IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/popmgt/v32y2023i10p3246-3265.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Customer segmentation and ex ante fairness: A queueing perspective

Author

Listed:
  • Jian Liu
  • Yong‐Pin Zhou
  • Jian Chen

Abstract

In this study, we analyze how customer perceptions of ex ante unfairness affect a service provider that offers a priority service option. Customers differ in their waiting time costs, but that information is private to each customer. To address this issue and maximize revenue, the service provider offers a regular queue and a priority queue with an additional fee, thereby inducing the self‐selection of customers into those two queues. The customers make their service‐joining decision, based on the publicized queue terms, before entering the queue. In such a service system, the priority customers pay to reduce their waiting time, which increases the average waiting time for regular customers, as compared with a “first come, first served” (FCFS) queue. This increase in the waiting time can lead to a perception of unfairness by the regular customers. In this paper, we model this ex ante unfairness perception as a negative utility for the regular customers that is proportional to the difference in the expected waiting times between the segmented regular queue and a nonsegmented FCFS queueing system and investigate the service provider's optimal decisions regarding segmentation and pricing. We find that, in a service system where customers can balk, the service provider should focus on only one service offering through a lower priority fee or differentiated services under certain conditions and charge a higher priority fee once the perception of unfairness is taken into consideration. An equilibrium sensitivity study provides guidance on how best to design, construct, and operate queues. Finally, we examine two extension cases in which (1) the customer ex ante unfairness perception is defined as proportional to the waiting time difference between regular and priority queues or (2) priority customers exhibit either a “negative ex ante unfairness perception” or “positive ex ante unfairness perception” of queueing. Our results are robust, and we identify conditions under which a heightened unfairness perception could be beneficial or detrimental to the service provider.

