Impact of process change on customer perception of waiting time: a field study

Studies in process change have focused on the improvement of operational performance measures such as the actual waiting time of a service system. However, process redesign may not only change the actual waiting time but also have significant impact on perceived waiting time. We examine how process changes affect customer perceptions on waiting and customer satisfaction. We describe a field study in which customer waiting times, both actual and perceived, were measured and compared before and after a process change. Our results show that process changes can have significant impact on customer perception of waiting time as well as the actual waiting time. This study illustrates the benefit of piloting a proposed process change and measuring key process performance and customer assessment prior to implementation.