We study how consumers with waiting cost disutility choose between two congested services of unknown service value. Consumers observe an imperfect private signal indicating which service facility may provide better service value as well as the queue lengths at the service facilities before...

Over the past few years, firms in the travel and entertainment industries have begun using novel sales strategies for revenue management. In this chapter, we study a selling strategy called opaque selling, in which firms guarantee one of several fully specified products, but hide the identity of...

Companies in a variety of industries (e.g., airlines, hotels, theaters) often use last-minute sales to dispose of unsold capacity. Although this may generate incremental revenues in the short term, the long-term consequences of such a strategy are not immediately obvious: More discounted...

We study how a high quality service firm selects a service rate differently than a low quality service firm when the firm cannot communicate its service value or service rate to its customer base. As a result, potential customers may take the queue length upon arrival into account when assessing...

We study how the seat value perceived by consumers, after attending an event in a theater/stadium, depends on the location of their seat relative to the stage/field. We develop a measure of perceived seat value, called Seat Value Index, and relate it to seat location characteristics and consumer...

We study how rational customers choose between two congested service facilities with finite buffer space and unknown service value when waiting is expensive. Customers observe an imperfect private signal indicating which service facility may provide more service value, as well as the queue...

We explore customer choice behavior when they face a choice between service providers of unknown service value. Customers arrive according to a Poisson process to the market. Service times are exponentially distributed with the same rate at each service provider. Both the service providers are...

We examine the value of price commitment in a nonprofit organization using individual level purchases over a series of concert performances. To decide on a pricing policy, the performing arts organization must be able to accurately measure when each ticket will be sold and what type of audience...