Problem Gamblers’ Harsh Gaze on Casino Services

This study provides a first look at the perspectives and profiles of casino problem gamblers. The study proposes that problem gamblers (1) have unique antecedent conditions and (2) evaluate their casino service more favorably than nonproblem gamblers. While first proposition receives support, the findings counter the second; surprisingly, problem gamblers view casino service with a harsh gaze. The coverage here includes overall and specific findings from face‐to‐face interviews with gamblers (n = 348) inside seven casinos in the world's largest gaming destination (Macau). The interviews included asking participants to complete the “Problem Gambling Severity Index” (identified to participants as “My gambling‐related experiences”). The study includes both fit and predictive validities of overall service quality models for each of the seven casinos—these findings support the nomological validity that specific patterns of antecedents and outcomes associate with problem gambling. Policy and managerial implications inform how to go about creating unique marketing service designs to assist problem gamblers in managing their gambling behavior.     

Leveraging employee emotional intelligence in casino profitability

Drawing on the link between service quality and casino profitability, this paper describes the roles of frontline employees in delivering casino service quality and analyses how management can nurture employee emotional intelligence's (EEI) contribution to casino revenue growth. This study is conceptual in nature. The analysis builds from identifying the emotional contents embracing service encounter involving casino frontline employees and customers. The identification area approaches from emotional work performed by employees, referred to as emotional labor, the emotional service delivered by casinos, customer attributed emotions and emotional contagion. The study comprehensively analyses how EEI can manage and regulate emotionally charged service encounters which subsequently affect customers’ perception of employee behaviours and service performance over service encounters. These encounter performance forms customers’ perception of casino service quality which leads to customer loyalty and ultimately casino profitability. This theory-focused study presents an additional venue with great potential for casinos to enhance business performance and financial growth, as well as providing new insights into the role of EEI in organizations for researchers in the relevant field.     

Spousal Ethical Justifications of Casino Gambling: A Psychometric Analysis

Spousal reactions to social costs and benefits of legalizing casino gambling in their city are converted to psychometric measures that reflect teleological and distributive-justice related ethical assessments. Major findings indicate low teleological and distributive justifications of casino gambling among both spouses, particularly among wives. As expected, heavy casino gamblers score higher compared to light gamblers and nongamblers; the level of one's past betting and gambling involvement is found to predispose higher ethical justifications of local casinos. Social policy implications of findings are discussed.     

Who stays,who walks,and why in high-intensity service contexts

The current investigation explores relationships among customer service-quality evaluations, propensity-to-switch, and player retention in a highly-intense service delivery environment (casinos). The study also examines the proposal that player loyalty intervenes between casino service-quality perceptions and player retention. Overall customer service-quality perception is operationalized as a multi-dimensional construct, consisting of service environment, empathy, reliability, assurance, responsiveness, game service, and food service. Path analyses show that casino service environment is the only factor that impacts player propensity-to-switch, whereas food service and empathy affect player retention. After separating the sample into three groups based on respondents' average betting, namely low-end, medium and high-end players, the influence of casino service factors on player propensity-to-switch and retention varies substantially among the groups. Results for testing the mediation model demonstrate that customer loyalty affects player retention and that casino service evaluations influence customer loyalty directly. A few measured factors such as age, education, occupation, and income influence player propensity-to-switch and retention. These findings have strategic implications for casino marketers.     

The influence of customer experience with automated games and social interaction on customer engagement and loyalty in casinos

Drawing on experiential marketing theory, This study examines the relationship between casino customers’ experience with automated games and their engagement and loyalty responses to casinos. Social interaction as a proxy of visiting motivation is modelled as a moderator in the relationship. Customer behaviours include word-of-mouth, visiting frequency, and average spending. The study focuses on Australian land-based casino members with automated game experience. The results show that customer experience with some features of automated games had a positive and significant impact on customer engagement with the casino, which led to positive loyalty. Automated game experience also had an indirect effect on customer loyalty. Social interaction exhibited a significant moderating effect on the relationship between customer engagement and visiting frequency. Discussion and implications of these findings for the literature and practitioners conclude the paper.     

