Prior research in social psychology has shown that when people feel anxious, they seek advice from others. Yet, companies that operate in high-anxiety settings (like financial services, healthcare, and education) are increasingly deploying self-service technologies (SSTs), through which anxious customers transact without access to human contact. These companies may therefore face a classic efficiency–service trade-off where gains in operational efficiency through automation also hamper service outcomes by neglecting customer anxiety. This paper, set in the high-anxiety domain of financial services, investigates the value of facilitating access to human contact during SST usage. In a field experiment conducted within the context of a credit union’s SST loan-approval process, an invitation to connect with a human loan agent increases the customer uptake rate of approved loans by 24%. Subsequent controlled laboratory experiments, which explicitly investigate the linkages among anxiety, choice satisfaction, and firm trust during SST encounters show that compared with participants without anxiety, those who are anxious consistently report lower satisfaction with their choices and less trust in the firm, regardless of the source of their anxiety. When anxiety is related to the SST encounter, facilitating access to human contact dampens anxiety’s negative effects on choice satisfaction and, by extension, increases firm trust. We further observe that these benefits of facilitating access to human contact arise even though very few customers choose to access a person. Taken together, this research reveals an opportunity for firms to maintain operational efficiency in high-anxiety self-service settings without compromising customer experiences and service outcomes. This paper was accepted by Charles Corbett, operations management. Funding: Funding for this research, apart from internal business costs incurred by our field study partner to support the experiment, was primarily provided by Harvard Business School and partially provided by Dartmouth College. Supplemental Material: The online appendix and data files are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2022.01029 .

Many companies are making efforts to diversify their workforces, motivated by documented operational performance benefits and increased pressure to “walk the talk” on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. One specific call to action from stakeholders is the public disclosure of intersectional diversity data in EEO-1s, which companies with 100+ employees must report each year to the federal government, but which companies rarely make publicly available. Conducting five online experiments to examine how consumers perceive transparency into an operation’s workforce diversity, we find no evidence that disclosing workforce diversity data undermines customer attitudes or behaviors toward the company, even when the disclosures reveal racial disparities across job categories. Instead, we find that consumers perceive firms that disclose their workforce diversity data to be more committed to DEI initiatives, view disclosing firms more positively, and are more likely to choose their offerings over those of non-disclosing firms. We find these attitudinal and behavioral differences to be especially pronounced when the disclosures reveal progress in diversification.

Problem definition: Clients and service providers alike often consider one-on-one service delivery to be ideal, assuming, perhaps unquestioningly, that devoting individualized attention best improves client outcomes. In contrast, in shared service delivery, clients are served in batches and the dynamics of group interaction could lead to increased client engagement, which could improve outcomes. However, the loss of privacy and personal connection might undermine engagement. The engagement dynamics in one-on-one and shared delivery models have not been rigorously studied. To the extent that shared delivery may result in comparable or better engagement than one-on-one delivery, service providers in a broad array of contexts may be able to create more value for clients by delivering service in batches. Methodology/results: We conducted a randomized controlled trial with 1,000 patients who were undergoing glaucoma treatment over a three-year period at a large eye hospital. Using verbatim and behavioral transcripts from more than 20,000 minutes of video recorded during our trial, we examine how shared medical appointments (SMAs), in which patients are served in batches, impact engagement. On average, a patient who experienced SMAs asked 33.3% more questions per minute and made 8.6% more nonquestion comments per minute. Because there were multiple patients in an SMA, this increase in engagement at the individual patient level resulted in patients hearing far more comments in the group setting. Patients in SMAs also exhibited higher levels of nonverbal engagement across a wide array of measures (attentiveness, positivity, head wobbling, or “thalai aattam” in Tamil: a South Indian gesture to signal agreement or understanding, eye contact, and end-of-appointment happiness), relative to patients who attended one-on-one appointments. Managerial implications: These results shed light on the potential for shared service delivery models to increase client engagement and thus enhance service performance. Funding: This work was supported by the Wheeler Institute at London Business School (WIBAD Ramdas_Sonmez CFP19), the Institute of Entrepreneurship and Private Capital at London Business School (IIE_3432_2019), Aravind Eye Hospital, and Harvard Business School. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/msom.2021.0012 .

