Consumer construal of separation in virtual services

2017 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 358-383 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicole Hartley ◽  
Teegan Green

Purpose Service encounters are becoming increasingly virtual through the infusion of computer-mediated technologies. Virtual services separate consumers and service providers both spatially and temporally. With the advent of virtual services is the need to theoretically explain how service separability is psychologically perceived by consumers across the spectrum of computer-mediated technologies. Drawing on construal-level theory, the purpose of this paper is to conceptualize a theoretical framework depicting consumer’s construal of spatial and temporal separation across a continuum of technology-mediated service virtuality. Design/methodology/approach The authors conducted two studies: first, to investigate consumers’ levels of mental construal associated with varying degrees of service separation across a spectrum of technology-mediated services; second, to empirically examine consumer evaluations of service quality in response to varying degrees of spatial and temporal service separation. These relationships were tested across two service industries: education and tourism. Findings Consumers mentally construe psychological distance in response to service separation and these observations vary across the spectrum of service offerings ranging from face-to-face (no psychological distance) through to virtual (spatially and temporally separated – high psychological distance) services. Further, spatial separation negatively affects consumers’ service evaluations; such that as service separation increases, consumers’ service evaluations decrease. No such significant findings support the similar effect of temporal separation on customer service evaluations. Moreover, specific service industry-based distances exist such that consumers responded differentially for a credence (education) vs an experiential (tourism) service. Originality/value Recent studies in services marketing have challenged the inseparability assumption inherent for services. This paper builds on this knowledge and is the first to integrate literature on construal-level theory, service separability, and virtual services into a holistic conceptual framework which explains variance in consumer evaluations of separated service encounters. This is important due to the increasingly virtual nature of service provider-customer interactions across a diverse range of service industries (i.e. banking and finance, tourism, education, and health care). Service providers must be cognisant of the psychological barriers which are imposed by increased technology infusion in virtual services.

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (5) ◽  
pp. I-V
Author(s):  
Mark Scott Rosenbaum ◽  
Rebekah Russell-Bennett

Purpose The aim of this paper is to encourage service researchers to consider the long-term or permanent impact of the coronavirus-2019 (COVID-19) on services, service delivery, organizational structures, service providers and service systems from global perspectives. Design/methodology/approach This editorial is based on the personal reflections of the Journal of Services Marketing editors. Findings The services marketing discipline emerged in a time when customers and employees were encouraged to engage in social interaction and to form relationships, as many service encounters were deemed as social encounters. COVID-19 has impacted the ability of customers and employees to freely engage in social interaction, and as a result, we need to consider the steadfastness of our foundational theories and conceptual models in the “new” marketplace. Research limitations/implications The editors put forth a series of sixteen research questions that warrant future empirical and descriptive research. Practical implications Managers can understand how COVID-19 will profoundly impact dramatic changes in the marketplace and prepare for them. Originality/value This study suggests that our theoretical and practical understandings of service industries has been significantly impacted by COVID-19.


2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald C. Barnes ◽  
Jessica Mesmer-Magnus ◽  
Lisa L. Scribner ◽  
Alexandra Krallman ◽  
Rebecca M. Guidice

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.


2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bonnie Canziani ◽  
Kittichai Watchravesringkan ◽  
Jennifer Yurchisin

Purpose – This paper aims to explore a theoretical relationship among perceptions of consumer social class, the perceived legitimacy of customer requests for service and the delivery of intangible services. It focuses the discussion on service firm encounters with non-traditional consumers seeking to purchase from luxury brands. Design/methodology/approach – The paper reviews the literature for current trends in strategies of luxury brands and characteristics of evolving global and Asian consumer markets for luxury and neo-luxury goods and draws a theoretic model with propositions. Findings – Evidence suggests that service providers can improve efforts to expand services to the newly rich and trading-up neo-luxury consumer markets by focusing on the intangible elements of the service delivery system. Particular emphasis is placed on enhancing employee treatment of neo-luxury customers during service encounters by understanding the influence of employee perceptions of consumer social class and evaluations of the perceived legitimacy of customer requests for service. Originality/value – The paper contributes to the theoretical discussion in luxury brand management by suggesting that employees are influenced by impressions of customer worth and other attributes when determining responses to customers during service encounters. Implications for practitioners and future research directions for academics based on the framework are presented.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrícia de Oliveira Campos ◽  
Marconi Freitas da Costa