An asymmetrical approach to understanding configurations of customer loyalty in the airline industry

This study employs fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to examine asymmetrical relationships among service attributes, relationship quality, and customer loyalty in the airline industry. The study incorporates customers’ demographics and psychological variables to model customer loyalty. Customer loyalty is operationalised as behavioural and attitudinal dimensions in order to capture customers’ actual behaviours and behavioural intentions. Symmetrical testing is also used to compare findings with those from fsQCA application. The study provides various causal recipes or configurations for predicting relationship quality and customer loyalty. The comparison between symmetrical and asymmetrical findings presents deeper and more insightful information. These findings provide useful guidelines and references for the relevant researchers and practitioners. The study also contributes to the literature by utilising symmetrical and asymmetrical tools to advance understanding of antecedent conditions of relationship quality and customer loyalty.     

FsQCA versus regression: The context of customer engagement

The purpose of this study is to address the strengths and weaknesses of the Fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) method by contrasting it with traditional multiple regression analysis. To achieve our objective, we utilize the context of customer engagement and explore how both methodological approaches can explain the factors that lead customers to engage with brands/firms. We test the association between customer engagement and its antecedents by using both methods, fsQCA and multiple regression analysis (MRA), and compare the findings. MRA results show a significant relationship between customer engagement and perceived interactivity, perceived identification, perceived value, and brand involvement, a negative relationship with perceived fairness, while the relationship with customer satisfaction and perceived value is not statistically significant. On the other hand, fsQCA revealed eight different combinations of these antecedents that lead to high levels of customer engagement. Although multiple regression analysis (MRA) certainly has its own merit, our findings indicate that this methodological approach does not capture the complexities extant in real life. This method's strength of providing generalizable results is also its weakness as relationships cannot always be generalized as shown in our study. As such, at a minimum, fsQCA should be used as a complementary approach when authors employ MRA. We suggest ‘at a minimum’ because fsQCA possesses sufficient explanatory power to be employed by itself to offer a rich perspective on the relationships of interest. We also make several noteworthy contributions to the customer engagement and service marketing literatures.     

An exploratory study of gambling motivations and their impact on the purchase frequencies of various gambling products

The global gambling industry is huge and gambling has become a leading leisure activity in many countries. Although research on gambling is extensive, many gaps remain. The objective of this exploratory study was to examine how motivations for regular gambling varied by the forms of game played. Using data collected by the U.S. National Gambling Impact Study Commission, the study found that regular gamblers were motivated to gamble to win and to fulfill their sense of excitement/challenge for some gambling products like lottery, racetrack betting, and casinos. For others, such as bingo and card room games, they were motivated to gamble more for social reasons. The findings have important implications to marketers and public policy makers. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

What the eye does not see,the mind cannot reject: Can call center location explain differences in customer evaluations?

Moving call centers offshore may be an effective way to increase service productivity by lowering costs, yet recent research suggests that customers associate offshore call centers with lower service quality. This study clarifies customer evaluations of call centers with a field study that examines how customer perceptions of a foreign accent, call center location, and the agent's customer orientation relate to nonmonetary performance outcomes. Multivariate analysis of data collected from more than 800 customers using call centers located in three countries suggests that neither accent detection nor call center location relates to customer satisfaction, trust, or word-of-mouth communication; only perceived customer orientation has an effect on these outcomes. These findings suggest offshore call center locations are not necessarily associated with lower performance outcomes and that service firms should place a higher priority on ensuring call center agents have a strong customer orientation, rather than on avoiding the use of call centers abroad.     

How IT affordances influence customer engagement in live streaming commerce? A dual-stage analysis of PLS-SEM and fsQCA

Engaging customers and building loyalty are crucial for operators who embrace live streaming. While previous research has identified many social and technical factors that assist operators in engaging their customers, few studies have examined customer engagement from a sociotechnical perspective (i.e., IT affordances). To fill the gap, a theoretical model grounded in the stimulus-organism-response (SOR) framework is developed to explain how IT affordances (i.e., metavoicing, visibility, and guidance shopping affordance) influence customer engagement through swift guanxi and perceived enjoyment in live streaming. To test the model, a survey with 371 valid samples was carried out and a dual-stage analysis using partial least squares-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) was employed. PLS-SEM results reveal that IT affordances in live streaming indirectly affect customer engagement through swift guanxi and perceived enjoyment. Additionally, fsQCA suggests that two different configurations with high or low visibility affordance can lead to the same outcome of high customer engagement. These findings offer insights into how IT affordances can promote customer engagement and assist operators of live streaming commerce (LSC) in developing effective strategies to engage their customers.     

