Change in Consumer Patronage and Willingness to Pay at Different Levels of Service Attributes in Restaurants: A Study in India

Consumer patronage and consumer willingness to pay are the two most important criteria for business development. The current study investigates the changing preferences of consumers in a developing economy with respect to three major service attributes from the restaurant industry: food quality, service, and ambiance. Results indicated that consumers give greater preference to quality over service in high-end restaurants and prefer service compared with ambiance in quick-service restaurants. Food quality was found to have strong interaction effect with two other variables. When food quality was improved from low to high, consumer preferences for ambiance and service tended to change accordingly in the same direction, but not necessarily at the same level. Thus, restaurateurs have a strategic advantage when they choose high quality food and an appropriate level of service or ambiance. Consumer expectations are significantly different for high-end, full-service restaurants and quick-service restaurants in service attributes.     

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.     

Effects of Stability and Controllability Attribution on Service Recovery Evaluation in the Context of the Airline Industry

This study examines the relationships between service recovery, stability and controllability attribution, recovery satisfaction, and customer loyalty. We collected data on service recovery, failure attribution, recovery satisfaction, and customer loyalty through a survey of airline passengers in Malaysia. The results indicate significant positive relationships between service recovery dimensions and recovery satisfaction, and between recovery satisfaction and customer loyalty. Both stability and controllability were negatively related to recovery satisfaction. The results provide support for the moderating effects of service failure attribution (stability and controllability) in the recovery process dimension. By recognizing the important role of stability and controllability attribution and its negative effects, service management should become highly involved in facilitating appropriate service recovery to satisfy customers after a failure. The results have important implications and suggest some interesting avenues for future research.     

Service Recovery Readiness in Australian Hospitality and Leisure Operations

ABSTRACT

Hospitality and leisure operations across Australia have experienced phenomenal growth over the past few decades. This growth can be attributed to globalisation, deregulation, increased household disposable income, and technological advancements. As organisations continue to strive for a competitive edge, increased attention is given to consistency and reliability of service delivery. However, given the significant human element in the production and consumption of services, mistakes are inevitable (albeit not intentional). Service recovery is therefore a central ingredient in maintaining quality of service delivery. It facilitates customer satisfaction, increases loyalty and repeat patronage, and fosters positive word-of-mouth recommendation. The present paper develops an integrated model of the key concepts of service delivery-illustrating the importance of the relationships among service quality, empowerment, and service recovery. To obtain a better understanding of the importance that organisations place on service recovery, an exploratory study is presented. This consisted of interviews and questionnaires across selected hospitality and leisure operators in Australia. The findings show that service recovery is viewed as an important component of business practices. However, there are noticeable gaps-particularly in relation to organisational readirecovery.     

Generational Perception and Satisfaction Differences Related to Restaurant Service Environment

ABSTRACT

The current study considers perception, satisfaction, and importance rating differences of aspects of the dining service environment in a casual-themed restaurant between members of three generations—baby boomers, Gen X, and millennials. The study also assesses the moderating role of generation on the relationship between satisfaction and repeat patronage intentions. Significant differences were found between generations related to satisfaction, importance ratings, and repeat patronage intentions regarding the overall dining service environment. The current study provides assessment of components of the DINESCAPE scale along with items from the DinEX scale related to social connectedness. Implications of the research are discussed.     

Service Failure and Recovery in a Strategic Airline Alliance Context: Interplay of Locus of Service Failure and Social Identity

ABSTRACT

There has been a dramatic increase in the past decade in the number of strategic alliances and business networks. Yet, despite these trends in the business environment, the individual firm-customer dyad has remained the contextual focus of most services marketing research (Gittell, 2002 Gittell, J. H. 2002. Relationships between service providers and their impact on customers. Journal of Service Research, 4(4): 299–311. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). Using a scenario study, this research investigates the effects of service failures in a strategic airline alliance setting, with a particular focus on locus of service failure and strength of social identification, on three alliance entities—a consumer's home carrier, the alliance partner airline, and the alliance. Study findings suggest that consumers' evaluations are more stable (less extreme) when the home carrier causes the service failure. In contrast, when a lesser known entity (partner airline) causes the service failure, consumers are more willing to rate that entity harshly. Furthermore, compared to weak identifiers, strong identifiers were not only more positive in their evaluation of the home carrier but also in their evaluation of the alliance, pointing to a halo effect, whereby positive evaluations of the home carrier are transferred to the alliance. Implications of study results are discussed and directions for future research provided.     

