to the
d e v e l o p m e n t of r e l a t i o n s h i p s b e t w e e n
customer satisfaction and any operational
parameter of interest. With this approach the
manager can identify those variables unique to
his or her operation that affect the relationship
between customer satisfaction and specific
o p e r a t i o n a l p a r a m e t e r s , such as speed of
s e r v i c e . T h i s m o d e l a n d its a s s o c i a t e d
methodology can readily be a d a p t e d to a
variety of service o p e r a t i o n s , i n c l u d i n g
restaurants, retail stores, supermarkets, and
banks. It also need not be limited to only one
operational parameter, as was the case with
this research.
We have presented a framework and related
m o d e l for i n t e g r a t i n g t h e m a r k e t i n g and
operational m a n a g e m e n t v i e w p o i n t s in a
service firm, with the goal of obtaining a
higher objective function t h a n w o u l d be
possible if only one functional perspective
were considered. Of course there are many
difficulties associated with obtaining a valid
measure of customer satisfaction, because of
internal and external satisfaction cues. These
cues relate to the highly subjective, personal
 A FRAMEWORK FOR RELATING WAITING TIME AND CUSTOMER SATISFACTION

issues and expectations of each customer,
w h i c h often affect a c u s t o m e r ' s level of
satisfaction d r a m a t i c a l l y , even w h e n the
operational parameters of the service firm are
constant. Consequently, substantial primary
data are needed to utilize this model properly,
and if not available, they are expensive to
obtain. In addition, skillful research methods
are r e q u i r e d , e s p e c i a l l y in t h e area of
m e a s u r i n g c u s t o m e r satisfaction (for t h e
reasons stated above), and these too are often
costly. However, those firms large enough to
justify the expense, and willing to invest the
necessary resources, will improve their
understanding of their customers' preference
characteristics and the factors that affect them.
Customer satisfaction is the link between
today's operating decisions by the service
manager and future profits resulting from
repeat b u s i n e s s . Satisfied customers will
continue to frequent an establishment, while
dissatisfied customers will eventually take
their business elsewhere. With the framework
presented here, service firms can develop
cost/benefit models that relate the cost of
improving customer satisfaction today with the
profits from repeat future b u s i n e s s . This
additional knowledge will enable these firms
to efficiently design service facilities that
p r o v i d e customers w i t h a higher level of
satisfaction at the same cost, thereby achieving
a competitive advantage in the marketplace.

End Notes
1. "The American Consumer," Restaurant Business, May 1982.
2. Bearden, W. O., and J. E. Teele, "Selected Determinants of Consumer Satisfaction and
Complaint Reports," Journal of Marketing Research, vol. 20, February 1983.
3. Chase, R. B., G. B. Northcraft, and G. Wolf, "Designing High-Contact Service Systems:
Applications to Branches of a Savings and Loan," Decision Sciences, vol. 15, no. 4, Fall
1984.
4. Churchill, G. A., Jr., and C. Suprenant, "An Investigation into the Determinants of Customer
Satisfaction," Journal of Marketing Research, vol. 19, November 1982.
5. Davis, M. M., et al., "An Evaluation of the New 'Multi-Restaurant,' Food Service System for
the Marine Corps," Technical Report No. TR-81-023, U.S. Army Natick R&D Laboratories,
Natick, MA, July 1980.
6. Day, R. L. and E. L. Landon, "Toward a Theory of Consumer Complaining Behavior,"
Consumer and Industrial Buying Behavior, ed A. G. Woodside, J. N. Sheth, and P. D. Bennett.
New York: North-Holland, 1977.
7. McDonald's Corp., Market Research Study, 1976.
8. Miller, J. G., and M. B, W. Graham, "Production/Operations Management: Agenda for the
'80's," Decision Sciences, vol. 12, no. 3, 1982.
9. National Restaurant Association, Consumer Expectations with Regard to Dining at Fast Food
Restaurants, September 1983.
10. Oliver, R. L., "A Cognitive Model of the Antecedents and Consequences of Satisfaction
Decisions," Journal of Marketing Research, vol. 17, November 1980.
11. Siebold, J. R., et al., "Consumers' and Workers' Opinions of a Proposed Cash Food System:
NAS Alameda," Technical Report No. TR-76-9-FSL, U.S. Army Natick Development Center,
Natick, MA, August 1975.
12. Sullivan, R. S., "The Service Sector: Challenges and Imperatives for Research in Operations
Management," Journal of Operations Management, vol. 2, no. 4, August 1982.

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