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Last Place Aversion in Queues

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  • Ryan W. Buell

    (Harvard Business School, Technology and Operations Management Unit)

Abstract

This paper documents the effects of last place aversion in queues and its implications for customer experiences and behaviors, as well as for operating performance. An observational analysis of customers queuing at a grocery store, and four online studies in which participants waited in virtual queues, revealed that waiting in last place diminishes wait satisfaction while increasing the probabilities of switching and abandoning queues, with detrimental implications for service throughput. The research suggests that last place aversion can lead to maladaptive customer behaviors – switching behaviors that increase wait times, and abandoning when the benefits of waiting are most pronounced. The results indicate that this behavior is partially explained by the inability to make a downward social comparison; namely, when no one is behind a queuing individual, that person is less certain that continuing to wait is worthwhile. Furthermore, this paper provides evidence that queue transparency is an effective service design lever that managers can use to reduce the deleterious effects of last place aversion in queues. When people can’t see that they’re in last place, the behavioral effects of last place aversion are nullified, and when they can see that they’re not in last place, the tendency to renege is greatly diminished. Finally, a system-level experiment, in which pairs of queues were created and analyzed, reveals that when the effects of last place aversion are addressed, overall abandonment decreases, such that with equivalent arrival and service rates, total service throughput can be increased.

Suggested Citation

  • Ryan W. Buell, 2017. "Last Place Aversion in Queues," Harvard Business School Working Papers 18-053, Harvard Business School, revised Oct 2019.
    • Handle: RePEc:hbs:wpaper:18-053
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    File URL: http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/pages/download.aspx?name=18-053.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Jorge Mejia & Chris Parker, 2021. "When Transparency Fails: Bias and Financial Incentives in Ridesharing Platforms," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(1), pages 166-184, January.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Behavioral operations; queues; reference effects; last place aversion; transparency;
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