Customer Balking Research Articles

Should Charging Stations Provide Service for Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicles During Holidays?

The development of the new energy vehicle (NEV) market in China has promoted the sustainability of the automotive industry, but has also brought pressures to NEV charging infrastructure. This paper aims to determine the strategic role of charging stations, particularly on whether they should provide service for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) in the highway service area during peak holidays. Firstly, the charging service resource allocation for a charging station that provides services for both electronic vehicles (EVs) and PHEVs is studied. Secondly, different queueing disciplines are compared. At last, a comparison between scenarios where charging services are limited to EVs and those where services extend to both EVs and PHEVs is conducted. A queueing system considering customer balking and reneging is developed. The impacts of parameters, such as the NEV arrival rate and patience degree of different NEV drivers, on the optimal allocation plan, profit, and comparison results are discussed. The main conclusions are as follows: (1) If the EV arrival rate is greater than the charging service rate, the charging station should not provide charging services for PHEVs. Providing service only for EVs derives more revenues and profits and results in a shorter waiting queue. Conversely, if the total arrival rate of NEVs (including EVs and PHEVs) is lower than the charging service rate, then the charging station should also serve PHEVs. (2) If providing service for PHEVs, a mixed queueing discipline should be applied when the total arrival rate approximates the service rate. When the total NEV arrival rate is significantly lower than the charging service rate, the separate queueing discipline should be adopted. (3) When applying a separate queueing discipline, if a certain type of NEV has a higher arrival rate and the drivers exhibit greater patience, then more charging resources should be allocated to this type of NEV. If the charging service is less busy, the more patient the drivers are, the less service resources should be allocated to them, whereas, during peak times, the more patient the drivers are, the more service resources should be allocated to them.

Reengineering professional services through automation, remote outsourcing, and task delegation

AbstractDigital technology has enabled significant productivity gains in many industries. Manufacturers have benefited from robotics, and service businesses have benefited from self‐service technologies. An area that has seen only meager productivity gains is professional services, such as healthcare, consulting, legal services, and higher education. Despite the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) and other new technologies, professional services continue to be labor intensive with high labor costs. In 2021, Sampson published an empirically‐based framework suggesting that emerging technologies would allow professional services to improve productivity by automating some tasks with self‐service technologies, outsourcing some tasks to remote professionals, and delegating some tasks to semiprofessional workers. The underlying theory was that this restructuring hinges on the creative and interpersonal skill requirements of various tasks. Our research builds on Sampson's framework by modeling a professional service operation and studying the influence of task offloading on costs and quality. Our model involves discrete event simulation parameterized by empirical data. We consider labor costs, managerial costs, delay costs (including customer balking), and assessment costs. Results show contexts wherein increased task offloading can reduce costs with negligible impact on quality, suggesting great opportunities for reengineering professional services through increased automation, offshore outsourcing, and task delegation.

Managing customer contact centers with delay announcements and automated service

This article presents a study of the queueing system resulting from the service of customers in a generic customer contact center that has both automated service and traditional human agent service. Contact center managers would prefer customers use the provided automated service to reduce average customer queuing time as well as staffing costs of required human agent service agents. However, forcing customers to use automated service may lead to customer dissatisfaction. In this study, we propose to increase the use of automated service by using delay announcements as a tool to help guide customers to use automated service who would otherwise have chosen agent service. We present a stochastic optimization formulation to determine the optimal staffing level and delay announcement policy, with an objective to minimize staffing cost, customer balking, and reneging penalty. Closed-form solutions are derived using a fluid approximation, and the asymptotic optimality of the solutions is established. The obtained optimal policies are demonstrated by numerical experiments. A key managerial insight is that with automated service, the optimal delay announcement policy no longer satisfies the well-known information-consistent balking property for a customer contact center using delay announcement without automated service. Instead, there is a new equilibrium delay policy that uses an “extreme positive bias” to reduce the length of the queue for human agent service to zero.

