Hybrid modeling methodology for integrating customers’ behaviors into system simulation to improve service operations management

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Service quality is significant for improving customer satisfaction and enhancing competitive advantages of service business. Due to the dynamic nature of service activities, system simulation has become popular for researching service operations management during the past few years. However, most previous studies about service operations system simulation use only one single modeling paradigm, making it still challenging for exploring individual consumers’ behaviors and evaluating the relative efficiency of different alternative strategies for service operations improvement. In this context, a hybrid modeling methodology framework is proposed in this study for integrating customers’ behaviors into service operations system simulation. Specifically, we designed an algorithm for simulating consumers’ behavioral decisions based on cognitive psychology. And then, individual consumer's decision behavior was modeled as an agent, and integrated into a hybrid simulation model developed based on DES (Discrete Event Simulation) coupled with ABS (Agent-Based Simulation) paradigms. Moreover, we involve cost-benefit analysis for further exploring different alternative operation improvement strategies based on simulation experiments. We then design and implement a prototype simulator based on the methodology framework and apply it in a real case study to demonstrate its functionalities and utility. The results successfully obtained indicates that reducing the reserved customers’ numbers blindly cannot always improve customers’ satisfaction, and improving the service quality to all customers is thus necessary, rather than being concerned with only the satisfactions of reserved (VIP) customers. The findings also reveal the dynamic influence mechanism of service intervention time to giving-up customers’ numbers, indicating a promising future for applying the methodology framework in improving service quality and customer satisfaction. This work offers new perspectives and valuable demonstration on promoting future strategic researches about service operations management improvement with the integration of customers’ behaviors and service operations system simulation though emerging hybrid modeling paradigm.