Self-regulation and “other consumers” at service encounters: A sociometer perspective

Hospitality consumption often involves sharing the physical environment with other consumers. Other consumers can be either acquaintances a focal consumer shares the consumption experience with (co-consumption others) or strangers the focal consumer encounters due to serendipity (Customer Bs). This research used sociometer as a theoretical lens to examine the social dynamics among a focal consumer, co-consumption others and Customer Bs at service encounters and the impact of such social dynamics on consumer self-regulatory behavior. The results of the experimental study showed that when co-consumption others elicit higher level of need for self-monitoring, a focal consumer is more likely to regulate his/her interpersonal goal and emotions in response to the behavior of Customer Bs at service encounters. The results further suggested that while interpersonal goals do not have a significant effect on encounter satisfaction, emotion regulation positively contributes to encounter satisfaction. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are also discussed.     

A scenario-based experiment and a field study: A comparative examination for service failure and recovery

Scenario-based experiments are an important method in service marketing, especially in the field of service failures and service recoveries. Field studies on these topical areas are rare because of the expense and ethical issues in a real setting. However, this raises a question: Can the results obtained from experiments accurately predict real-world field behavior? In order to obtain more accurate information regarding service failures and recoveries, this study compares the results from a scenario-based experiment with those from a field study. The findings provided mixed support for the concordance between the scenario-based experimental results and those obtained in a field setting. Negative emotions, such as anger and discontent toward service failures, were consistent in both cases. However, positive emotions (i.e., contentment with recovery efforts and overall satisfaction) and switching behavioral intentions significantly differed depending on the data source (i.e., scenario or field). Specifically, the scenario experiments tended to overstate positive feelings and understate negative behavioral intentions resulting from service failures. An analysis of these differences suggests practical implications to enhance the design of future scenario-based experiments.     

Voicing out or switching away? A psychological climate perspective on customers’ intentional responses to service failure

This research explores why customers who experience service failure are willing to complain directly to service providers but unlikely to switch to other service providers. We bring in the concept of psychological climate for communication safety (PCCS) to the service failure context and explore how customers’ perception of the social environment as open and supportive for communication affects their complaint and service switching intentions and behaviors. We further identify customer harmony enhancement as an important personality trait predictor of PCCS. Based on two field studies and one scenario-based experimental study, our findings consistently show that PCCS mediates the positive effect of customer harmony enhancement on customer complaint intentions. Customer harmony enhancement exerts a positive indirect effect on customer complaint behavior serially through PCCS and customer complaint intentions. However, our findings relating to customer service switching intentions are inconsistent across the three studies. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Service Recovery Efforts in Fast Food Restaurants to Enhance Repeat Patronage

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to: (a) identify service failure incidents; (b) identify service recovery efforts; and (c) determine the effects of resolution levels repeat patronage. Employee service behavior and monetary rewards were found to have a significant effect on resolution levels. The manager should provide guiding principles to improve service quality. Furthermore, mentoring and empowerment may improve employee service performance. Complete resolution leads to repeat patronage. The study found significant relationships between demographic characteristics with service failures and service recovery efforts. Lastly, there were significant relationships between the critical service failures and service recovery efforts and types of fast food restaurants.     

服务失败后自我建构与质量预期对满意和口碑的影响

当顾客遭遇由个别雇员引发的服务失败时,顾客会产生怎样的心理反应?文章基于服务失败情境探讨了顾客的自我建构倾向与服务质量预期对满意度与负面口碑传播的影响。研究运用实验法模拟(餐厅)服务情境,结果发现,当服务失败源于个别雇员的不当行为时,如果顾客对企业的服务持有相对负面的质量预期,那么自我建构类型为互依型的顾客(vs.独立型自我建构)更倾向于认为企业对雇员的服务质量具有可控性,会对企业更不满意;但在负面口碑传播上,独立型自我建构的顾客却反而更有可能通过口碑传播服务失败经历(vs.互依型自我建构)。文章在此基础上主要讨论了自我建构对服务失败研究以及企业实践的启示,并指出未来可进一步研究的内容。     

The fading affect bias: Examining changes in affect and behavioral intentions in restaurant service failures and recoveries

The fading affect bias (FAB) refers to the way in which affect associated with a negative event fades more quickly than affect associated with a positive event. The FAB is a healthy coping behavior developed by humans to deal with negative emotions. Drawing on the FAB hypothesis, this study investigated whether customers’ negative experiences of service failures faded more quickly from their memories than positive experiences did, such as contentedness with recovery efforts and overall satisfaction. This study also examined the moderating role of the type of service failure and service recovery on changes in the intensity of the FAB. The results suggest that individuals dissipate their anger about negative service experiences and their discontent by reappraising the event in a more positive light and by boosting implicit positive experiences (i.e., the experiences provided in service recovery). However, the amount of affect that faded significantly differed among failure types. The results also demonstrated that service recovery can help individuals evaluate a service more positively and reduce their intentions to engage in negative behaviors over time. The theoretical and managerial implications of this study are discussed in detail.     

