Waiting lines as a marketing issue

Substantial amount of consumers' time is spent waiting in shops, super-markets, banks, law firms, and the like. Waiting lines may imply significant marketing costs and managers should know how to cope with them. The issue is particularly important in the marketing of services where the producer's capacity to provide services just in time and to deal with client insecurity are significant determinants of consumer satisfaction. This paper discusses the marketing concerns to which a waiting line is likely to give rise and deals with the techniques which may be used to minimize the detrimental impact of waiting on customers' perceptions of the service quality and the image of the service firm.