New aspects of research to assess and manage critical incidents in service encounters

2015 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carmen Padin ◽  
Göran Svensson ◽  
Carmen Otero-Neira ◽  
Nils Høgevold
Keyword(s):  
Service Provider ◽  
Critical Incident ◽  
Critical Incidents ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Negative Emotions ◽  
Service Encounter ◽  
Service Encounters ◽  
Two Phase ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Interactive Interface

Purpose – The objective of this paper is to describe the teleological actions needed to assess and manage critical incidents that cause negative emotions in service encounters. Teleological actions are movements into the future that are believed to be move either towards a predictable/known or unpredictable/unknown state or condition. The authors distinguish between, define and apply three categories: transformative – ad hoc and present-based actions; formative – pre-determined and past-based actions; and rationalist – goal-directed and future-based actions. Design/methodology/approach – A qualitative study, based upon a two-phase approach applying convenience and judgemental sampling, was used. Focussing on one teleological theory, a process of abductive matching was applied throughout the study. Abductive matching refers to recurring themes, patterns and categories that are uncovered through the iterative processes of analysis. The teleological framework structured and guided the data collection and empirical observations. Findings – Seen through the perspective of teleological actions, the study enhances our understanding of the manner in which critical incidents generate negative emotions in service encounters. Through the same perspective, the investigation also reveals that the outcome of a negative service encounter depends upon the interactive interface between service provider and service receiver. Research limitations/implications – The teleological actions between service providers and service receivers in negative service encounters appear to be mediators between cause-and-effect on the one hand (critical incident and negative emotions) and a perceptual gap on the other (outcome of negative service encounter). The teleological perspective also provides numerous opportunities for further research in this area. Practical implications – Managers should strive to understand the teleological actions potentially undertaken by service receivers, so that they can deal with the teleological actions of their front-line staff accordingly. The interactive interface between a service provider and a service receiver is crucial in assessing and managing critical incidents. Originality/value – Based on teleological actions, the investigation provides both a valuable and complementary contribution on assessing and managing critical incidents and the negative emotions that are often triggered in the service-encounter interface between a service provider and a service receiver. Providers also need to educate their staff on what can occur and on how to react appropriately.

Interactive gaps and cause-effect-outcomes in processes and interfaces of teleological service encounters

2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 261-271
Author(s):  
Göran Svensson ◽  
Carmen Padin
Keyword(s):  
Service Provider ◽  
Critical Incidents ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Learning Curves ◽  
Service Encounters ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Interactive Interface ◽  
Complaint Handling ◽  
Practical Implications ◽  
Outcome Sequence

Purpose The study aims to describe the interactive gaps between service receiver learning curves and service provider adaptive curves, as well as the cause-effect-outcome in processes and interfaces of service encounters, through the perspective of teleological actions. Design/methodology/approach This paper includes a qualitative study based on non-probability sampling of informants (air passengers). Findings The empirical findings indicate interactive gaps in teleological service encounters and a cause-effect-outcome sequence in the associated processes and interfaces. Research limitations/implications The study provides knowledge on how to manage the interactive interface between a service provider and a service receiver and a foundation for enhancing complaint handling in service encounters after critical incidents have occurred. Practical implications Service providers need to balance their teleological actions in relation to the service receivers’ teleological actions when critical incidents occur. Originality/value The paper takes into account service receiver teleological learning curves in relation to service provider teleological adaptive curves in an interactive transformative service encounter (TSE)-model that provides multiple opportunities for further research.

Understanding negative emotions in services through teleological actions

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carmen Padin ◽  
Göran Svensson
Keyword(s):  
Service Provider ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Critical Incidents ◽  
Ad Hoc ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Negative Emotions ◽  
Service Encounters ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Practical Implications

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to conceptualize and describe how service providers’ and service receivers’ teleological actions relate to negative emotions after critical incidents in service encounters have occurred. Design/methodology/approach Three categories of teleological actions are used: transformative – ad hoc and present-based actions, formative – pre-determined and past-based actions and rationalist – goal-directed and future-based actions. Findings The empirical findings indicate that airline ground staff should interact differently with air passengers based on the negative emotions involved and the teleological actions undertaken after critical incidents in service encounters have occurred. Research limitations/implications The current research improves the interactive and sequential understanding of how to manage negative emotions through teleological actions in service encounters between a service provider and a service receiver after critical incidents have occurred, as well as providing numerous opportunities for further research in services. Practical implications It is an important and relevant insight that it is necessary to understand both the initial and derived causes of negative emotions and the subsequent effects and outcomes occurring in service encounters after critical incidents have arisen. Originality/value This current study provides theoretical and managerial contributions to manage negative emotions after critical incidents have occurred in service encounters.

