Managing service recovery experience: Effects of the forgiveness for older consumers

The research studies empirically the role that fairness plays in shaping emotional and behavioral forgiveness among older U.S. consumers (55 years of age and older). A theoretical model is proposed and tested that proposes, consistent with theory on emotions, that perceptions of justice affect behavioral forgiveness through emotional forgiveness. An alternative theory questions whether the effects of justice are totally mediated by emotion. Comparative results support the latter model. The cognitive perceptions of justice display a stronger effect compared to the mediated effect through emotional forgiveness. Additionally, an examination of moderation by psychological age suggests that relatively old and young (psychologically) consumers react in the same manner. While clearly, service managers need to be sensitive to the emotions of senior customers, the results here suggest a stronger role for cognitive perceptions of justice. Thus, service providers need to provide senior consumers with clearly understandable explanations for any service failure and explain how the recovery efforts will compensate for the failure.     

Development of a service continance model with IT service antecedents

This study make provides service marketers, particularly those delivering information technology (IT) related service, with insight to the factors that consumers use when evaluating IT services. We develop a service continuance model that includes the antecedents of the consumer׳s decision to continue using information technology (IT) related services in a B2C service environment. Using data from the smart phone service consumers, a covariance-based structural equation modeling analysis is used to test the research model. Results from our empirical study suggest that the association between service usefulness and service continuation intention is fully mediated by service satisfaction. Though both system-service quality and customer-service quality are positively associated with service satisfaction, consumers of IT related services attach greater importance to system-service quality than to custom service quality. Likewise, the indirect path to service continuation intention is stronger in system-service quality than in customer-service quality. Our findings have practical implication for growing market share in IT related services by recognizing the importance of system-service quality in technology service delivery.     

The impact of culture on consumers’ perceptions of service recovery efforts

The increasing globalization of business provides a compelling reason for understanding the cultural context of consumer behavior. The research reported here examines the impact of culture on consumers’ perceptions of service recovery efforts. In particular, we studied in an experimental setting, across East-West cultures, the combined effects of explanation and compensation in shaping customers’ attributions and post-recovery perceptions in a medium contact service—a restaurant setting. Our findings show that the differential sensitivity of East Asian and American consumers to situational constraints influence their attributions for service failures, and thus moderate their satisfaction with service recovery process. More specifically, the results suggest that a causal explanation for service failure decreases the likelihood of US consumers falling prey to the fundamental attribution error. Conversely, among East Asians, an explanation had minimal influence in attributional processes. Finally, our results indicate that attributional processes influence customer perceptions of employee effort, which in turn is linked to post-recovery satisfaction.     

Incorporating user costs in preference models for service alternatives

Services are often distinguished from goods by the involvement of the consumer in the production and delivery process. Since the net benefits derived by consumers depend upon their effectiveness and efficiency in fulfilling their required roles, preferences for and choice of alternative services should reflect their effort. We propose a model of preference which incorporatesuser costs, which reflect consumers' efforts, or a corresponding universal set ofuser service dimensions, which reflect attributes of the service that impinge on these user costs. We apply this model to a small-scale study of services for the transfer of written material. The findings demonstrate the ability to treat rigorously essential aspects of services, with implications for the management of services, and for further research.The authors acknowledge the considerable efforts of Rosemary Lyster, MBA student at New York University, and Lorraine Scudieri, Manager of Business Research at Bell Atlantic, in planning and executing a complex survey which provided the data used in this analysis. The authors were stimulated by discussions with Roger Betancourt, who deserves much of the credit and none of the blame for what follows. The authors are also grateful to Avijit Ghosh, Robert Shoemaker, and John Czepiel for their comments on an early version of this paper. Our application was motivated by a research project with Institut National des Telecommunications (France Telecom University) and, in particular with Pierre Vialle.     

Removing the contextual lens: A multinational, multi-setting comparison of service evaluation models

Four service evaluation models are identified from the literature that are commonly offered to depict the relationships amongst the primary service evaluation constructs of sacrifice, service quality, service value, satisfaction, and behavioral intentions. We comparatively test the models using samples of service consumers in Australia, Hong Kong, Morocco, the Netherlands, and the United States, as well as across varied temporal and service settings. The results of the comparative analyses reveal that one conceptualization, the “comprehensive” model, best captures the identified relationships. This model is the best fitting across all countries and settings, which indicates it has the greatest external validity. These findings are discussed relative to the limitations associated with the use of less generalizable models.     

