The Study on the Effect of Background Music on Customer Waiting Time in Restaurant

ABSTRACT

Many scholars study shows that the background music is restaurant controllable environmental factor that can affect the customer waiting time, which has some management implications for solving customer wait time problem in the service sector. This article used experimental management method, randomly selected a large restaurant, and then observed each customer just coming in, recorded background music types (including no music, slow-paced and fast-paced) and customer waiting time. And we made comparative analysis of the differences between weekdays and weekends. Finally, the experimental results and analysis are given: (1) Background music can really affect the customer's waiting time; (2) Slow-paced background music can extend the customer waiting time, meanwhile fast-paced background music will shorten the waiting time of customers; (3) On weekends average waiting time is longer than working day.

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