Diagnosing service quality using customer reviews: an index approach based on sentiment and gap analyses

Recognizing the importance and potential benefits of customer reviews as a source of the voice of customers, this study proposes an analytic framework and procedures for analyzing customer reviews—termed a customer review-based gap analysis—that are tailored to diagnosing service quality. To this end, we conduct sentiment analysis on customer reviews to capture customers’ perceptions and expectations at the service-feature level, which are not expressed explicitly in their reviews. A case study of a mobile navigation service shows that the customer review-based gap analysis can provide the practical information required to diagnose service quality from customer review data. The suggested indexes for capturing customers’ perceptions and expectations reveal quality strengths and drawbacks at the service-feature level. In addition, incorporating these indexes into those for quality performance and objectives based on a service-feature hierarchy provides a diagnostic tool capable of examining service quality in both overall as well as detailed aspects.     

The Impact of Consumer Confidence on Store Satisfaction and Share of Wallet Formation

For retailer managers, it is crucial to understand the relationships between customers’ store attribute evaluations, satisfaction, and share of wallet as well as how these relationships change over time depending on the business cycle. This study investigates this complex relationship using an extensive dataset for all grocery chains in the Netherlands over the period 2009–2012. Our findings indicate that retailers should not overemphasize the importance of a favorable price image in times of low consumer confidence. Instead, our study shows that the relationship between service attributes and customer satisfaction is stronger in periods with low consumer confidence.     

Customer benefits and value creation in streaming services marketing: a managerial cognitive capability approach

Customer value analysis and management is a key theoretical and empirical issue in marketing management and strategic management. However, little is known about the influence of customer benefit on customer value from the microfoundations of the dynamic capabilities perspective. Currently, a boom in online video and music streaming services is changing the entertainment industry structure. Thus, marketing managers in the fast‐growing streaming services industry should have dynamic managerial capabilities to anticipate other service elements that customers consider valuable. Based on managerial cognitive dynamic capabilities, this research explored the influences of customer‐perceived functional benefit, experiential benefit, financial benefit, and psychosocial benefit on perceived instrumental and terminal values. General linear model (GLM) and fuzzy‐set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) were conducted to gain a more nuanced understanding of how different customers’ perceived benefits have different impacts on perceived value. The findings illuminate complex benefit configurations that drive perceived instrumental and terminal values and contribute to the development of value creation and its drivers. The proposed framework can help managers develop managerial cognitive dynamic capabilities by increasing their understanding of the impact of different perceived benefits on value creation for different types of customers.     

Linking transaction-specific satisfaction and customer loyalty – The case of casino resorts

This study investigates the relationship between customer satisfaction, delight, place attachment, and loyalty in a casino context. Customer satisfaction in this study refers to customers’ transactional experience with shopping, food and beverage, and gaming within a casino resort. The study examines how each transactional, satisfying, experience affects customer delight and place attachment, which subsequently influences customer loyalty. Customer delight and place attachment are modelled as mediators between satisfaction and loyalty. The results show that each transaction-specific satisfaction is significantly related to customer delight and place attachment with the exception that a positive experience with casino gaming is not related to place attachment. Whilst place attachment has a significant influence on customer loyalty, customer delight has little effect on the loyalty indicators. The study provides a fresh perspective on the customer satisfaction-loyalty relationship. The implications of these findings are highlighted for researchers and practitioners.     

The development of service quality dimensions for internet service providers: Retaining customers of different usage patterns

This study examines the relationships among relevant service quality dimensions of Internet service providers (ISP) and their customers’ perceived value, trust and commitment. Data was collected from residential Internet users in Thailand. The final usable sample size was 1507. The analyses include segmenting ISPs’ customers on the basis of their usage pattern and evaluating their perceptions of Internet service quality dimensions. In addition, several alternatives models were compared using structural equation modelling to confirm the mediation effects. An ISP’s service quality is influenced by the following four dimensions (a) network quality, (b) customer service and technical support, (c) information quality and (d) security and privacy. The findings reveal that while all dimensions have positive effects on trust, only network quality, information support and privacy influence customer value significantly and information support is the only dimension which is directly related to commitment. Additionally, the effects of customer service and information support on value vary across customers of different Internet usage patterns. The contribution of the present paper stems from the simultaneous modelling of a range of mediation effects which can better help explain the impact of service quality dimensions on customers’ cognitive and affective evaluations in high-tech service settings.     