Through a large-scale field experiment with 393,036 customers considering opening a credit card account with a nationwide retail bank, we investigate how providing transparency into an offering’s tradeoffs affects subsequent rates of customer acquisition and long-run engagement. Although we find tradeoff transparency to have an insignificant effect on acquisition rates, customers who were shown each offering’s tradeoffs selected different products than those who were not. Moreover, prospective customers who experienced transparency and subsequently chose to open an account went on to exhibit higher-quality service relationships over time. Monthly spending was 9.9% higher and cancellation rates were 20.5% lower among those who experienced transparency into each offering’s tradeoffs. Increased product use and retention accrued disproportionately to customers with prior category experience: more-experienced customers who were provided transparency spent 19.2% more on a monthly basis and were 33.7% less likely to defect after nine months. Importantly, we find that these gains in engagement and retention do not come at the expense of customers’ financial well-being: the probability of making late payments was reduced among customers who experienced transparency. We further find that the positive effects of tradeoff transparency on engagement and retention were attenuated in the presence of a promotion that provided financial incentives to choose particular offerings. Taken together, these results suggest that providing transparency into an offering’s tradeoffs may be an effective strategy for informing customer choices, leading to better outcomes for customers and firms alike. This paper was accepted by Vishal Gaur, operations management. Funding: Funding for this research, apart from the costs Commonwealth Bank of Australia internally incurred to support the experiment, was provided by Harvard Business School. R. W. Buell has received compensation from Commonwealth Bank of Australia in the past for executive education teaching. Supplemental Material: The online appendix and data files are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2024.4985 .

In Shared Medical Appointments (SMAs), patients with similar conditions meet the physician together and each receives one-on-one attention. SMAs can improve outcomes and physician productivity. Yet privacy concerns have stymied adoption. In physician-deprived nations, patients' utility from improved access may outweigh their disutility from loss of privacy. Ours is to our knowledge the first SMA trial for any disease, in India, where doctors are scarce. In a 1,000-patient, single-site, randomized controlled trial at Aravind Eye Hospital, Pondicherry, we compared SMAs and one-on-one appointments, over four successive visits, for patients with glaucoma. We examined patients' satisfaction, knowledge, intention-to-follow-up, follow-up rates, and medication compliance rates (primary outcomes) using intention-to-treat analysis. Of 1,034 patients invited between July 12, 2016 -July 19, 2018, 1,000 (96.7%) consented to participate, and were randomly assigned to either SMAs (NSMA = 500) or one-on-one appointments (N1-1 = 500). Patients who received SMAs showed higher satisfaction (MeanSMA = 4.955 (SD 0.241), Mean1-1 = 4.920 (SD 0.326); difference in means 0.035; 95% CI, 0.017-0.054, p = 0.0002) and knowledge (MeanSMA = 3.416 (SD 1.340), Mean1-1 = 3.267 (SD 1.492); difference in means 0.149; 95% CI, 0.057-0.241, p = 0.002) than patients who received one-on-one appointments. Across conditions, there was no difference in patients' intention-to-follow-up (MeanSMA = 4.989 (SD 0.118), Mean1-1 = 4.986 (SD 0.149); difference in means 0.003; 95% CI, -0.006-0.012, p = 0.481) and actual follow-up rates (MeanSMA = 87.5% (SD 0.372), Mean1-1 = 88.7% (SD 0.338); difference in means -0.012; 95% CI, -0.039-0.015, p = 0.377). Patients who received SMAs exhibited higher medication compliance rates (MeanSMA = 97.0% (SD 0.180), Mean1-1 = 94.9% (SD 0.238); difference in means 0.020; 95% CI, 0.004-0.036, p = 0.013). SMAs improved satisfaction, learning, and medication compliance, without compromising follow-up rates or measured clinical outcomes. Peer interruptions were negatively correlated with patient satisfaction in early-trial SMAs and positively correlated with patient satisfaction in later-trial SMAs. Trial registration: The trial was registered with Clinical Trials Registry of India (https://ctri.nic.in/) with reference no. REF/2016/11/012659 and registration no. CTRI/2018/02/011998.

Companies are facing increased pressure to “walk the talk” on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in their operations. One specific call-to-action from stakeholders is the public disclosure of EEO-1s. Companies with 100+ employees are federally mandated to annually report the intersectional diversity data of their workforce in the EEO-1. We examine how consumers perceive the strategic decision companies make regarding whether to disclose workforce diversity information. We find no evidence that a company’s disclosure of its workforce diversity data negatively affects attitudes or perceived company commitment to diversity, even when it reveals racial disparities across job categories. Instead, we find that consumers perceive firms that disclose their workforce data more positively and to be more committed to DEI initiatives, relative to firms that choose not to disclose, particularly when these disclosures reveal diversity within the workforce.