PurposeThis study aims to further analyse the decision-making process of low-income consumer from an emerging market by verifying the influence of regulatory focus and construal level theory on indebtedness.Design/methodology/approachAn experimental study was carried out with a design 2 (regulatory focus: promotion vs prevention) × 2 (psychological distance: high vs low) between subjects, with 140 low-income consumers.FindingsOur study points out that the propensity towards indebtedness of low-income consumer is higher in a distal psychological distance. We found that promotion and prevention groups have the same propensity to indebtedness. Moreover, we highlight that low-income consumers are prone to propensity to indebtedness due to taking decisions focused on the present with an abstract mindset.Social implicationsFinancial awareness advertisements should focus on providing more concrete strategies in order to reduce decision-making complexity and provide ways to reduce competing situations that could deplete self-regulation resources. Also, public policy should organize educational programs to increase the low-income consumer's ability to deal with personal finances and reduce this task complexity. Finally, educational financial programs should also incorporate psychology professionals to teach mindfulness techniques applied to financial planning.Originality/valueThis study is the first to consider regulatory focus and construal level to explain low-income indebtedness. This paper provides a deeper analysis of the low-income consumers' decision process. Also, it supports and guides future academic and decision-making efforts.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Maarten Volkers

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.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yasin Sahhar ◽  
Raymond Loohuis ◽  
Jörg Henseler

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to identify the practices used by service providers to manage the customer service experience (CSE) across multiple phases of the customer journey in a business-to-business (B2B) setting.Design/methodology/approachThis study comprises an ethnography that investigates in real time, from a dyadic perspective, and the CSE management practices at two service providers operating in knowledge-intensive service industries over a period of eight months. Analytically, the study concentrates on critical events that occurred in phases of the customer journey that in some way alter CSE, thus making it necessary for service providers to act to keep their customers satisfied.FindingsThe study uncovers four types of service provider practices that vary based on the mode of organization (ad hoc or regular) and the mode of engagement (reactive or proactive) and based on whether they restore or bolster CSE, including the recurrence of these practices in the customer journey. These practices are conveniently presented in a circumplex typology of CSE management across five phases in the customer journey.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper advances the research in CSE management throughout the customer journey in the B2B context by showing that CSE management is dynamic, recurrent and multifaceted in the sense that it requires different modes of organization and engagement, notably during interaction with customers, in different phases of the customer journey.Practical implicationsThe circumplex typology acts as a tool for service providers, helping them to redesign their CSE management practices in ongoing service and dialogical processes to keep their customers more engaged and satisfied.Originality/valueThis paper is the first to infuse a dyadic stance into the ongoing discussion of CSE management practices in B2B, in which studies to date have deployed only provider or customer perspectives. In proposing a microlevel view, the study identifies service providers' CSE management practices in multiple customer journey phases, especially when the situation becomes critical.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Mady ◽  
John B. Ford ◽  
Tarek Mady

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.


2018 ◽  
Vol 32 (5) ◽  
pp. 547-558 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tyson Ang ◽  
Ru-Shiun Liou ◽  
Shuqin Wei

PurposeThis paper aims to investigate if perceived cultural distance (PCD) negatively affects service quality and customer satisfaction through customers’ social judgements of the service providers’ warmth and competence in intercultural service encounters (ICSE), and if this negative effect can be mitigated through customer participation (CP).Design/methodology/approachA 2 × 2 between-subjects experimental design with an online consumer panel was conducted using a series of intercultural service encounter scenarios (in the weight loss service context) to manipulate CP (high vs low) and pictures of service providers to induce PCD (high vs low).FindingsAs hypothesized, in the context of ICSE, PCD negatively impacts customers’ social judgements of the service providers’ warmth and competence, which in turn influence service quality and customer satisfaction. However, the negative impact of PCD is alleviated when the level of CP is high.Research limitations/implicationsUsing a single service context (weight loss services) may restrict the generalizability of findings. Future research may explore other service contexts.Practical implicationsTo improve customers’ experience, managers in service firms with multicultural customers may create more engagement opportunities by designing the service delivery process in ways in which more CP and involvement is allowed.Originality/valueThis research is among the first to highlight the importance of consumers’ social judgements about culturally dissimilar service providers, which at baseline come with disadvantages but that can be altered through marketing actions (e.g. enhanced CP).


Author(s):  
Göran Svensson ◽  
Carmen Padin

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.


2015 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 179-197 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fung Yi Millissa Cheung ◽  
Wai Ming To

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore how task- and relation-oriented customers co-create high quality services with frontline employees from the perspective of customer-dominant (C-D) logic. Design/methodology/approach – The authors reviewed the service management literature and identified a number of critical components that help service providers understand the psychology and behaviour of their customers, and how their customers perceive service encounters. The authors tested the theoretical model using a random survey sample of 707 consumers in Hong Kong. Findings – The authors found that information sharing fully mediated the interactive effects of customer involvement and customer motivational orientation on customer perceived service quality and customer satisfaction. These findings support the C-D logic that customers as co-creators of value play a dominant role in service encounters. Research limitations/implications – The authors contribute to the existing management literature by identifying the importance of the C-D logic for service delivery and management. In particular, the involvement of customers with different motivational orientations through information sharing significantly affects customers’ perceived service quality and satisfaction. Originality/value – The paper enhances the understanding of customer’s logic by exploring the conditions and process between customer involvement and service delivery. Further directions for theoretical and empirical research are suggested.


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