Statement–Courses of Action (service operations management): A car dealer launching bookings for the new XYZ model experienced an overwhelming public response, resulting in long queues and complaints about limited business hours and poor on-site arrangements; which course(s) of action are appropriate—asking customers to bring food and plan to wait for hours, or increasing booking counters and extending business hours to handle demand efficiently?

Given data

• There is a surge in demand for bookings of car XYZ.
• Customers face long queues and complain about business hours and arrangements.
• Courses proposed: (I) Customers should bring lunch/snacks and be prepared to wait several hours. (II) Dealer should add more booking desks and extend hours to serve more people faster.

Concept/Approach (match action to locus of control)Effective courses of action should address the operational bottleneck at the entity responsible for service delivery, not shift the inconvenience to customers without solving the underlying capacity problem.

Step 1: Evaluate Course ITelling customers to plan for long waits normalizes inefficiency and does not reduce waiting time; it fails to address the root operational issue.

Step 2: Evaluate Course IIIncreasing counters and hours expands throughput and matches capacity to demand, directly addressing the problem.

Verification/AlternativeQueueing theory: reducing service time per customer or adding parallel servers (counters) lowers the queue length and waiting time.

Common pitfallsAvoid choosing actions that merely accommodate delays without improving service capacity.

Final AnswerOnly II follows.