Suggested Citation

  • Jian Liu & Yong‐Pin Zhou & Jian Chen, 2023. "Customer segmentation and ex ante fairness: A queueing perspective," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 32(10), pages 3246-3265, October.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:popmgt:v:32:y:2023:i:10:p:3246-3265
    DOI: 10.1111/poms.14033
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/poms.14033
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/poms.14033?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Botond Kőszegi & Matthew Rabin, 2006. "A Model of Reference-Dependent Preferences," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(4), pages 1133-1165.
    2. Ernst Fehr & Klaus M. Schmidt, 1999. "A Theory of Fairness, Competition, and Cooperation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(3), pages 817-868.
    3. Maxime C. Cohen & Adam N. Elmachtoub & Xiao Lei, 2022. "Price Discrimination with Fairness Constraints," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(12), pages 8536-8552, December.
    4. Ingvild Almås & Alexander W. Cappelen & Bertil Tungodden, 2020. "Cutthroat Capitalism versus Cuddly Socialism: Are Americans More Meritocratic and Efficiency-Seeking than Scandinavians?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(5), pages 1753-1788.
    5. Johannes Abeler & Armin Falk & Lorenz Goette & David Huffman, 2011. "Reference Points and Effort Provision," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(2), pages 470-492, April.
    6. Jianfu Wang & Opher Baron & Alan Scheller-Wolf, 2015. "M/M/c Queue with Two Priority Classes," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 63(3), pages 733-749, June.
    7. Lindsley G. Boiney, 1995. "When Efficient Is Insufficient: Fairness in Decisions Affecting a Group," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 41(9), pages 1523-1537, September.
    8. Kahneman, Daniel & Knetsch, Jack L & Thaler, Richard H, 1986. "Fairness and the Assumptions of Economics," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 59(4), pages 285-300, October.
    9. Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky, 2013. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 6, pages 99-127, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    10. Alexander W. Cappelen & Astri Drange Hole & Erik Ø Sørensen & Bertil Tungodden, 2007. "The Pluralism of Fairness Ideals: An Experimental Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(3), pages 818-827, June.
    11. Philipp Afèche & Opher Baron & Joseph Milner & Ricky Roet-Green, 2019. "Pricing and Prioritizing Time-Sensitive Customers with Heterogeneous Demand Rates," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 67(4), pages 1184-1208, July.
    12. Alexander, Matthew & MacLaren, Andrew & O’Gorman, Kevin & White, Christopher, 2012. "Priority queues: Where social justice and equity collide," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 875-884.
    13. Luyi Yang & Laurens Debo & Varun Gupta, 2017. "Trading Time in a Congested Environment," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(7), pages 2377-2395, July.
    14. Bin Miao & Songfa Zhong, 2018. "Probabilistic social preference: how Machina’s Mom randomizes her choice," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 65(1), pages 1-24, January.
    15. Ziv Carmon & J. George Shanthikumar & Tali F. Carmon, 1995. "A Psychological Perspective on Service Segmentation Models: The Significance of Accounting for Consumers' Perceptions of Waiting and Service," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 41(11), pages 1806-1815, November.
    16. Michal Krawczyk & Fabrice Le Lec, 2010. "‘Give me a chance!’ An experiment in social decision under risk," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 13(4), pages 500-511, December.
    17. Jesper Breinbjerg & Alexander Sebald & Lars Peter Østerdal, 2016. "Strategic behavior and social outcomes in a bottleneck queue: experimental evidence," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 20(3), pages 207-236, September.
    18. Richard C. Larson, 1987. "OR Forum—Perspectives on Queues: Social Justice and the Psychology of Queueing," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 35(6), pages 895-905, December.
    19. Chenguang (Allen) Wu & Chen Jin & Senthil Veeraraghavan, 2023. "Designing professional services: Pricing and prioritization," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 32(8), pages 2578-2595, August.
    20. Noah Gans & Ger Koole & Avishai Mandelbaum, 2003. "Telephone Call Centers: Tutorial, Review, and Research Prospects," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 5(2), pages 79-141, September.
    21. Krista J. Li & Sanjay Jain, 2016. "Behavior-Based Pricing: An Analysis of the Impact of Peer-Induced Fairness," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(9), pages 2705-2721, September.
    22. Amy R. Ward & Mor Armony, 2013. "Blind Fair Routing in Large-Scale Service Systems with Heterogeneous Customers and Servers," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 61(1), pages 228-243, February.
    23. Hongyan Shi & Yunchuan Liu & Nicholas C. Petruzzi, 2013. "Consumer Heterogeneity, Product Quality, and Distribution Channels," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 59(5), pages 1162-1176, May.
    24. Xin Geng & Woonghee Tim Huh & Mahesh Nagarajan, 2015. "Fairness Among Servers When Capacity Decisions Are Endogenous," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 24(6), pages 961-974, June.
    25. Hang Ren & Tingliang Huang & Kenan Arifoglu, 2018. "Managing Service Systems with Unknown Quality and Customer Anecdotal Reasoning," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 27(6), pages 1038-1051, June.
    26. Masha Shunko & Julie Niederhoff & Yaroslav Rosokha, 2018. "Humans Are Not Machines: The Behavioral Impact of Queueing Design on Service Time," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(1), pages 453-473, January.
    27. Axel Ockenfels & Gary E. Bolton, 2000. "ERC: A Theory of Equity, Reciprocity, and Competition," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(1), pages 166-193, March.
    28. Rabin, Matthew, 1993. "Incorporating Fairness into Game Theory and Economics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(5), pages 1281-1302, December.
    29. Tony Haitao Cui & Jagmohan S. Raju & Z. John Zhang, 2007. "Fairness and Channel Coordination," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 53(8), pages 1303-1314, August.
