The Capacity Decision-Making of Omnichannel Catering Firms Based on Queueing System Considering Customer Reference Behavior

Omnichannel catering firms need to pay attention to the consumer behavior of customers in both online and offline channels to make the corresponding capacity decisions. However, customers’ consumption behavior is not only affected by base utility, but also by reference utility, which indicates that customers have reference dependence when making consumption decisions. In order to better help omnichannel catering firms to make capacity decisions more in line with customer consumption behavior in their actual operations, this paper adopts the queuing theory to construct an optimal capacity decision-making model for omnichannel catering firms. We also analyzed the impact of channel information availability on customer reference behavior and the subsequent impact on the firm’s optimal decision-making. The findings were as follows: when the channel information is unavailable, customers in each channel take their expectation of waiting time as the reference point. With the improvement of the sensitivity of customers in different channels to the reference point, firms should improve their safety capacity to meet customers’ needs. Moreover, at a higher reference point, the increase in customer sensitivity can make the firm obtain higher profits. When channel information is available, customers take the waiting time of customers in different channels as the reference point, and the increased sensitivity of online customers to the reference point will prompt firms to reduce safety capacity. Comparing the two scenarios, we also found that omnichannel catering firms could develop lower safety capacities and obtain higher profits more easily when channel information is available. This not only contributes to the development of omnichannel catering firms, but also expands the application scope of reference theory.