Analysis of Markovian Queuing Model with Two Phase of Services, Single and Multiple Working Vacations and Customer Balking

Analysis of Markovian Queuing Model with Two Phase of Services, Single and Multiple Working Vacations and Customer Balking

Comparisons of customer balking behavior in observable queues with N policies and geometric abandonments

ABSTRACT This paper studies and compares customer balking behavior in some single-server observable queues with N policies and geometric abandonments. We focus on two types of N policies: the classic one and the modified one. Under the classic N policy, the server begins to take a vacation period as soon as the system becomes empty until there are N customers in the queue. On the other hand, under the modified N policy, the server takes multiple vacations until at least N customers are waiting in the queue when a vacation time ends. Abandonment opportunities occur during a whole vacation period, and customers decide independently and sequentially whether to renege. Comparing the two types of N policies, we realize that the residual time of the server's last vacation under the modified N policy indeed inhibits customers joining, whereas it may be more economic in practice if we take the whole system cost into consideration. As for the optimal N, under which the server is free of compensation, we observe that he should choose the modified N policy when the abandonment probability is much close to 1. Otherwise, he should choose the classic N policy.

Service Level Constrained Distribution-Free Newsvendor Problem with Balking Penalty

This study extends the newsvendor model to address customer balking and its penalty under service-level constraints. The model designed in this study determines the optimal order quantity to derive the maximum expected profit when a customer is reluctant to buy a product and the available inventory falls below a certain threshold. In addition, the service level is introduced into the procedure to determine the optimal order quantity, thus facilitating the process. Under these circumstances, we also propose a corresponding distribution-free model to determine tight lower bounds on expected profits under the worst-case scenario. To quantitatively evaluate our model’s performance, we compared profits based on the presence or absence of demand distribution, and demonstrated the effect of varying balking penalty costs and probabilities. Introducing a practical service level that can be used as a trade-off tool to help determine reasonable estimates and profitable decisions is beneficial when determining order quantity by comparing goodwill and holding costs.

Coordination and Decision of Supply Chain Under

In order to investigate supply chain coordination and decision under customer balking and stochastic demand, the article considers a two-echelon supply chain consisting of one manufacturer with risk-neutral and one retailer with risk-neutral and develops two models in a centralized and a decentralized system and the three contracts are designed to coordinate supply chain and the optimal price and customer balking strategies are obtained. The results show that the revenue and cost-sharing contract can coordinate supply chain under customer balking and price-dependent demand and achieve the Pareto-improvement; the expected sales quantity and expected reduced sales quantity are influenced conversely by the threshold of inventory and probability of a sale under customer balking. In addition, numerical analysis is given to verify the effectiveness of revenue and cost-sharing contract and the paper gives some managerial insights and puts forward to the future work at last.

Pricing in Service Systems with Rational Balking and Abandonment of Time‐Sensitive Customers

The current literature on pricing in service systems with time‐sensitive customers predominately ignores the rational abandonment of customers with mixed‐risk attitude. The goal of this study is to address this gap. We consider an unobservable queueing system with a nonlinear waiting cost function, which is concave up to a certain point and then becomes convex, capturing the mixed‐risk attitude of customers observed in empirical studies. We assume that customers are sensitive with respect to waiting time (delay) and strategic regarding their balking and abandonment decisions. We characterize the optimal pricing policy that maximizes the service provider's revenue. We show that the pricing policies studied in the literature, including the joint service and cancellation (entrance) fee policy, are suboptimal and cannot induce the socially optimal behavior. We demonstrate that while the cancellation fee can regulate a customer's balking strategy, the service fee cannot effectively control a customer's abandonment decision. We then provide conditions under which the joint service and cancellation fee policy is optimal. We finally prove that the service provider should compensate customers for their waiting in order to efficiently control the abandonment of customers. We propose a pricing policy, which includes entrance, service, and wait time (delay) fees, that maximizes the provider's revenue. We derive the optimal fees and show that, under the proposed optimal pricing policy, customers pay service and cancellation fees while they are partially compensated for the time spent waiting for service.

On retrial queue with customer balking and feedback subject to server breakdowns

Motivated by some real stochastic service systems, we study a feedback retrial queue with customer balking and unreliable servers (servers subject to breakdowns). A customer will either join a retrial orbit or balk if all servers are busy upon his arrival. After a service completion, the customer either leave the system or enter the retrial group again for additional service. The customer who is interrupted by the server failure will be served by another server if available; otherwise, he will be contacted later and treated as leaving the system. We use a quasi-birth-and-death process to analyze this system with almost all possible uncertain factors and derive major performance measures of the system. We also develop a cost function determining the optimal parameter settings of the system under the stability condition. Probabilistic Global Search Lausanne approach is employed in solving the optimization issue. The effects of parameters on performance measures of the system are examined numerically. Finally, we discuss the application of the model in the telephone medical consulting service system.