Effect of service recovery on customers’ perceived justice,satisfaction, and word-of-mouth intentions on online shopping websites

As consumers become better informed and more demanding about their purchase of services, service provider's failure to satisfy all consumers during delivery of service is unavoidable. Consequently, to alleviate consumer dissatisfaction that results from service failure has become important. However, empirical consensus has been lacking on the effects of various service recovery activities. Thus, this study examines the impact of different types of service recovery on customers’ perceptions of justice, post-recovery satisfaction, and word-of-mouth (WOM) intentions. The results indicated that consumers’ perceptions of distributive and interactional justice differ by the types of service recovery and supported significant relationships among perceptions of justice, satisfaction, and WOM intentions. The results implied that consumers respond differently to different types of service recovery and that consumers particularly favor apology among types of service recovery.     

Exploring different airport users’ service quality satisfaction between service providers and air travelers

This study investigates appropriate attributes— physical environment, outcome, and interactional quality—to measure users' satisfaction that influences airport users' satisfaction level. With these three attributes and users’ perspectives for air travelers and service providers, we generate a conceptual model of airport service quality and satisfaction. The findings indicate that different perceptions exist between airport service providers and air travelers. Air travelers are more concerned with interaction and outcome (convenience) quality attributes, while services providers reflect on interaction and physical environment (servicescape) quality attributes. The airport service quality is found to be significantly related to airport reuse, and destination revisits. An appropriate service-training program is needed to reduce the gap in the level of satisfaction.     

Investigating pharmaceutical logistics service quality with refined Kano's model

This study applies the refined Kano model and importance-satisfaction model to investigate medical institutions' satisfaction with and perceptions of importance of domestic pharmaceutical logistics services. Survey data involving 104 respondents from medical institutions are analyzed with importance-satisfaction and the refined Kano model. The results demonstrate that the refined Kano model will generate different classification of quality attributes for the pharmaceutical logistics industry, and medical institutions with different characteristics really have varying responses to quality attributes of pharmaceutical logistics services. The present research contributes to the literature by demonstrating that provision of high-value-added and crucial quality attributes by service providers can give them an edge in the market. In addition, when service providers understand their customers’ attitudes toward innovative service, it can enable them to strengthen their tactics in a competitive market.     

The effects of service brand dimensions on brand loyalty

The present paper uses a modified version of the Service Brand Verdict (SBV) model. The objective of the study is to incorporate service brand loyalty as an ultimate dependent measure seen as the outcome of consumers' evaluation of various service brand dimensions and communication, and test the generalizability of the modified SBV model in two different service sectors and cultural settings. Two studies using on-line survey data were conducted in Denmark and Norway in two different service industries (airlines and banks respectively). Previous findings suggesting that brand evidence significantly influences consumer satisfaction, attitude and behavioural loyalty towards service brands were confirmed. Moreover, contrary to previous findings, controlled communication elements (i.e. advertising and promotions) did not have any influence on customer satisfaction with service brands. However, the same communication elements directly and significantly shaped customers' perceptions of the various brand dimensions and their overall attitude towards the brand.     

Understanding the user satisfaction and loyalty of customer service chatbots

The artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot is emerging as a significant corporate customer-facing application, potentially increasin customer service efficiency while reducing costs. However, little work has sought to assess the quality of service they provide consumers. This study applies the e-service quality by incorporating conversational AI quality to predict users' satisfaction and loyalty to customer service chatbots. The proposed model was empirically evaluated using survey data collected from 219 users responding about their perceptions of customer service chatbots. The findings indicate that AI chatbot service recovery quality and AI chatbot conversational quality significantly influence user satisfaction. On the other hand, core AI chatbot service quality and satisfaction significantly influenced chatbot user loyalty. This study contributes to researchers and practitioners by proposing and evaluating a more comprehensive chatbot e-service quality that combines both fundamental (core service and service recovery qualities) and human-like (conversational quality) aspects of e-service. The results are of value in devising future AI chatbot services and related strategies.     

