Collaborative research: design of delay announcement systems to manage customer waiting experience: behavioral models and field experiments

Dartmouth College received a $146,449 Project Grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Division of Civil, Mechanical, and Manufacturing Innovation under the Engineering program (CFDA 47.041), awarded August 15, 2025, with completion targeted for July 31, 2028. The grant supports collaborative research to develop and validate delay announcement systems designed to optimize customer waiting experiences in service environments. The primary deliverables include rigorous multidisciplinary analytical and behavioral models informed by behavioral economics and operations research, utilizing methodologies such as stochastic dynamic programming, queueing theory, prospect theory, and econometrics to determine what delay information should be communicated to customers and when such announcements should be delivered to maximize satisfaction and minimize abandonment rates.

The research has direct applications to emergency department (ED) operations, where long wait times frequently cause patients to leave without receiving care, resulting in increased health risks. By engineering cost-effective delay announcement systems, the project aims to improve patient retention and satisfaction in EDs while reducing the need for expensive infrastructure expansion. The techniques developed are anticipated to be transferable to other service sectors, including financial services, hospitality, and call centers, thereby advancing economic welfare across the services industry while enhancing healthcare outcomes and consumer satisfaction nationally.

Abstract

The research supported by this grant will contribute to the advancement of national prosperity and economic welfare by developing models to engineer delay announcement systems to determine what delay information to announce, as well as when to announce IT, to maximize customer satisfaction and/or minimize abandonment. Every day patients needing critical care walk out of the waiting rooms of emergency departments (ED) because they are frustrated by long delays, incurring increased risk of returning to the ED, hospitalization, and even mortality. Adding more doctors, nurses, ED rooms and equipment is not always possible given limited budgets. In this work the researchers plan an almost costless approach: sharing waiting-time information in a way that will encourage patients to wait for a provider and will also increase their overall satisfaction with the experience. The approach is to engineer delay announcement systems to optimize both what delay information communicate to patients and when to communicate IT. Similar techniques may be used to improve the customer?s experience in other service environments, such as financial services, hospitality (restaurants, hotels), and call centers. Therefore, this work will increase the health of our citizens, the satisfaction of consumers, and the economic welfare of services industries. In general, by designing effective delay announcement systems, this project will have a positive impact on the economy, healthcare and society within the united states. This project will (1) develop rigorous multidisciplinary analytical and behavioral models rooted in behavioral economics and operations research for understanding and improving customer satisfaction via delay announcements. Methodologies used will include stochastic dynamic programming, queueing theory, prospect theory, and econometrics. (2) introduce a fundamentally new vision of delay announcement system design. The classic criterion of ?forecast accuracy? Is enriched to capture relevant features of human reactions to forecasts, including loss aversion and the passage of time. (3) develop a standard framework to bridge the research in the or/MS and medical fields to improve customer/patient satisfaction through the provision of delay information. This research will promote and strengthen the field of behavioral service operations, and the results will be tested and fine-tuned via field experiments within a network of emergency departments. In general, the project will use data, optimization and communication technology to engineer customer satisfaction and to trigger additional high-impact research. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.- subawards are not planned for this award.