The Sequence of Service: An Affect Perspective to Service Scheduling

Research from the behavioral sciences offers many insights into how customers perceive the sequence of service and how these perceptions influence their decision-making and evaluation of the customer experience. This chapter offers a comprehensive literature review of foundational behavioral research that can help inform service scheduling practice. Topics covered include the peak effect and the following sequence effects: peak placement including an early peak versus a delayed peak, trend, spread, end, and duration. An affect perspective is taken to understand how customers respond to these different service scheduling strategies. Two studies that have examined affect-based service scheduling and applied temporal decision theory are also described to illustrate how these behavioral insights can be leveraged when scheduling the customer experience.