Negative emotions in Mexican, Puerto Rican and Spanish hospitals

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-37
Author(s):  
Carmen Otero-Neira ◽  
Carmen Padin ◽  
Juan Carlos Sosa Varela ◽  
Maria Santos Corrada ◽  
Irma Magana ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Puerto Rican ◽  
Critical Incident ◽  
Critical Incidents ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Service Failure ◽  
Negative Emotions ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Service Failures

Purpose – This paper aims to assess negative emotions in Mexican, Puerto Rican and Spanish service settings in the hospital industry. The paper also attempts to validate previous findings in existing theory and previous studies across three national samples and describes the similarities and differences in negative emotions between Mexican, Puerto Rican and Spanish service settings. Design/methodology/approach – The current study comprised Mexicans, Puerto Ricans and Spaniards who experienced a service failure (i.e. critical incident) in hospital settings within the past year. A descriptive research design was followed, and a self-administered questionnaire was applied to gather the data from respondents. Findings – The three-dimensional construct of negative emotions commonly identified in existing theory and previous studies of negative emotions turned out to be four in the current multinational study. Research limitations/implications – The four-dimensional construct of negative emotions thus revealed is relevant and valuable to research. A number of research limitations are provided, all of which provide opportunities for further research in assessing negative emotions in service settings. Practical implications – Service providers need to manage and deal with the negative emotions in service failures in an appropriate manner. It is necessary that the front-line staff identify and understand the reasons behind service receiver’s negative emotions in service failures, and that they act accordingly to reduce the intensity of critical incidents and the overall negative consequences. Originality/value – The negative emotions assessed provide a fruitful contribution and do not only complement additional facets to existing theory and previous studies of negative emotions in service settings but also fortify the notion that further research is required to gain an enhanced understanding and additional insights into them across countries and cultures, just as it is crucial to manage the occurrence of negative emotions in critical incidents accurately.

Customer delight during a crisis: understanding delight through the lens of transformative service research

2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald C. Barnes ◽  
Jessica Mesmer-Magnus ◽  
Lisa L. Scribner ◽  
Alexandra Krallman ◽  
Rebecca M. Guidice
Keyword(s):  
Critical Incident ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Psychological Theory ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Service Research ◽  
Service Encounters ◽  
Need Fulfillment ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Customer Delight ◽  
Service Experiences

PurposeThe unprecedented dynamics of the COVID-19 pandemic has forced firms to re-envision the customer experience and find new ways to ensure positive service encounters. This context has underscored the reality that drivers of customer delight in a “traditional” context are not the same in a crisis context. While research has tended to identify hedonic need fulfillment as key to customer well-being and, ultimately, to invoking customer delight, the majority of studies were conducted in inherently positive contexts, which may limit generalizability to more challenging contexts. Through the combined lens of transformative service research (TSR) and psychological theory on hedonic and eudaimonic human needs, we evaluate the extent to which need fulfillment is the root of customer well-being and that meeting well-being needs ultimately promotes delight. We argue that in crisis contexts, the salience of needs shifts from hedonic to eudaimonic and the extent to which service experiences fulfill eudaimonic needs determines the experience and meaning of delight.Design/methodology/approachUtilizing the critical incident technique, this research surveyed 240 respondents who were asked to explain in detail a time they experienced customer delight during the COVID-19 pandemic. We analyzed their responses according to whether these incidents reflected the salience of hedonic versus eudaimonic need fulfillment.FindingsThe results support the notion that the salience of eudaimonic needs become more pronounced during times of crisis and that service providers are more likely to elicit perceptions of delight when they leverage meeting eudaimonic needs over the hedonic needs that are typically emphasized in traditional service encounters.Originality/valueWe discuss the implications of these findings for integrating the TSR and customer delight literatures to better understand how service experiences that meet salient needs produce customer well-being and delight. Ultimately, we find customer delight can benefit well-being across individual, collective and societal levels.