The study of service innovation for digiservice on loyalty

Advocates of management of service innovation see this area as a new and promising research field. As services are increasingly becoming driving forces of economies, the introduction of new services to satisfy customer needs is becoming a critical issue for managers. This research attempts to address the consumer issue of service innovation. The research entails a comprehensive study of the impacts of service innovation on consumer loyalty in the digiservice context. The study examines service innovation loyalty from the consumer perspective; namely, technology leadership, service leadership, switching cost, brand equity, and customization. Personal interview data from 475 consumers provides the data for empirical hypothesis testing of the relationships between variables. The conceptual model investigates the relevant relationships among the constructs by using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modeling (SEM). Findings from the research sample support the argument that technology leadership, service leadership, brand equity, and customization are the key determinants of loyalty. The paper also includes a discussion on the theoretical and managerial implications of the research findings.     

Understanding the influences of story elements in service businesses

With the advances of the roles of business stories in marketing, two issues remain unclear: How do consumers evaluate story elements on services? Do usefulness and affect mediate the relationships between business story elements and brand attitude in services? Therefore, to answer these questions, this study conducted between-subjects experiments to investigate the roles of business story elements, usefulness, and affect in financial and restaurants services. The results indicate that the elements of authenticity, reversal, and humor are generally useful in engaging consumers’ usefulness and affect; besides, conciseness is useful in engaging consumers’ usefulness but is not for affect and brand attitude; finally, usefulness and affect are mediators of the relationship between business story elements and brand attitude. These findings provide a framework to design business story and investigate the mediation of usefulness and affect on the relationship between business story elements and brand attitude for services and practitioners.     

Self-diminishing effects of awe on consumer forgiveness in service encounters

Previous studies address consumers' emotions as an endogenous consequence of the service experience and assume that consumers base their decisions to forgive on the service situation's features; however, they rarely mention the role of the emotions that people might be experiencing, for reasons unrelated to the service failure itself. The current study thus considers a foundational but rarely examined human experience in business settings, awe, as well as its prosocial effect in service encounters. Incidental awe might alleviate the negative impacts of a service failure and enhance consumer forgiveness, through self-diminishment processes. Using four scenario-based experiments, referring to four types of service failures (outcome, process, controllable, and uncontrollable failures), this study tests for the positive effect of awe on consumers' inclination to forgive service failures and the mediating role of the small self in this effect. The present research thus enriches understanding of consumer forgiveness due to incidental emotions, which offers marketers some insights into how they might leverage methods that affect consumers' incidental emotions to encourage consumer forgiveness in service failures.     

Instrumental client relationship development among top-ranking service professionals

Informal client contact forms a crucial part of the daily routine of service professionals, in particular among top-ranking professionals working for consultancy and accountancy firms. In this paper, we investigate how 34 service professionals develop informal client contact, by studying their networking styles. Our study shows many similarities in informal client contact between two groups of service professionals grouped by gender, but we also found subtle differences in what we coin instrumental and expressive relations. Contrary to gender stereotypes, we found that female service professionals tended toward instrumental networking styles, using professionalism and distance and allowing the high quality of their work compensate for network deficits, contingent upon their clients’ gender. Male service professionals drew on expressive relations to develop emotional bonding with their male clients in particular, but nonetheless toward instrumental purposes. Our study contributes to service industries literature by theoretically and empirically establishing the different informal networking styles between top-ranking service professionals, and the role of emotional bonding in particular. In doing so, the paper helps to better understand the intricacies of informal client contact as a critical dimension of the professional services industry.     

Planning and implementing effective service guarantee programs

This article highlights different types of service guarantees, explains the benefits of service guarantees to consumers and service providers, examines why service guarantees are so rarely used, and describes the characteristics of effective service guarantee programs. We seek to motivate additional service providers into offering service guarantees (when appropriate), to improve the effectiveness of service guarantee programs, and to spur additional research that can reduce the gap between academic research and industry practices relating to service guarantees. Properly planned, implemented, and controlled service guarantees can benefit service providers by serving as a signal of quality to customers, focusing on consumer expectations, developing specific performance standards, providing reliable data on service failures, determining weak points in the service-delivery process, and regaining customers who would otherwise be lost. Despite these benefits, service guarantees are not commonly used by service providers for a variety of reasons. We study and evaluate these impediments as well as describe characteristics of effective service guarantee programs from both the consumer's and service provider's perspectives.     

Group service recovery strategies effectiveness: The moderating effects of group size and relational distance

The extant service recovery literature focuses on consumers' responses to individual failures. However, group service failures are in fact common, but they have received insufficient research attention. This study contributes to theory and practice by applying social impact theory to explain the social nature of group failures. Findings from two studies show that group size and relational distance substantially affect consumers' response to group service recovery strategies. Specifically, private economic recovery creates less consumer satisfaction as group size increases, whereas consumers with a distant social relationship are more satisfied with public recovery for both economic recovery and social recovery. However, consumers with close relationships are more satisfied with public economic recovery and private social recovery. Apart from offering practical insights, this study expands the theoretical understanding of service failures, suggesting that they occur in a complex social ecology instead of relatively simple dyadic interactions between service providers and consumers.     