Understanding homophily of service failure within the hotel guest cycle: Applying NLP-aspect-based sentiment analysis to the hospitality industry

Online complaints have become increasingly influential on the purchasing behavior of customers in recent years. In an effort analyze large quantities of textual complaints and detail the various aspects of them, Aspect-Based Sentiment Analysis was looked to as an ideal framework to take on the task. This study set out to synthesize specific service failure items and categorize them into the groupings related to the hotel guest cycle and the corresponding operations, then compare the patterns of expression used by Asian and Non-Asian guests as the related their hotel experiences. A total of 390,236 online complaint terms posted about 353 hotels in the UK by hotel guests from 63 nations were manually derived from TripAdvisor for analysis. With consideration given to the homophily theory, we posited that Asian and non-Asian guests would exhibit similarities and differences with respect to the service failures they encountered when presented with various items of service. The results confirmed this as Asian guests were shown to encounter more service failures with respect to the engineering segment of operations (e.g. hotel room equipment issues), while non-Asian guests encountered more service failures on the housekeeping end of operations (e.g. toilets, public areas, cleanliness, and bedding). By organizing the failures according the four stages of the guest cycle, it was observed that approximately 80% of the service failures occurred during the occupancy period. This study contributes to the existing literature on hotel guest satisfaction both with respect to the methodology it uses and the new findings it presents on differences in perceptions of service failures members among different cultures.     

The influence of guarantees,active requests to voice and failure severity on customer complaint behavior

Anecdotal evidence suggests that service guarantees and requests by service workers to complain encourage customers to voice following failure, while holding negative word of mouth and exit at bay. However, empirical support for these tactics is limited. To address this deficiency, we conducted an experiment examining the influence of these devices on customer complaint behavior (CCB) across restaurant failures of varying severity. Findings suggest that offering a guarantee, regardless of it being unconditional or combined, encourages voice. Failure severity had the strongest influence on CCB, and it interacted with both active request and guarantee type in influencing exit. Theoretical and managerial implications of the findings are discussed.     

Job standardization and service quality: The mediating role of prosocial service behaviors

Service quality has been recognized as a major topic in the tourism and hospitality industry. Although previous literature has examined the relationship between job standardization and service quality, the mechanism underlying this relationship remains a black box. The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between job standardization and service quality, and to clarify the role of prosocial service behaviors. Survey data from 336 customer-contact employees and 404 customers in Taiwan indicate that job standardization positively affects role-prescribed service behavior and extra-role service behavior of customer-contact employees, in addition to the service-quality perception of their customers. Extra-role service behavior also positively affects service quality. By contrast, the effect of role-prescribed service behavior on service quality is not significant. In addition, prosocial service behaviors mediate the relationship between job standardization and service quality. Managerial implications and future research directions are discussed in this study.     

Effects of dissatisfaction in tourist services: The role of anger and regret

Dissatisfied customers due to a service failure probably will switch the provider, will complain and/or will spread negative word-of-mouth. However, to what extent some specific emotions triggered by dissatisfaction can mediate between the latter and the previous mentioned behaviours? A sample of 359 users of restaurants and 308 users of hotel services has shown that, whereas anger has a significant influence on the three behaviours under study, regret only affects switching and negative word-of-mouth. Furthermore, slight differences between hotels and restaurants have been found because, in the case of restaurants, anger is not an antecedent of switching whereas regret has an inverse effect on complaining.     

Hospitality service failures: Who will be more dissatisfied?

This research examines consumer responses to process and outcome failures in two hospitality settings, a hotel and a restaurant. Converging evidence from two experiments indicates that dissatisfaction with service failures reflects the joint influence of failure type and value orientation. Specifically, a face-conscious value that emphasizes a positive public self-image has an aggravating effect on dissatisfaction, and the effect is stronger for process failures. In contrast, a fate-submissive value that conduces fatalistic thinking has an attenuating effect on dissatisfaction, and the effect is stronger for outcome failures. These results have broad implications for hospitality research and practice, especially in the areas of service quality management and target marketing.     

The effects of brand relationship quality on responses to service failure of hotel consumers

This article examines the applicability of Fournier's (1998) Brand Relationship Quality (BRQ) framework in the hotel industry, and also investigates the effects of BRQ on hotel consumers’ behavioral intentions, after service failures in high-class hotels. The empirical results show that BRQ is applicable to the hotel industry and has a moderating effect on consumers’ post-failure emotions, particularly in terms of influencing future behavioral intentions. However, this finding is not applicable when the service failures are severe.     