Supply chain coordination and decisions under effort-dependent demand and customer balking behaviour

Supply chain coordination and decisions under effort-dependent demand and customer balking behaviour

Pricing in Service Systems with Rational Balking and Abandonment of Time-Sensitive Customers

The current literature on pricing in service systems with time-sensitive customers predominately ignores the rational abandonment of customers with mixed-risk attitude. The goal of this paper is to address this gap. We consider an unobservable queueing system with a nonlinear waiting cost function, which is concave up to a certain point and then becomes convex, capturing the mixed-risk attitude of customers observed in empirical studies. We assume that customers are sensitive with respect to waiting time (delay) and strategic regarding their balking and abandonment decisions. We first analyze the equilibrium customers' behavior and determine the optimal social behavior. We then characterize the optimal pricing policy that maximizes the service provider's revenue. We show that the pricing policies studied in the literature, including the joint service and cancellation (entrance) fee policy, are suboptimal and cannot induce the socially optimal behavior. We demonstrate that while the cancellation fee can regulate a customer's balking strategy, the service fee cannot effectively control a customer's abandonment decision. We then provide conditions under which the joint service and cancellation fee policy is optimal. We finally prove that the service provider should compensate customers for their waiting in order to efficiently control the abandonment of customers. We propose a pricing policy, which includes entrance, service, and wait time (delay) fees, that maximizes the provider's revenue. We derive the optimal fees and show that, under the proposed optimal pricing policy, customers pay service and cancellation fees while they are partially compensated for the time spent waiting for service.

On the Analysis of Unreliable Markovian Multiserver Queue with Retrials and Impatience

This paper concerns an approximate analysis of a Markovian multiserver infinite source retrial queuing with impatience, in which all the servers are subject to breakdown and repairs. Customer who find the total number of busy and failed servers equal to $s$,i.e, he is given to choice to enter a retrial orbit for an random amount of time before attempting to reccess an available server or enter the queue of size $q$. Customer waiting in the queue start being served as an idle or repaired server assigned to them, they can also leave the queue and enter orbit due to impatience. Customers whose service is interrupted by a failure may have the option of leaving the system entirely or returning to the orbit to repeat or resume service. We assume that each server has its own dedicated repair person, and repairs begin immediately following a failure and all process are assumed to be mutually independent. The simultaneous effect of customer balking, impatience and retrials is analyzed. We try to approximate the steady-state joint distribution of the number of customers in orbit and the number of customers in the service area using a phase-merging Algorithm.

M/M/1 Queueing system with Customer Balking and Reneging

This paper deals with an M/M/1 queueing system with customer balking and reneging. Balking and reneging of the customers are assumed to occur due to non-availability of the server during vacation and breakdown periods. Steady state probabilities for both the single and multiple vacation scenarios are obtained by employing probability generating functions. We evaluate the explicit expressions for various performance measures of the queueing system.

Supply Chain Coordination and Decision under Effort-Dependent Demand and Customer Balking Behavior

The paper explores supply chain coordination under a sales effort-dependent demand and customer balking scenario and analyses the impacts of revenue- and cost-sharing contracts on the decisions of supply chain members. This paper subsequently develops a two-echelon supply chain consisting of one supplier and one retailer and examines two models that incorporate customer balking and sales efforts: in one model, the retailer offers a revenue sharing-only contract, and in the other model, the retailer and the supplier bargain on the revenue and cost-sharing contract. The results show that the revenue- and cost-sharing contract can coordinate the decentralised supply chain better than it can coordinate a centralised supply chain and that the effects of customer balking on the supply chain are clear; when customer balking occurs, the probability of a sale occurring can increase the profit of the supply chain, while the threshold of inventory and the sales effort can improve the marketing demand.

The performance of priority dispatching rules in a complex job shop: A study on the Upper Mississippi River

Many studies have derived and tested dynamic job shop priority dispatching rules using discrete event simulation models in the context of idealized job shop experimental designs. This paper extends research on evaluating priority dispatching rules in a completely reactive dynamic job shop by testing the performance of eight selected rules in a simulation model of a complex and real dynamic job shop: the Upper Mississippi River Inland Navigation Transportation System (UMR). The UMR incorporates many real-world complexities such as sequence dependent and seasonally varying stochastic job processing times, both capacitated and un-capacitated servers, and heterogeneous jobs with seasonally varying, interdependent stochastic arrivals that can balk (opt-out) at using the system in response to anticipated poor levels of service. Employing two related but different metrics, mean flow times and the total value (“utility”) of jobs processed, the results show that rules that incorporate increasingly more systemic information generally perform better as system congestion increases, particularly when balking is not allowed. However, this is not the case when customer balking is allowed, particularly for value-based priority dispatching rules. This demonstrates that the balking decision of system users has a large impact on the performance of the rules and the expected utility (value) generated by the system, particularly at high levels of system congestion.

