Customer no-show reduction in web-based appointment service: investigations of non-attendance behaviors

ABSTRACT

Web-based appointment services can improve the efficiency of the relative services, but always suffer from customers’ non-attendance behaviors. Previous research ignores the opportunistic feature of no-shows that is essential to understand customers’ non-attendance behaviors. Further, the effect of formal cancelation policies is yet understudied. To solve these problems, a research model based on transaction cost theory is proposed and tested in the context of the web-based outpatient registration service. Results of the research show that the occurrence of no-shows can be reduced when asset specificity factors increase and uncertainty factors decrease. The awareness of cancelation policies can lead to more cancelations but can also weaken the effects of asset specificity factors. Besides, no-shows can be decreased when cancelation policies are more restrictive.

摘要

网络预约服务可以提高服务效率但也饱受顾客缺席行为的影响。先前的研究忽略了爽约的机会主义特征，而且关于取消出席制度的研究尚不充分。因此，本文基于交易成本理论提出了研究模型，并在网络门诊挂号服务的背景下检验。结果表明，当资产专用性因素增加以及不确定性因素减少时，爽约减少。对取消制度的意识会促进用户在无法履约时取消预约，并削弱资产专用性因素的效应。当取消制度更严格时，爽约也会减少。

KEYWORDS:

• Web-based appointment service
• non-attendance
• no-shows
• cancelations
• transaction costs economy

关键字:

• 网络预约服务
• 缺席
• 爽约
• 取消预约
• 交易成本经济学

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China: [Grant Number 71821002]; National Social Science Foundation of China: [Grant Number 21BGL086]; the Major Program of Philosophy and Social Science in Colleges and Universities of Jiangsu Province: [Grant Number 2021SJZDA138].