The shorter the response time, the higher the customer satisfaction? An empirical study of online medical consultation services

The increased demand for e-health services has accelerated the development of online medical consultation platforms (OMCPs). In contrast to offline service contexts, delays in physicians’ responses can occur throughout the asynchronous online service process and affect customer satisfaction. Despite the considerable attention that OMCPs have received in the literature, the impact of physicians’ response time at different stages of the service process remain underexplored. Drawing on signalling theory, we investigate the joint effect of positive and negative signals that response time has on patient satisfaction. Using a transaction-level consultation service dataset from an OMCP in China, we find inverted U-shaped relationships between response times before and during the service process and two dimensions of patient satisfaction (attitude and efficacy). A patient’s regional affiliation and familiarity with a physician strengthen the curvature of such relationships, while the physician’s professional status has the opposite effect.