Gamified training is a novel management control system in which companies use gamification techniques to engage and motivate employees to learn. This study empirically examines the performance consequences of gamified training using data from a natural field experiment in a professional services firm. We find that, on average, the main effect of adopting the gamified training platform on performance is significantly positive. We also study whether outcomes depend on how engaged the office is in the gamified training platform (i.e. office engagement) and who is engaged in the gamified training platform (i.e. leader engagement). Our findings suggest that the benefits of gamified training are greater when employees are more engaged—as revealed by their readiness to log onto the gamified training platform— and when more leaders, who are actively engaged in selling to clients and who serve as role models for their employees, actively participate in the gamified training platform.

Problem definition : As trust in government reaches historic lows, frustration with government performance approaches record highs. Academic/practical relevance : We propose that in coproductive settings such as government services, people’s trust and engagement levels can be enhanced by designing service interactions to allow them to see the often-hidden work—via increasing operational transparency—being performed in response to their engagement. Methodology and results : Three studies, conducted in the field and laboratory, show that surfacing the submerged state through operational transparency impacts citizens’ attitudes and behavior. Study 1 leveraged proprietary data from a mobile phone application developed by the City of Boston, Massachusetts, through which residents submit service requests; the city’s goal was to increase engagement with the app. Users who received photographs of government addressing their service requests submitted 60% more requests and in 38% more categories over the ensuing 13 months than users who did not receive photographs. These significant increases in engagement persisted for 11 months following users’ initial exposure to operational transparency and were highest for users who had experienced government to be at least moderately responsive to their requests in the past. In study 2, residents of Boston who interacted with a website that visualized both service requests (e.g., potholes and broken street lamps) and efforts by the city’s government to address those requests became 14% more trusting and 12% more supportive of government. Moreover, residents who received additional transparency into the growing backlog of service requests that government was failing to fulfill, revealing government to be less responsive, were no more nor less trusting and supportive of government than residents who received no transparency. Study 3 replicated findings from the first two studies and documented underlying mechanisms: operational transparency increases trust and engagement by two causal pathways—through consumers’ increased perceptions of effort by the government and through increased perceptions that engaging with it is impactful. Responsiveness increases feelings of personal efficacy, which boosts willingness to engage both directly and indirectly through the other causal paths. Managerial implications : Taken together, our results suggest that showing more work performed by government—via operational transparency—encourages people to do more work themselves. These results have implications for the design of a broad array of coproductive services where operations are hidden and consumer trust and engagement are critical.

Through a large-scale field experiment with 393,036 customers considering opening a credit card account with a nationwide retail bank, we investigate how providing transparency into an offering’s tradeoffs affects subsequent rates of customer acquisition and long-run engagement. Although we find tradeoff transparency to have an insignificant effect on acquisition rates, customers who were shown each offering’s tradeoffs selected different products than those who were not. Moreover, prospective customers who experienced transparency and subsequently chose to open an account went on to exhibit higher quality service relationships over time. Monthly spending was 9.9% higher and cancellation rates were 20.5% lower among those who experienced transparency into each offering’s tradeoffs. Increased product usage and retention accrued disproportionately to customers with prior category experience – moreexperienced customers who were provided transparency spent 19.2% more on a monthly basis and were 33.7% less likely to defect after nine months. Importantly, we find that these gains in engagement and retention do not come at the expense of customers’ financial wellbeing – the probability of making late payments was reduced among customers who experienced transparency. We further find that the positive effects of tradeoff transparency on engagement and retention were attenuated in the presence of a promotion that provided financial incentives to choose particular offerings. Taken together, these results suggest that providing transparency into an offering’s tradeoffs may be an effective strategy for informing customer choices, leading to better outcomes for customers and firms alike. [

