The impact of website quality on customer satisfaction and purchase intentions: Evidence from Chinese online visitors

With the increasing popularity of online shopping and being the most populated country in the world, China is one of the major online markets now and is likely to become the largest market in the future. In the academic literature, website quality has generally been recognized as a critical step to drive business online. As such, numerous studies have been devoted to website quality and evaluations. Research efforts are, however, in need of understanding the use of websites in regards to online customers’ behavior, especially Chinese customers. This study developed and empirically tested a conceptual model of the impact of website quality on customer satisfaction and purchase intentions. Results indicated that website quality has a direct and positive impact on customer satisfaction, and that customer satisfaction has a direct and positive impact on purchase intentions. While the influence of website quality on purchase intentions exists, customer satisfaction does significantly mediate this effect. Drawing on the empirical findings, managerial implications and recommendations for future research are offered.     

An examination of the differences in retail service evaluation between domestic and tourist shoppers in Hong Kong

In recent years, the concept of customer perceived value has attracted increasing attention among practitioners and academics. Despite a growing body of literature, calls remain for more sophisticated measures of the construct. This paper investigates an expanded scale of customer perceived value among two shopper groups and its resulting impact on retail performance. Findings reveal distinct differences in the drivers of customer perceived value between local and tourist shoppers in Hong Kong. Results offer significant implications for retailers and future research in this strategically important area.     

Why do satisfied customers switch? Focus on the restaurant patron variety-seeking orientation and purchase decision involvement

Company efforts to make customers switch from competitive brands to their own or induce them to repurchase their own brands are very important in their marketing activities and in this regard studies of customer variety-seeking orientation and level of involvement in decision making play a crucial role in explaining customers’ product selection activities. The purpose of this study intends to examine interrelationships among customer satisfaction, loyalty, and switching intent in family restaurants and verify the moderating effect of customer variety-seeking orientation and purchase decision involvement. A total of 305 patrons in Korea participated. The results showed a positive relationship between customer satisfaction and loyalty. Participants expressing a high level of satisfaction were more likely to switch restaurants. Whether customers feel loyalty determines their switching intent. There were moderating effects related to customer variety-seeking orientation in the causal relationships between customer loyalty and switching intent. Limitations and future research directions are also discussed.     

The social influence of other consumers on consumers’ reward donations

Loyalty reward programs and corporate social responsibility initiatives are ubiquitous in today’s corporate world, yet little is known how they can be synthesized to benefit companies and those in need. In two studies, we examine how the social influence of other consumers (the presence of other consumers and loyalty status tier) interact with reward type (effort-based vs. surprise) to influence consumers’ propensity to donate their loyalty rewards to charity. Furthermore, we uncover the underlying psychological mechanisms (i.e. instrumentality and self-enhancement) explaining the effects. Our findings indicate that hospitality operators should design loyalty reward programs that involve the presence of other consumers to induce reward donations. However, if the goal is to solicit donations from solo consumers, surprise rewards (vs. effort-based rewards) are more effective. In addition, we show that both types of rewards are effective among high-tier consumers, whereas only surprise rewards lead to high donation intent among low status consumers.     

Effects of employees’ social exchange and the mediating role of customer orientation in the restaurant industry

This study aims to investigate the consequences of customer-employee exchage at work based on the social exchange theory. Moreover, it is to understand how the social exchange leads to employees’ prosocial service behaviors by investigating the mediating role of customer orientation. This study applied quantitative research design using cross-sectional survey approach by targeting frontline employees who had customer interactions in the full-service restaurant industry. The results present that the more employees have social exchange with customers, the more they tend to show customer service behaviors within and beyond their role requirements. In addition, customer-employee exchage leads to employees prosocial service behaviors indirectly by increasing the level of customer orientation. The theoretical and managerial implications are discussed in the study.     

Evaluating Different Bases for Market Segmentation

Abstract

While market segmentation has become a major approach to understanding the nature of tourists and their travel behaviour, there exists considerable debate over which bases and statistical approaches provide the best segmentation solutions. Morrison (1996) has offered eight criteria for evaluating the success or value of a segmentation result. This paper used these eight criteria to evaluate two different segmentation approaches used with the same survey sample. An a priori geographic segmentation of visitors to the Wet Tropics region of Australia was compared to an activity based a posteriori segmentation approach. There was evidence that the activity segmentation approach fulfilled the eight criteria more adequately than the geographic approach. It was further suggested that for large samples a multi-stage methodology might be a desirable approach for meeting all eight marketing segmentation effectiveness criteria.     

The effect of CSR on corporate image,customer citizenship behaviors,and customers’ long-term relationship orientation

With the expansion of corporate social impact, corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities have been regarded as a critical factor for corporate management. There is a need to understand customers’ perception of CSR activities for future corporate profitability. Thus, this study investigates the effect of multidimensional CSR activities on customers’ corporate image, customer citizenship behavior (CCB), and long-term relationship orientation (LRO). The results indicate that CSR (economic, ethical, legal, and philanthropic) had a positive effect on corporate image and on CCB (making recommendation, helping other consumers, and providing feedback). It also appears that CCB had a positive effect on LRO with firms. This study provides empirical implications for companies by verifying the effect of CSR activities as a focal factor in building long-term relationships as an organizational goal in the foodservice industry.     

From customers' fingertips to employees’ well-being: The impact of mobile application ordering from a job demand-resource perspective

Service is entering a 2.0 transformation where service no longer simply involves customer-employee interactions, but customer-technology-employee interactions. However, previous literature predominantly focuses on customers from a marketing approach, failing to incorporate employees' perspective in the face of technology-enabled changes in a service encounter. Building on Job demand-resource model, this study proposes mobile applications as a job resource and examines their impact on restaurant employees. This study conducts interviews and qualitative content analysis in Study 1 and further employs a 2 × 2 between-subjects experimental design in Study 2. The results indicate that mobile orders may assist frontline employees to invest less cognitive and emotional effort, even in the condition of higher order complexity, leading to enhanced employee workplace well-being. This study newly introduces mobile apps as job resources and a potential way to improve employees’ well-being at work. This study contributes both JD-R and the well-being literature with practical implications.     

The impact of customer-to-customer interaction and customer homogeneity on customer satisfaction in tourism service—The service encounter prospective

Customer satisfaction has been an important topic in tourism service management. Many researchers have argued that customer-to-customer interaction may affect customers’ evaluation of the service experience. Consequently, the objective of this research is to investigate the relationship between customer-to-customer interaction, customer homogeneity and customer satisfaction. This research adopted questionnaires to investigate tourists traveling to foreign areas from Taiwan. In conclusion, the perception of customer-to-customer interaction incidents could be extracted into six factors, including protocol and sociable incidents, violent incidents, grungy incidents, malcontent incidents, crude incidents, and inconsiderate incidents. The results of the analysis indicate that “protocol and sociable incidents” have a significantly positive impact on the “evaluation of fellow customers”. However, “malcontent incidents” have a significantly negative impact on customer satisfaction. “Marital homogeneity” has a positive influence on the “evaluation of fellow customers”. Finally, “evaluation of fellow customers” has a positive influence on customer satisfaction. Some suggestions for practitioners to manage customer compatibility and enhance customer satisfaction are proposed.