    30. Philipp Afèche & J. Michael Pavlin, 2016. "Optimal Price/Lead-Time Menus for Queues with Customer Choice: Segmentation, Pooling, and Strategic Delay," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(8), pages 2412-2436, August.
    31. Xiaole Wu & Julie A. Niederhoff, 2014. "Fairness in Selling to the Newsvendor," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 23(11), pages 2002-2022, November.
    32. J. Michelle Brock & Andreas Lange & Erkut Y. Ozbay, 2013. "Dictating the Risk: Experimental Evidence on Giving in Risky Environments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(1), pages 415-437, February.
    33. Jingqi Wang & Yong-Pin Zhou, 2018. "Impact of Queue Configuration on Service Time: Evidence from a Supermarket," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(7), pages 3055-3075, July.
    34. David Rea & Craig Froehle & Suzanne Masterson & Brian Stettler & Gregory Fermann & Arthur Pancioli, 2021. "Unequal but Fair: Incorporating Distributive Justice in Operational Allocation Models," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 30(7), pages 2304-2320, July.
    35. Liyin Jin & Yanqun He & Ying Zhang, 2014. "How Power States Influence Consumers' Perceptions of Price Unfairness," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 40(5), pages 818-833.
    36. Laurens G. Debo & Christine Parlour & Uday Rajan, 2012. "Signaling Quality via Queues," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(5), pages 876-891, May.
    37. Itai Gurvich & Martin A. Lariviere & Can Ozkan, 2019. "Coverage, Coarseness, and Classification: Determinants of Social Efficiency in Priority Queues," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(3), pages 1061-1075, March.
    38. James Konow, 2000. "Fair Shares: Accountability and Cognitive Dissonance in Allocation Decisions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(4), pages 1072-1091, September.
    39. Costis Maglaras & John Yao & Assaf Zeevi, 2018. "Optimal Price and Delay Differentiation in Large-Scale Queueing Systems," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(5), pages 2427-2444, May.
    40. Robert J. Batt & Christian Terwiesch, 2015. "Waiting Patiently: An Empirical Study of Queue Abandonment in an Emergency Department," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 61(1), pages 39-59, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Breitmoser, Yves & Vorjohann, Pauline, 2018. "Welfare-Based Altruism," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 89, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    2. Nickolas Gagnon & Riccardo D. Saulle & Henrik W. Zaunbrecher, 2021. "Decreasing Incomes Increase Selfishness," Papers 2107.02888, arXiv.org.
    3. Liu, Jian & Chen, Jian & Bo, Rui & Meng, Fanlin & Xu, Yong & Li, Peng, 2023. "Increases or discounts: Price strategies based on customers’ patience times," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 305(2), pages 722-737.
    4. Gill, David & Stone, Rebecca, 2015. "Desert and inequity aversion in teams," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 42-54.
    5. Gill, David & Stone, Rebecca, 2010. "Fairness and desert in tournaments," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 69(2), pages 346-364, July.
    6. Benistant, Julien & Suchon, Rémi, 2021. "It does (not) get better: Reference income violation and altruism," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    7. Jacobs Martin, 2016. "Accounting for Changing Tastes: Approaches to Explaining Unstable Individual Preferences," Review of Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 67(2), pages 121-183, August.
    8. Julien Benistant & Remi Suchon, 2020. "It Does (not) Get Better: Expected Income Violation and Altruism," Working Papers ECARES 2020-35, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    9. Wei, Lin & Chen, Menghan & Du, Shaofu & Zhang, Baofeng, 2022. "By-state fairness in selling to the newsvendor," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).
    10. Gill, David & Stone, Rebecca, 2009. "Fairness and desert in tournaments," Discussion Paper Series In Economics And Econometrics 903, Economics Division, School of Social Sciences, University of Southampton.
    11. Elena Cettolin & Arno Riedl & Giang Tran, 2017. "Giving in the face of risk," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 55(2), pages 95-118, December.
    12. Riccardo Ghidoni & Matteo Ploner, 2021. "When do the expectations of others matter? Experimental evidence on distributional justice and guilt aversion," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 91(2), pages 189-234, September.
    13. Cappelen, Alexander W. & de Haan, Thomas & Tungodden, Bertil, 2024. "Fairness and limited information: Are people Bayesian meritocrats?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 233(C).
    14. Dorian Jullien, 2016. "Under Uncertainty, Over Time and Regarding Other People: Rationality in 3D," GREDEG Working Papers 2016-20, Groupe de REcherche en Droit, Economie, Gestion (GREDEG CNRS), Université Côte d'Azur, France.
    15. Emin Karagözoğlu & Elif Tosun, 2022. "Endogenous Game Choice and Giving Behavior in Distribution Games," Games, MDPI, vol. 13(6), pages 1-32, November.
    16. Hernán Bejarano & Joris Gillet & Ismael Rodriguez‐Lara, 2018. "Do Negative Random Shocks Affect Trust and Trustworthiness?," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 85(2), pages 563-579, October.
    17. Daniel Müller & Sander Renes, 2021. "Fairness views and political preferences: evidence from a large and heterogeneous sample," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 56(4), pages 679-711, May.
    18. Sean Fahle & Santiago I. Sautua, 2021. "How do risk attitudes affect pro-social behavior? Theory and experiment," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 91(1), pages 101-122, July.
    19. Grimalday, Gianluca & Karz, Anirban & Proto, Eugenio, 2012. "Everyone Wants a Chance: Initial Positions and Fairness in Ultimatum Games," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 93, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    20. Chen, Daniel L., 2016. "Tastes for Desert and Placation: A Reference Point-Dependent Model of Social Preferences," IAST Working Papers 16-60, Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse (IAST).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:popmgt:v:32:y:2023:i:10:p:3246-3265. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1937-5956 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.