Wait for service and customer specific service outcomes: a meta-analysis

Abstract

The impact of waiting for service, a very common incident in the service business, on the customer-related service outcomes is very important to service managers for ensuring better business performance. The current article gives an extensive review of all such empirical articles studying the above relationship and does a meta-analysis to find the effect size of such a relationship. The sample consists of 44 empirical studies. In the review three major dependent variables, namely service quality evaluation, satisfaction of customers and affective and behavioral response, were found to be effected by various independent variables, which can be categorized in three major types such as external, internal and controllable situational variables. The review has detected the temporal pattern and the usage of major theories and methodologies in the past studies. The results of the meta-analysis show that the service delay has a significant negative impact on satisfaction, but non-significant negative impact on service quality. The interpretations of the results, the managerial implications of the knowledge accumulated and future research directions are discussed.