Investigating the importance and cognitive satisfaction attributes of service quality in restaurant business - a case study of TASTy steakhouse in Taiwan

ABSTRACT

In this research, we proposed an effective approach to investigate the importance and satisfaction attributes of service quality of a restaurant business. For understanding the gaps of service quality cognition between consumers and servers, our work can be used as a reference for helping restaurants improve their service quality and reuse their resources effectively. We applied DINESERV scales and five-point Likert scales as quantitative research tools. The Kano model, customer satisfaction index, regression analysis, improvement effort index, and importance-performance analysis (IPA) were applied as measurement tools to examine the importance of various service attributes. Our approach was implemented in a famous restaurant in Taiwan: TASTy Steakhouse. The relative priority of service quality attributes for improving this chain restaurant and its competitiveness are ranked and discussed.     

Examining the relationship between language divergence and word-of-mouth intentions

More than half of the countries in the world are multilingual, and more than half the world's consumers speak more than one language. Thus, bilingual consumers often receive services provided in a second or nonnative language. This article examines these consumers' word-of-mouth intentions after a service provision in a second language. Two studies show that consumers served in a second language are less likely to spread positive word of mouth. The results also reveal a negative halo effect, such that consumers served in a second language perceive the service provider as less responsive in general. Furthermore, the service provider's perceived responsiveness appears far more important for determining positive word-of-mouth intentions than other factors, such as service reliability. This study therefore contributes to the fields of service and sociolinguistics, with important implications for managers as well.     

Influence of negative age stereotypes and anti‐aging needs on older consumers’ consumption‐coping behaviours: A qualitative study in South Korea

The number of older people in South Korea is growing dramatically, and the socio‐psychological needs of these people have begun to change from those of elderly people in the previous Confucian culture. The anti‐aging industry is popular among older South Korean consumers, and the Korean mass media have begun to broadcast new images of older people. The purpose of this research was to explore older Korean people's anti‐aging needs by examining their consumption‐related thoughts and behaviours in daily life. A theoretical framework is formulated to organize the coping processes and psychological mechanisms used by older Koreans to meet their anti‐aging needs. A total of 25 older Korean consumers were interviewed, and the qualitative data are analysed to determine the main causes and, attributes of, and reactions to their anti‐aging needs. The analysis of the in‐depth‐interviews shows that the older consumers’ negative age stereotypes act as a stressor and that their need for anti‐aging products is a defensive reaction. It is also found that older Korean consumers change their consumption behaviours to cope with negative age stereotypes and to satisfy their anti‐aging needs, and two types of coping behaviours (problem‐focused and emotion‐focused) are revealed. The results of this study contribute to the academic explanations of the anti‐aging phenomenon among older Koreans and enhance understanding of the perspectives of older Eastern consumers by revealing the existence of their anti‐aging needs.     

Should reputable e-retailers undertake service activities along with sales?

With the growth of e-commerce and the elevated service requirements of consumers, e-retailers should carefully evaluate the profitability of delivering product services themselves that were once provided by suppliers. Within this context, we apply game theory to construct a principal-agent model to study a sales and service choice problem faced by an e-retailer. Three strategies are proposed in our paper, pure platform strategy (as the benchmark), resale strategy, and resale plus service strategy. Through comparison and analysis, we find that the sales and service strategy preferences of the e-retailer are influenced by reputation and service costs. Additionally, highly reputable e-retailers tend to provide superior levels of service and prices rather than excessively pursue market demand under the resale plus service strategy. Furthermore, we define the ratio of quality plus service to price as the consumer's performance ratio. Interestingly, reputable e-retailer may bring bad consumer's performance ratio. Moreover, the win-win situation occurs when the e-retailer provides the resale strategy or when the supplier prefers the resale plus service strategy. Our study suggests that e-retailers should make tradeoff between control over services and service costs, and make full use of the advantage of reputation to adjust their income strategy, avoiding blindly pursuing low prices and ignoring the service. In addition, for the supplier, it is appropriate to transfer the service to the e-retailer according to his own conditions.