Numerous empirical studies have concluded that the customer's attribution of the cause of a delay significantly affects its emotional consequences (see Taylor, 1994; Tom and Lucey, 1995). According to these surveys, customers are more dissatisfied with longer-than-expected waits caused by difficulties that the store could have remedied (e.g. inefficient checkout staff, staff shortages, failure to provide express checkouts) than with delays due to factors external such as random variations in the store, crowding, even breakdowns, the time of day (some periods are inevitably busier than others) or the presence of customers with large amounts of spending. This was especially true if little effort was needed on the part of the service provider to improve the situation and/or if the problem causing the delay occurred regularly. It appeared, therefore, that the reasons for a long queue were the main determinants of customer satisfaction or dissatisfaction, and not just the length of the delay. The Psychology of Queue Combining Queue combining has been shown to not be a good technique for managing queues in grocery stores and supermarkets. Studies have shown that although combining queues has been successful in some service organizations, these techniques have proven to have negative results in grocery stores. Among the factors causing delays for customers in grocery store checkout lines is management's attempt to merge queues. Contrary to common calculations, there are reasons to believe that combining queues, particularly queues of customers in checkout lines at grocery stores, can sometimes be counterproductive. Rothkopf and Rech (1987) in their seminar had a participant who cited the practice of combini...... middle of paper ...... a more valuable service and they were willing to pay much more for it when they found out about it there were more people behind the positions that had been filled for them. There is a universal human tendency to learn about oneself through comparison with others (Gilbert, Price, & Allan, 1995). Customers queuing at the checkout tend to compare their position in line with that of other customers. However, seeing the people behind is a bit of a comfort because "there are people in worse conditions than me", thus making the experience less painful. The study outlined three sets of factors (tail factors, personal factors, and situational factors) that might influence the extent of social comparisons, each of which is tested. Hkust and Hkust (2002) stated that limited research studies have been conducted to determine how service expectations can be controlled. To check the waiting time of customers in line,