The new wave of AI-powered luxury brands online shopping experience: The role of digital multisensory cues and customers’ engagement

Academic literature retains a dearth of empirical evidence of the cutting-edge aspect of artificial intelligence (AI)-powered digital assistance and digital multisensory cues, despite the prospect of these factors on real-life customers' luxury brand online shopping experience. Thus, the aim of this study is to examine the significant pathway and effects of AI-powered digital assistance toward customers’ luxury brand online shopping experience. Drawing on S–O-R (Stimulus, organism, and response) and TRAM (Technology Readiness and Acceptance Model) paradigm, a multi-method research design was deployed to investigate constructs. Firstly, semi-structured interviews were utilized to explore customers' online behavior under the luxury brands and information technology aspect. Secondly, survey data were collected and analyzed by using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA). The PLS-based analysis of quantitative data confirmed the exploratory insights of qualitative findings, establishing the connections of AI-powered digital assistance, customer engagement, and customers' luxury brand online shopping experience. Research findings also suggest that customer engagement plays a mediation role in the relationship between AI-powered digital assistance and customers' luxury brand online shopping experience. Besides, digital multisensory cues moderate the relationship between AI-powered digital assistance and customer engagement. Further, fsQCA complements the findings of PLS-SEM that reveal the significant combination of factors that lead to the perceptions of customers' luxury brand online shopping experience.     

Automated inference of product attributes and their importance from user-generated content: Can we replace traditional market research?

User-generated content, particularly online product reviews by customers, provide marketers with rich data of customer evaluations of product attributes. This study proposes, benchmarks, and validates a new approach for inferring attribute-level evaluations from user-generated content. Moreover, little is known about whether and when insights from product reviews gained in such a way are consistent with traditional research methods, such as conjoint analysis and satisfaction driver analysis. To provide first insights into this question, the authors apply their approach to a dataset with almost one million product reviews from 52 product categories and run conjoint and satisfaction driver analyses for these categories. Results indicate that the consistency between methods largely varies across product categories. Initial exploratory analyses suggest that consistency might be higher for categories characterized by low experience qualities, high hedonic value, and high customer willingness to post online reviews—but further work will be necessary to validate these findings.     

Pleasantly Plump: Offsetting Negative Obesity Stereotypes for Frontline Service Employees

Obesity is described as the fastest growing public health challenge facing developed nations (Prentice, 2006). This research introduces the topic of obesity to the retailing literature by examining the interplay between obesity in frontline employees and customer evaluations of service transactions. Baseline effects are established that show customers evaluate employees and firms more negatively if the frontline worker is obese compared to average weight. Two follow-up studies identify means by which firms may offset the negative obesity effects. Specifically, signaling theory is drawn upon in Study 1 to justify the introduction of observable quality cues as a means to offset negative stereotypes. Results indicate that the presence of unambiguous quality cues attenuate unfavorable judgments of the obese employee and the affiliated retail store. In Study 2, a countervailing, jovial stereotype is primed as a means to offset the more prominent negative ones. Retail managers can use this research as a means to understand an important caveat to frontline service evaluations and as the basis for managing a prominent negative stereotype.     

A social learning perspective of gambling behaviour among college students at Iowa State University,USA

This study assesses the proportion of college students who gamble and the level of their gambling involvement (i.e. frequency, scope, expenditure). In addition, a better understanding is sought of why students gamble and the factors that contribute to their gambling behaviour. The data were collected in the autumn of 1996 from 797 undergraduate students. The main outcome measures included the students' gambling status, scope, frequency and expenditure. The predictor variables were gender, age, employment status, grade point average and gambling expenditure of the mother, father and best friend of the respondents. Frequency and cross‐tabulation analyses were used to develop the respondents' demographic profile and to describe differences between characteristics of gamblers and non‐gamblers. Gamma‐statistics were used to test the strength of the relationship between predictors and outcome variables. Over half of the students gambled, and the two most frequently identified gambling activities were lottery and non‐casino cards. The majority indicated that they gambled for entertainment. On average, the students gambled three times and staked an average of 33 per month on their gambling. However, about 19% of them gambled 3–6 times and staked over 66 a month on gambling. Student gambling was found to be positively related to the gambling of their parents and the gambling of their best friend.     

Investigating the dynamics of service attributes in multi-channel environments

Previous research has shown that customer evaluations of attributes in existing product and service categories are dynamic. In this study, we use a response surface model based on a conjoint analysis of service profiles in the context of mobile phone service to examine the dynamics of multi-channel service attributes and their influence on customers’ intention to renew a service agreement. Our results provide insights for the design of a service that may not be what customers have experienced in the past and demonstrate the qualities of a set of multi-channel service attributes that have not been included in previous studies.