Customer Behavior Analysis in Ticket Windows at Scenic Spots from Game-Theoretic Perspective

In service industries, especially in some ticket windows at scenic spots, affected by congestion, some customers often find excuses or ask the acquaintances in the queue so as to jump the queue and complete their corresponding service as early as possible. In this paper, we model the queueing phenomenon in the ticket windows at scenic spots as a special queue, namely, the so-called “team queue.” Although this phenomenon often happens in daily life, it is less well known to people. In a team queue, an arriving customer first searches the queue from the top to bottom to see if some of his teammates are already in the queue. If yes, he would join the queue and be served with his teammates; otherwise, he would join the queue at the tail. To this end, arising from the customers’ perspective, the strategic behavior of queueing customers in the ticket windows at scenic spots is analyzed. On the basis of considering the waiting cost and reward, the individual strategies and social optimal strategies of queueing customers are derived, regarding the joining or balking dilemma and for the observable and unobservable cases. Finally, to demonstrate how various parameters affect the joining strategies, some numerical examples are provided.

Exploring the Relationship Between Hedonism, Tourist Experience, and Revisit Intention in Entertainment Destination

Understanding consumers’ psychology and revisit intentions are important to destination management. Few studies explored how hedonism affected on tourists’ experience and revisit intention. This study analyzes the relationship among hedonism, tourism experience, and revisit intention in Macau from the customers’ perspective. The findings show that there are direct and positive relationships between hedonism and revisit intention. This study draws the attention of applying hedonism to entertainment tourism to increase tourist revisit intention. Implications and suggestions for entertainment providers and tourism planners are provided.

Service quality, loyalty, and co-creation behaviour: a customer perspective

Purpose This paper aims to verify co-creation behavior and understand a relationship between perception of service quality, loyalty and co-creation, from Starbucks customers' perspective. Design/methodology/approach A quantitative methodology was carried out, operationalized by applying a questionnaire to a sample of 385 respondents. Findings The results showed that service quality has a positive impact on loyalty and co-creation behavior in all its aspects; loyalty can be considered an important attribute in the intention of co-creation by customers. Originality/value This research extends the current knowledge on the subject and examines the associations between other attributes discussed. The implications of the study suggest strategic directions for using the clients' co-creation as a competitive alternative and generating value.

Who will pay for customers' fault? Workplace cheating behavior, interpersonal conflict and traditionality

PurposeDespite workplace cheating behavior is common and costly, little research has explored its antecedents from customers' perspective. The current study aims to investigate the indirect mechanisms between customer mistreatment and cheating behavior, and exam the moderated role of traditionality.Design/methodology/approachDrawing on conservation of resources theory, the authors examine how customer mistreatment affects workplace cheating behavior. They test their hypotheses using a time-lagged field study of 183 employees.FindingsThe results show that customer mistreatment is positively related to interpersonal conflict with customers, which positively affects workplace cheating behavior. Traditionality moderates the indirect effect of customer mistreatment on workplace cheating behavior.Originality/valueThis study calls for researchers' attention to exploring the antecedents of workplace cheating behavior from customers' perspective, and first provides empirical evidence on the relationship between customer mistreatment and workplace cheating behavior, which has never been examined.

Discount Schemes for the Preemptible Service of a Cloud Platform with Unutilized Capacity

Rapid growth in the cloud industry not only provides tremendous opportunities to cloud providers who have invested heavily in computing capacities, but also leads to low utilization of capacities at times. To alleviate this problem, some providers have launched a low-priority service with the so-called preemptible or spot instances, which allows them to reclaim capacities when necessary. This study focuses on an emerging market segment of customers with fault-tolerant computing jobs, who are the potential users of the preemptible instances. Through an analytical model that captures the underlying supply-demand dynamics, we examine a prevalent discount scheme, which provides all users the same discount, and its impact on key performance measures. Having realized that this is a relatively new market segment and there is room for improvement in discount-scheme designs, we propose an interruption-based discount scheme, which provides compensation to users based on the frequency of interruptions encountered by each of them. Our study suggests that the proposed scheme is fairer than the prevalent scheme from the customers’ perspective and that, in the presence of risk-averse customers, the cloud provider could be better off by adopting the proposed scheme when the supply of the surplus capacity is highly uncertain.