“Can I go or should I stay?” A theoretical framework of social lock-in during unsatisfactory service encounters

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Maarten Volkers
Keyword(s):  
Social Norms ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Sunk Costs ◽  
Service Encounter ◽  
Service Encounters ◽  
Intention To Stay ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Quantitative Evidence ◽  
Decision To Stay ◽  
Lock In

PurposeThis article demonstrates that the type of service setting and the first interaction with an employee influences the customers' intention to stay or leave during an unsatisfactory service encounter, and that these effects are mediated by social lock-in, which describes the perception of a customer that exiting a service encounter early violates social norms.Design/methodology/approachThe hypotheses are tested with two scenario-based experiments using a collective (theater) and high-contact service (restaurant) (N = 1143; 1485).FindingsThe results suggest that social lock-in and the intention to stay are higher in a closed as opposed to an open setting and that the type of setting is, in fact, more important for the decision to stay than sunk costs. Moreover, customers are more likely to stay after an interaction with an employee.Research limitations/implicationsThis article contributes to the research aimed at explaining customers' decisions to stay or leave during an unsatisfactory service encounter. In doing so, the study highlights the constraining power of social norms in service encounters, which contributes to the research on the relationship between the social context and customers' behavior.Practical implicationsThis study suggests that service providers can manage servicescape cues and employee behavior to influence customers' social lock-in perceptions and their decision to stay on or to leave early.Originality/valueThis is the first study to provide quantitative evidence for social lock-in and its determinants in service encounters.

Accommodating ethnic minority consumers during service encounters: the fine line

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Mady ◽  
John B. Ford ◽  
Tarek Mady
Keyword(s):  
Service Quality ◽  
Ethnic Minority ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Service Encounter ◽  
Service Encounters ◽  
Service Firms ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Quality Perceptions ◽  
Language And Ethnicity ◽  
The Impact

Purpose This paper aims to examine the effect of intercultural accommodation efforts on service quality perceptions among ethnic minority consumers. Specifically, the paper postulates that during an intercultural service encounter, the impact of the service provider’s language and ethnicity on the consumer’s service quality perceptions is moderated by the level of service involvement, consumer acculturation and perceived discrimination, which, in turn, influence purchase intent. Design/methodology/approach A 2 × 2 between-subjects experimental design with an online nationwide consumer panel of Hispanic consumers was conducted where 377 participants were randomly assigned to a series of service encounter scenarios in the banking service context to manipulate accommodation efforts (yes vs no) and the level of involvement with the service (high vs low). Findings When such language and ethnicity accommodations were offered, highly acculturated minority consumers regarded the service encounter less favorably than low acculturated minority consumers. Moreover, during low-involvement service encounters, intercultural accommodations positively impacted consumer’s service quality perceptions compared to situations involving high-involvement services. Also, minority consumers with perceptions of past discrimination had less favorable evaluations of the service quality than when such perceptions were nonexistent when intercultural accommodation efforts were made by the service provider. Research limitations/implications The findings add to the sparse literature that examines the effectiveness of intercultural accommodation and focuses on the combined use of service provider’s language and ethnicity as a means to enhance service quality. Practical implications The study delivers cautions for service firms not to generalize the receptivity of intercultural accommodation efforts. Given the increasingly sizable segments of minority customers, this study offers insights for service providers to develop suitable recruitment strategies and training programs when devising effective ethnic targeting strategies. Originality/value This research is among the first to explain why the effect of target marketing is not homogenous by expanding the research on intercultural accommodations toward a new context considering service involvement levels among varied minority consumer groups.

Information technology and front office employees’ performance

2017 ◽  
Vol 29 (8) ◽  
pp. 2159-2177 ◽  
Author(s):  
Santiago Melián-González ◽  
Jacques Bulchand-Gidumal
Keyword(s):  
Information Technology ◽  
Task Performance ◽  
Critical Incident ◽  
Critical Incidents ◽  
Performance Model ◽  
Service Encounters ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Front Office ◽  
Office Employees

Purpose The aim of this paper is to analyze the role of information technology (IT) in the performance of front office employees in hotels. This is done by testing and analyzing up to what level the task performance content of receptionists depends on IT and by testing and analyzing up to what level the contents of the service encounters in which they participate depend on IT. Design/methodology/approach This paper includes in-depth interviews with 30 receptionists, using the job task performance model and the critical incident technique in the service encounter model. Findings IT takes part heavily in the task performance of front office workers, who rely on IT to get their job done. On the other hand, in service encounters, the value of the human presence is still high, and in most critical incidents, IT do not participate. Research limitations/implications The sample was located in the same destination with only two types of hotels. Practical implications The dependence of front office employees with IT is so high that some of the receptionists could be substituted by IT in the near future. However, human participation in satisfactory critical incidents is very high. Social implications Receptionists should get ready and trained taking into account that the value they provide is higher in tasks that are both not routine and in which face-to-face interactions take place. Originality/value Usually, front office employees are managed with human resources view, without taking into consideration specifically how IT has spread into the hospitality industry.

