variable demand and productivity in diagnostic medicine: the customer experience with the scheduling of examinations

From the perspective of marketing, diagnostic medicine services are perishable and demand is variable — characteristics that difficult the maximization of results. Service providers offer the exams through time scheduling system without, however, overcome the inefficiency caused by the no show customers. The objective of this research was to investigate the level of satisfaction of consumers of diagnostic medicine with the schedule, the acceptance of a new model without an appointment time and analyze three secondary dimensions common to the two models (no show, seasonality and timeout) in customer satisfaction. This is a quantitative research with exploratory-descriptive design performed with 2,545 clients from a privately held diagnostic medicine in 2013. The results of the secondary dimensions indicated that customers tend to frequent establishments as the current seasonal and are sensitive to wait. As for the main dimensions (scheduling and demand free), there are different levels of acceptance, indicating that the two systems are complementary and not exclusive and therefore, the feasibility of adopting a hybrid model of operation, with the use of two templates.