Customer stress‐relaxation: the impact of music in a hospital waiting room

Abstract

This study investigated the impact of music on customers, persons waiting for surgery patients, in a hospital’s surgery waiting room; an inherently stressful environment. These persons are customers of the hospital in that they are using the hospital’s services, are typically involved in the decision to use the hospital for the patient’s surgery, and are often responsible for financial payments. In self‐reports from persons using the waiting room, the use of music was related to decreased stress and increased relaxation in comparison to times when no music was utilized. This improved mood state was not, however, correlated with better evaluations by these individuals of the quality of the hospital’s services or of improved perceptions that the hospital was meeting expectations concerning its overall service delivery. These findings contribute to the ongoing research concerning the role of atmospherics or ambience of a service system in customers’ quality/satisfaction evaluations.