Counseling Practices of Pharmacists at Medical Stores/Pharmacies in Karachi Pakistan

Introduction: Dispensing medicines means delivering complete knowledge about the medicine being dispensed to that patient. Patient’s counseling regarding their medications play a very important role to achieve the high efficacy and proper constancy on therapy. The aim of the study was to evaluate the counseling practices of pharmacist from customers’ perspective. Methodology: This was a descriptive cross sectional study, conducted among who were selected at random at pharmacies/ medical stores, while purchasing medications for them and/or for their loved ones. The study finally included 365 patients or attendants of the patients. The data obtained were analyzed using appropriate statistical analysis through SPPS version 25. Results: 289 (81.37%) patients were counseled when they purchased antibiotics about the completion of the therapy and to take the doses timely. Only 4 patients were told about missing a dose. Conclusion: There were different results of candidates majority of them were satisfied with on-going pharmacy service but some were not. Candidates also told about the lack of information given by the health care professional /pharmacist prior to dispensing.

The Impact of Social Networking on Customer Loyalty in an Emerging E-Market Context

The aim of this study was to understand the impact of social networking on customer loyalty from the customers’ perspective in an emerging e-market such as Pakistan, where social media penetration is still at an early stage, but is growing rapidly. The planned sample size is 100 respondents. The primary data were collected by distributing questionnaires among general public in Lahore, Pakistan from December 2016 to January 2017. The data collected were analysed using cross tabs in SPSS. The secondary data collected by analysing literature in the libraries, online journals, and published papers. Seventy four percent of the respondents agreed that website interface was of utmost importance, followed by sixty-seven percent saying that convenience of online shopping and the availability of product information are also of great importance. The findings suggest that social networking does influence the customer loyalty greatly.

DIVERSITY MANAGEMENT AND SERVICE DELIVERY IN THE NIGERIA AIRLINE INDUSTRY: A CUSTOMERS PERSPECTIVE

This study sought to assess the effect of diversity management on service delivery in the Nigeria aviation industry from a customers’ perspective due to the observed problem of increasing customer complaints and migration. The study was restricted to customers of the aviation industry in Abuja Nigeria who served as the population of the study. The study adopted the survey research design while multiple regression technique was used to analyze the primary data collected for the study through a structured questionnaire. From a purposefully selected sample of 384 respondents, the study found that age diversity and gender diversity both have a positive and significant effect on service delivery in the Nigerian Aviation Industry. The study therefore recommends that the management of the aviation companies should make concerted efforts towards optimally managing the diversity of their workforce with a good blend of male and female across the younger and older generations in order to maximize service delivery outcomes for the companies and boost performance ultimately.

New insights in online fashion retail returns from a customers’ perspective and their dynamics

Returns are an inconvenient problem in the mail-order business, not only for the merchant but also for the customer. With an estimated return rate of 50% in the fashion sector, the seller has to deal with the expense of restocking and possibly reprocessing, the buyer, who must reship the return, and the environment. We do not consider returns to be generally bad, but rather an explicit, integral part of the online business model. Therefore, we investigate potentially suitable measures to avert or avoid returns in the pre-purchase, purchase, and post-purchase phases. We look at current and technological developments in return management and the most critical drivers for fashion assortment returns. The measures we investigate deliver a holistic view of the issue and target all three purchase phases. The resulting measures were assessed via an online questionnaire with 8393 participants (customers of a German fashion online retailer) to impact customer satisfaction using Kano’s method. There are clear measures that promise high customer satisfaction (such as 360° view) and a clear hierarchy regarding monetary and non-monetary measures. By applying a new method, the segmented Kano perspective, we found different customer segments, which are different in their expectations towards returns. That allowed us to conclude dynamics regarding return management. This assessment is followed by discussing the results, conclusions, and indications for further research fields.

Hygienic conditions in Quick Service Restaurants during Covid-19 Pandemic: A Customers Perspectives

COVID-19 crisis has hit many QSRs hard. There are numerous problems which are faced by these restaurants due to the high competition in the market. Nowadays, there is an even major problem to be faced in the food industry, which is Coronavirus pandemic. It has a disastrous effect on the food industry. There have been dramatic declines in sales for many Quick Service Restaurants. Some of them have permanently closed their doors. The aim of this research is to examine the hygiene and health conditions in quick service restaurants (QSRs) from customers perspective during Covid-19 Pandemic with a specific focus on international chains in Egypt. Moreover, examining QSR’ customers information about COVID-19. In order to achieve this aim, a questionnaire was designed and distributed to a convenience sample of QSR’s customers in order to illustrate to what extent QSR chains are maintain the proper hygienic and health conditions during pandemic. The results interestingly showed that QSRsgoers are moderately satisfied with the hygienic procedures that maintained in these chains. In this regard, it is recommended that QSR chains should struggle to increase the level of their customers satisfaction regarding this subject e.g., provision of disinfection materials, wearing and providing protective face masks, gloves, and disposable cutlery and paper cups.