This paper documents the effects of last-place aversion in queues and its implications for customer experiences and behaviors, as well as for operating performance. An observational analysis of customers queuing at a grocery store, and four online studies in which participants waited in virtual queues, revealed that waiting in last place diminishes wait satisfaction while increasing the probabilities of switching and abandoning queues, with detrimental implications for queuing systems. The research suggests that last-place aversion can lead to maladaptive customer behaviors—switching behaviors that increase wait times and abandoning when the benefits of waiting are most pronounced. The results indicate that this behavior is partially explained by the inability to make a downward social comparison; namely, when no one is behind a queuing individual, that person is less certain that continuing to wait is worthwhile. Furthermore, this paper provides evidence that queue transparency is an effective service design lever that managers can use to reduce the deleterious effects of last-place aversion in queues. When people cannot see that they are in last place, the behavioral effects of last-place aversion are nullified; and when they can see that they are not in last place, the tendency to renege is greatly diminished. Finally, a system-level experiment, in which pairs of queues were created and analyzed, reveals that when the effects of last-place aversion are addressed, overall abandonment decreases, such that with equivalent arrival and service rates, total service provision can be increased. This paper was accepted by Vishal Gaur, operations management.

Problem definition: As trust in government reaches historic lows, frustration with government performance approaches record highs. Academic/practical relevance: We propose that in coproductive settings such as government services, people’s trust and engagement levels can be enhanced by designing service interactions to allow them to see the often-hidden work—via increasing operational transparency—being performed in response to their engagement. Methodology and results: Three studies, conducted in the field and laboratory, show that surfacing the submerged state through operational transparency impacts citizens’ attitudes and behavior. Study 1 leveraged proprietary data from a mobile phone application developed by the City of Boston, Massachusetts, through which residents submit service requests; the city’s goal was to increase engagement with the app. Users who received photographs of government addressing their service requests submitted 60% more requests and in 38% more categories over the ensuing 13 months than users who did not receive photographs. These significant increases in engagement persisted for 11 months following users’ initial exposure to operational transparency and were highest for users who had experienced government to be at least moderately responsive to their requests in the past. In study 2, residents of Boston who interacted with a website that visualized both service requests (e.g., potholes and broken street lamps) and efforts by the city’s government to address those requests became 14% more trusting and 12% more supportive of government. Moreover, residents who received additional transparency into the growing backlog of service requests that government was failing to fulfill, revealing government to be less responsive, were no more nor less trusting and supportive of government than residents who received no transparency. Study 3 replicated findings from the first two studies and documented underlying mechanisms: operational transparency increases trust and engagement by two causal pathways—through consumers’ increased perceptions of effort by the government and through increased perceptions that engaging with it is impactful. Responsiveness increases feelings of personal efficacy, which boosts willingness to engage both directly and indirectly through the other causal paths. Managerial implications: Taken together, our results suggest that showing more work performed by government—via operational transparency—encourages people to do more work themselves. These results have implications for the design of a broad array of coproductive services where operations are hidden and consumer trust and engagement are critical.

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In 2011, newly appointed CEO Chip Bergh needed to urgently turn around the iconic but floundering denim apparel firm, Levi Strauss & Co. (LS&Co.) Famous for its blue jeans, LS&Co. had suffered a decline in revenue of 29% from $6.8 billion in 1997 to $4.8 billion in 2011. Bergh faced some urgent decisions. Should LS&Co. focus more on the wholesale channel or direct-to-consumer channel? What parts of its product mix should the firm emphasize? In which geographies should it invest? With only a short window of time in which to build momentum, Bergh knew that he needed to prioritize, given the firm's limited resources.

We investigate when and why the disclosure of cost information by firms can increase consumers’ purchase interest.

This paper investigates whether people exhibit last place aversion in queues and its implications for their experiences and behaviors in service environments. An observational analysis of customers queuing at a grocery store, and three online field experiments in which participants waited in virtual queues, revealed that waiting in last place diminishes wait satisfaction while increasing the probabilities of switching and abandoning queues. After controlling for other factors, people in last place were more than twice as likely to switch queues, which increased the duration of their wait and diminished their overall satisfaction. Moreover, people in last place were more than four times more likely to renege from queues, altogether giving up on the service for which they were queuing. The results indicate that this behavior is partially explained by the inability to make a downward social comparison; namely, when no one is behind a queuing individual, that person is less certain that continuing to wait is worthwhile. Furthermore, this paper provides evidence that queue transparency is an effective service design lever that managers can use to reduce the deleterious effects of last place aversion in queues. When people canu0027t see that theyu0027re in last place, the behavioral effects of last place aversion are nullified, and when they can see that theyu0027re not in last place, the tendency to renege is greatly diminished.

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