Analysis of M/G/1 retrial queues with second optional service and customer balking under two types of Bernoulli vacation schedule

An M/G/1 retrial queueing system with two phases of service of which the second phase is optional and the server operating under Bernoulli vacation schedule is investigated. Further, the customer is allowed to balk upon arrival if he finds the server unavailable to serve his request immediately. The joint generating functions of orbit size and server status are derived using supplementary variable technique. Some important performance measures like the orbit size, the system size, the server utilisation and the probability that the system is empty are found. Stochastic decomposition law is established when there is no balking permitted. Some existing results are derived as special cases of our model under study. Interestingly, these performance measures are compared for various vacation schedules namely exhaustive service, 1-limited service, Bernoulli vacation and modified Bernoulli vacation schedules. Extensive numerical analysis is carried out to exhibit the effect of the system parameters on the performance measures.

Fluid models for call centers with delay announcement and retrials

This paper models a call center as a multi-server queue where anticipated delays are announced to customers upon arrival, and customer balking, reneging and retrials are modeled explicitly. The resulting queue with delay announcement is modeled in a stationary setting. We propose a fluid approximation to estimate the possibility of announcing the mean delay distribution and the retrials in the system. This approximation method can overcome some of the computational issues involved with a continuous time Markov chain analysis. The fluid approximation is also validated that it can work well in overloaded systems by performing a comparison between the fluid model and the stochastic model with delay information, and by performing the other comparison between the fluid model and the simulation model. Through a numerical study, this paper demonstrates the significance of delay information in a call center with retrials. In particular, delay announcement is more important in the system with a high retrial probability. Thus, we show how a delay announcement greatly reduces customer reneging and thereby improves customer satisfaction. It is shown that disregarding retrials in call centers with delay information may result in large distortions in the management of call centers.

Trade credit model with customer balking and asymmetric market information

Customer balking exists in many industries, and would significantly impact the supply chain management. We consider trade credit, customer balking behavior and market information asymmetry and information sharing in a two-level supply chain. Stackelberg equilibriums are derived in each scenario, respectively. The wholesale price and order quantity at equilibrium decrease (increase) in balking threshold (balking probability) when the production cost is not relatively low. The retailer benefits from the manufacturer’s pessimism with information asymmetry, while the optimism with information sharing. However, information asymmetry always harms the manufacturer. We design an information-dependent-credit-limited contract to enforce the retailer to share information.

A distribution-free newsvendor model with balking penalty and random yield

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to extend the analysis of the distribution-free newsvendor problem in an environment of customer balking, which occurs when customers are reluctant to buy a product if its available inventory falls below a threshold level. Design/methodology/approach: We provide a new tradeoff tool as a replacement of the traditional one to weigh the holding cost and the goodwill costs segment: in addition to the shortage penalty, we also introduce the balking penalty. Furthermore, we extend our model to the case of random yield. Findings: A model is presented for determining both an optimal order quantity and a lower bound on the profit under the worst possible distribution of the demand. We also study the effects of shortage penalty and the balking penalty on the optimal order quantity, which have been largely bypassed in the existing distribution free single period models with balking. Numerical examples are presented to illustrate the result . Originality/value: The incorporation of balking penalty and random yield represents an important improvement in inventory policy performance for distribution-free newsvendor problem when customer balking occurs and the distributional form of demand is unknown.

The distribution-free newsvendor problem with balking and penalties for balking and stockout

This paper investigates the ordering policy for the newsvendor problem with customer balking and penalties for balking and stockout. Our analysis is based on the assumption that only the mean and the variance of the demand distribution are known. In contrast to the existing research, we provide a new tradeoff tool as a replacement of the traditional one to weigh the holding cost and the goodwill cost segment: the balking penalty cost and the stockout penalty cost. Specifically, in addition to the stockout penalty, we also introduce the balking penalty, provide a new proof of the optimality of robust ordering policy to guarantee that the lower bound of expected profit obtained by us is tight, and get an robust optimal order quantity which is an exact solution but not an approximate one as before. Numerical experiments are conducted to illustrate the effect of penalties for balking and stockout.