Defective co-creation

2015 ◽  
Vol 49 (1/2) ◽  
pp. 238-261 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dominique A. Greer
Keyword(s):  
Critical Incident ◽  
Consumer Behaviour ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Professional Services ◽  
Professional Service ◽  
Service Encounters ◽  
Service Dominant Logic ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Dominant Logic ◽  
Depth Interviews

Purpose – This study aims to explore the scope of consumers’ defective co-creation behaviour in professional service encounters. One of the founding premises of service-dominant logic (Vargo and Lusch, 2004, 2008) is that consumers co-create the value they derive from service encounters. In practice, however, dysfunctional consumer behaviour can obstruct value co-creation. Extant research has not yet investigated consumers’ defective co-creation behaviour in highly relational services, such as professional services, that are heavily reliant on co-creation. Design/methodology/approach – To investigate defective co-creation in professional services, 164 critical incidents were collected from 38 health-care and financial service providers using the critical incident technique within semi-structured, in-depth interviews. Thematic coding was used to identify emergent themes and patterns of consumer behaviour. Findings – Thematic coding resulted in a comprehensive typology of consumers’ defective co-creation behaviour that both confirms the prevalence of previously identified dysfunctional behaviours (e.g. verbal abuse and physical aggression) and identifies two new forms of consumer misbehaviour: underparticipation and overparticipation. Further, these behaviours can vary, escalate and co-occur during service encounters. Originality/value – Both underparticipation and overparticipation are newly identified forms of defective co-creation that need to be examined within the broader framework of service-dominant logic (SDL).

scholarly journals Thinking about service encounters boosts talking about them

2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 506-515
Author(s):  
Magnus Söderlund ◽  
Jan Mattsson
Keyword(s):  
Critical Incident ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Word Of Mouth ◽  
Positive Influence ◽  
Service Encounter ◽  
Service Encounters ◽  
Special Role ◽  
Dominant Position ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Impact

Purpose This paper aims to examine the impact of thinking about an event as an antecedent to subsequent talk about this event with others (i.e. word-of-mouth). Thinking has been a neglected variable in word-of-mouth research, despite the fact that several conceptual arguments indicate that thinking is likely to enhance talking. Here, the thinking–talking association is examined in the context of service encounters. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected with a critical incident method, and the main variables were measured with questionnaire items. Findings Thinking about a service encounter – after it has been completed – had a positive influence on subsequent talk to others about the encounter. The association was mediated by the memorability of the service encounter and the extent to which what had happened had been subject to rehearsal with the purpose of telling others about it. In addition, with respect to antecedents of consumer thinking, the results indicate that service encounter incongruity had a special role in why the consumer thinks about encounters after they have been completed. Originality/value The findings should be seen in relation to the dominant position of customer satisfaction as an antecedent to word-of-mouth in the existing literature. The present results, however, indicate that satisfaction’s contribution to the variation in talking about the encounter was modest.

Customer deference to service providers in ordinary service encounters

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 189-212 ◽  
Author(s):  
Apiradee Wongkitrungrueng ◽  
Krittinee Nuttavuthisit ◽  
Teodora Szabo-Douat ◽  
Sankar Sen
Keyword(s):  
Critical Incident ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Physical Distance ◽  
Service Encounters ◽  
Related Factors ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Cultural Norm ◽  
Kreng Jai

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the nature of customer deference to service providers in service encounters, and articulate its chief antecedents, experiences and consequences. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected in Thailand, using critical incident technique. A total of 253 subjects share their experiences of being “deferential” (i.e. “kreng-jai” in Thailand) during everyday service encounters. Findings The findings indicate that in cultures in which the cultural norm (i.e. kreng-jai) is to be considerate of others, customers often become deferential of the service provider during service encounters, especially when customers perceive that the service provider’s well-being is compromised. However, customer deference involves aversive feelings which lead customers to devise coping strategies and avoid future contact with a company. Research limitations/implications Using a specific cultural norm, the findings challenge prior finding that people from collectivist culture are more likely to tolerate and be satisfied with service encounters, and document the role of previously unexamined customer-related factors in driving satisfaction in ordinary service encounters. Practical implications The findings recommend service providers to preempt customers’ deference by establishing and communicating the role and acceptable behaviors, managing physical distance with customers, and monitoring customer non-verbal behavior and facial expressions to detect the customers’ true feelings. Originality/value No prior research has comprehensively examined the phenomenon whereby consumers seek to benefit service providers at the expense of their own well-being. This study demonstrates that customer deference degrades customer satisfaction even in ordinary service encounters.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document