The waiting game: The role of predicted value, wait disconfirmation, and providers' actions in consumers' service evaluations

Management of consumer waiting experiences is critical for practitioners in that unpleasant waiting experiences may result in negative service evaluations. This paper develops a conceptual framework in which predicted value of service, wait expectation (conceptualized as "consumer zone of wait tolerance" derived from the service literatures), wait disconfirmation (consumers' comparisons between wait expectations and perceptions), and affective response to waiting are proposed to directly or indirectly affect service experience evaluation. In addition, this paper proposes that actions of the service provider moderate the relationship between affective response to waiting and service experience evaluation. Conclusions and contributions are discussed.