Journal of Emerging Trends in Economics and Management Sciences: Home

Article Title:
Critical Assessment of Balking and Service Abandonment in Waiting Environments: Causes, Costs, and Cures
by Henry Ataburo, Emmanuel Kwabena Anin and Dominic Essuman

Abstract:
Queueing is still and will be an undesirable, yet inevitable portion of services to which both business owners and customers are not immune to its spew; and would always want to avoid. The purpose of this paper is to meticulously re-examine the causes of waiting 'lines' balking and abandonment, and their consequences in the service environment. The discussions herein revealed that several causes aside customer specific personality dispositions, such as: new customers, a contactless service, extent of customer involvement in delivery process, urgency of the service, service ambience, individual waits, and available substitutes, are factors that frequently breedbalking and abandonment in service queues. The cost of waiting in most cases has been discussed synonymous to 'the cost of poor quality' in this paper, as direct and significant to the service provider as much as to the customer, and a spill over effect on the economy as a whole. The consequential effect of balking and abandonment could be ferocious in services and can lead to bad word of mouth, self-provider of the service (the customer as a competitor), and even loss of the service. The paper suggested that effective capacity management, demand management strategies, and modern technologies should be adopted in managing service operations in a continuous manner as a means for managing waiting lines since it is a win-win situation for both the provider and customer. The originality of this paper lies in new insights to the neglected and hidden costs of waiting lines. Also, the suggested combination of queuing analysis with capacity and demand management strategies as well as process improvement strategies are altogether invaluable directions for practitioners and researchers. The paper, finally, is an immense contribution to literature in the field of operations management and operations research from a new perspective.

Keywords: service, waiting, balking, abandonment, causes, costs, cures

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