Service and Price Competition When Customers Are Naive
Service and Price Competition When Customers Are Naive
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DOI：
10.1111/j.1937-5956.2011.01304.x
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发表时间：
2012-07
影响因子：
5
通讯作者：
Li Li-Li;Li Jiang;Liming Liu
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Li Li-Li;Li Jiang;Liming Liu
我们考虑一个由两个服务提供商组成的系统，每个服务提供商都有一个单独的队列。顾客在到达时选择一个队列加入，在进入服务之前可以在队列之间实时切换，以最大化他们的现货效用，这是价格和排队长度的函数。我们刻画了队长的稳态分布，然后研究了一个两阶段博弈，其中两个服务商首先同时选择服务费率，然后同时收取价格。我们的结果表明，两家服务提供商都不会同时拥有比竞争对手更快的服务和更低的价格。当价格相对于排队长度在客户的服务选择中的作用不那么显著时，或者当两家服务提供商在建设能力方面产生了相当的成本时，他们将不会参与价格竞争。当价格发挥重要作用，并且服务提供商的运力成本差异很大时，它们将采用可替代的竞争工具：成本较低的服务提供商将提供更快的服务，成本较高的服务提供商将收取较低的价格。将我们的结果与现有文献中的结果进行比较，我们发现服务提供商投资于更低的服务费率，参与不那么激烈的价格竞争，获得更高的利润，而当客户无法推断服务费率并且在服务选择上天真时，他们比他们能够推断服务费率以做出复杂选择时排队的时间更长。客户的欺诈行为进一步降低了服务提供商的容量投资，延长了客户的停留时间。
We consider a system of two service providers each with a separate queue. Customers choose one queue to join upon arrival and can switch between queues in real time before entering service to maximize their spot utility, which is a function of price and queue length. We characterize the steady‐state distribution for queue lengths, and then investigate a two‐stage game in which the two service providers first simultaneously select service rates and then simultaneously charge prices. Our results indicate that neither service provider will have both a faster service and a lower price than its competitor. When price plays a less significant role in customers’ service selection relative to queue length or when the two service providers incur comparable costs for building capacities, they will not engage in price competition. When price plays a significant role and the capacity costs at the service providers sufficiently differ, they will adopt substitutable competition instruments: the lower cost service provider will build a faster service and the higher cost service provider will charge a lower price. Comparing our results to those in the existing literature, we find that the service providers invest in lower service rates, engage in less intense price competition, and earn higher profits, while customers wait in line longer when they are unable to infer service rates and are naive in service selection than when they can infer service rates to make sophisticated choices. The customers’ jockeying behavior further lowers the service providers’ capacity investment and lengthens the customers’ duration of stay.