Exploring guest response towards service failure in home-sharing: service presence and consumption motivation

The present study leverages the tenets of social presence theory (SPT) and attribution theory to demonstrate a service presence effect on guests’ behavioral responses toward home-sharing platforms following a service failure. Results indicate that in the case of a typical, controllable service failure, guests with a hedonic motivation have a higher tendency to complain and switch out of the home-sharing platform when the service contact is a hotel representative (vs. a private host), and this effect is mediated by levels of fault attributed to the home-sharing platform. However, guests with a utilitarian motivation respond to service failure equally across types of service contacts. For uncontrollable service failures, the service presence effect holds true across consumption motivations and is explained by fault attribution. The study is the first comprehensive inquiry into service failure in the home-sharing context and has important implications for theory and businesses competing in this space.     

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.     

How Service Quality Affects Customer Loyalty in the Travel Agency: The Effects of Customer Satisfaction,Service Recovery,and Perceived Value

This study develops a conceptual model of the effects of service quality on customer loyalty that reflects the mediating role of customer satisfaction and the moderating role of service recovery and perceived value, and applies this model to the travel industry. A survey and analysis confirm that customer satisfaction is positively influenced by service quality, and customer loyalty is positively influenced by customer satisfaction. Furthermore, customer loyalty is indirectly influenced by service quality through the mediator of customer satisfaction. The relationship between service quality and customer satisfaction is found to be stronger for customers who have a positive experience of service recovery; and the correlation between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty is stronger for customers who perceive high service value.     

Perceived justice in service recovery and behavioral intentions: The role of relationship quality

This study examined restaurant customers’ perceptions of justice according to service recovery effort levels and whether perceived justice influences customers’ future behavioral intentions. This study also investigated whether the effects of perceived justice on future behavioral intentions vary across customers’ relationship quality levels. The results showed that high recovery efforts were consistently evaluated highly in terms of perceived justice when compared to low recovery efforts, regardless of the level of relationship quality. Additionally, perceived justice brought about by service recovery efforts has a positive effect on customers’ future behavioral intentions. Hierarchical regression analyses suggested that relationship quality plays a moderating role between perceived justice and behavioral intentions in the distributive and procedural justice dimensions. Implications for the restaurant industry are also discussed.     

Relating the Zone of Tolerance to Service Failure in the Hospitality Industry

The purpose of this study was to explore the zone of tolerance concept in relation to perceptions of service encounters, specifically when service failures are likely to occur. A simulated restaurant experience consisting of a series of dining service encounters was conducted with a sample of academic staff and research students. Results showed that individuals have different perceptions with different variability in their zone of tolerance; individuals appear to have a larger zone of tolerance when dealing with negative encounters and a narrower zone of tolerance for positive encounters. In addition, an initial negative encounter predisposes customers to future negative encounters. Failure is seen as a difficult concept to judge as individuals have diverse perceptions of what constitutes a failure and when it starts. Further research directions are proposed.     

如何从共毁走向共生?——定制化旅游价值共毁和价值恢复对口碑传播的影响

价值共创的研究话题已受到学术界广泛关注,但越来越多的企业发现价值共创并非总是成功的。基于价值共创的负面视角--价值共毁,探讨价值的协同破坏机制及其影响的实证研究有待深入。文章以资源保存理论为基础,探讨价值共毁对负面口碑传播的影响,检验顾客失望的中介作用以及价值恢复类型的调节作用。文章以定制化旅游服务为实验情境,实验结果发现:(1)价值共毁类型在负面口碑传播上存在显著差异,相对于顾客引发的价值共毁,企业引发的价值共毁对负面口碑传播的影响关系更强;(2)顾客失望在价值共毁类型与负面口碑之间起完全中介作用;(3)价值恢复措施的不同类型调节了顾客失望的中介关系强度,当企业单独恢复价值时,企业引发价值共毁(相比于顾客引发价值共毁)会产生更少的顾客失望进而降低负面口碑。当企业与顾客共同恢复价值时,顾客引发价值共毁(相比于企业引发价值共毁)会产生更少失望进而降低负面口碑。最后对研究结论进行讨论并提出了管理启示。