Ethical leadership and its impact on service innovative behavior: The role of LMX and job autonomy

This study examined the effect of ethical leadership on service innovative behavior of employees at small and medium sized tourist hotels in Uttarakhand, India. It has forwarded an integrated model that highlights the relationship between ethical leadership and employees' service innovative behavior while interacting through leader-member exchange and job autonomy. Using a sample of 468 customer contact employees and their 117 supervisors, hierarchical regression was conducted to establish the relationship. Findings of the study revealed that ethical leadership promoted service innovative behavior of the hotel employees mediated through leader-member exchanges. Further, it was also found that the level of service innovative behavior was commensurate to the perception of employee job autonomy. Based on the study findings, implications for theory and practice are discussed.     

Dress for success: the effect of exhibitors’ dress conformity and self-construal on attendees’ approach behavior

ABSTRACT

The purpose of the current study is to investigate how attendees’ approach behavior is influenced by exhibitors’ dress conformity. A 2 × 2 between-subjects quasi-experimental design was utilized for this study. Our results showed that conforming dress for exhibitors can lead to a higher level of approach behavior of trade show attendees as compared with nonconforming dress, and the effect of exhibitors’ dress styles on approach behavior is moderated by attendees’ self-construal. Findings of this study provide significant insights for trade show exhibitors and attendees.     

Hotel Guests' Cumulative Satisfaction Updating Process in the Context of Service Failure and Service Recovery

ABSTRACT

Consumers constantly revise their satisfaction judgments as they gain new service experience. While some researchers found that consumers weigh their prior cumulative experience more heavily than their most current individual service encounters when updating their cumulative overall satisfaction, others found the opposite result. Following the development of the literature, this study investigated customers' satisfaction updating process in the context of service failure and service recovery in the hotel industry. The results of the data analysis show that when updating overall satisfaction, participants weighed their current service encounter satisfaction more heavily than prior cumulative overall satisfaction, regardless of different levels of service failure and service recovery. The findings of this research also suggest that once customers experience service problems, it is difficult to bring customers' satisfaction level back to where it was.     

Customers Vote with Their Forks

Abstract

This study examines Consumer Complaint Behavior (CCB) in the restaurant industry. The purpose for this study is twofold: (1) To examine how gender, age, family status, and household income relate to ten common customer complaints: rudeness, lack of product knowledge, slow service, uncleanliness, inattention, forgetfulness, incorrect billing, rushed service, and overly-friendly service; and, (2) to examine the manner in which customers express their complaints. Three types of complaining behavior were considered: verbal, written, and not returning to the restaurant. Analysis of the data resulted in a demographic profile of consumer complaining behavior. Some key findings include: Documented complaints are underrepresented, yet these detailed criticism are far more prevalent than those customers who chose not to express their dissatisfaction with service. Children heighten the expectancy of efficient and quick service. Those who complain are members of upscale socioeconomic groups. Implications for management are discussed, including a recommendation to encourage customer complaints and to immediately react to them.     

Linking AI quality performance and customer engagement: The moderating effect of AI preference

Drawing upon affordance theory, this study positions artificial intelligence (AI) as a commercial service in examining its influence on customer engagement in the hotel context. In particular, we seek to understand linkages between customer perceptions of AI service quality, AI customer satisfaction and engagement. Given the multiplicity of services offered by service organisations, customers’ preference for AI service is modelled as a moderator of customer perceptions and attitudes towards AI. Data was collected from a sample of hotel customers in Australia who had previously used AI tools or services. Our results reveal a significant chain effect between AI service indicators, service quality perceptions, AI satisfaction and customer engagement. AI preference has a significant moderation effect on information quality and satisfaction. These findings provide new insights into the consumer services literature and have important implications for marketing practitioners.     

Police culture,tourists and destinations: A study of Uttarakhand,India

The present study examines the quality of service provided by police officials at tourist sites in the Uttarakhand region, India and its impact on the level of tourists' confidence in the police. The study also investigates the role that police culture plays in determining quality of service and the effect of leader behavior in moderating the relationship between them. A survey method was used for data collection from the police officials and the onsite tourists. Data analysis was carried out using CFA and an SPSS macro named PROCESS. Results showed that police organizational culture has a direct influence on tourists' confidence in the police and police service quality partially mediates the relationship between the two; also leader behavior positively moderates between police culture and service quality. This study adds to the literature on tourists' confidence in the policing of tourist sites, police culture, leader behavior, and police service quality.     

The influences of transaction history and thank you statements in service recovery

A certain number of service failures are inevitable in the hotel business. In a scenario-based experiment, using an Internet-panel sample of 166 subjects, this study finds that: (1) those guests with a long transaction history are more satisfied with a recovery initiative and more willing to return than those with a short transaction history; (2) those guests who are thanked for voicing their complaints are more satisfied with the recovery initiative and more willing to return than those who do not receive a thank you statement; and (3) receiving a thank you statement while voicing a complaint might have a greater positive impact on the satisfaction of guests with short transaction histories than on guests with long transaction histories. The managerial and research implications of these findings are discussed.