Does service failure influence customer loyalty?

There is a general consensus that customer loyalty to service providers is not solely dependent upon their level of satisfaction or dissatisfaction. However, the identified antecedents of loyalty remain, at best, highly speculative. The aim of this extensive literature review is to give some understanding of the nature of customer loyalty and the antecedent effects of service dissatisfaction. The research reviewed suggests that customer loyalty is an attitudinal state, reflecting value, trust and commitment within supplier–customer relationships. Satisfaction is one of several antecedents of loyalty. A key influence on loyalty is the offer of unique value‐delivering advantages not provided by competitors. Thus firms need to develop positive value‐based exit barriers to achieve loyalty. When service failures occur, the recovery process is likely to have a greater impact on loyalty than the original service failure. The key to successful recoveries was found to be the customer's perception of ‘fairness’. Recovery programmes must get it right first time. Customers who remain dissatisfied after a complaint has been handled are more dissatisfied than if no recovery attempt had been made. Dissatisfaction and customer satiation are major causes of a customer's exit. The solution to customer satiation is dynamic value creation. Collection and monitoring of customer data is needed for success and two‐way communication is vital. Copyright © 2002 Henry Stewart Publications.     

基于心灵知觉理论的AI服务用户接受机制及使用促进策略

许多企业采用人工智能服务应答顾客需求,然而多项研究指出用户并不总是对此感到满意。本研究围绕着用户对AI的心灵知觉的产生和影响,探索了驱动用户对AI服务态度的关键因素及使用促进策略,包括(1)机理分析层面：用户与AI早期接触的线索和体验因素如何使得人们产生了AI“擅长计算却缺乏感受”的心灵知觉？(2)调节作用层面：不同的用户内部状态和AI外部特征怎样调节了这种心灵知觉的形成和激活？(3)促进策略层面：将AI拟动物化和提供技术援助为何能借助心灵知觉使得用户在更广泛的场景中接受来自AI的服务？本研究试图在学理层面构建一个基于心灵知觉理论的新型AI服务接受模型,为从理论上解释用户对AI服务的矛盾态度提供心理学参考;同时试图在实践层面上借助心灵知觉理论提出两种促进用户接受AI服务的路径方法,为企业在服务中提升AI的应用效能提供技术参考。     

Psychological ethical climate,leader–member exchange and commitment to superior customer value: influencing salespeople’s unethical intent and sales performance

In today’s competitive environment, salespeople are challenged with creating customer value in an ethical manner while meeting performance goals. Sales supervisors play a critical role in ensuring that this challenge is met. This research examines the roles of psychological ethical climate and leader–member exchange (LMX) in encouraging salespeople’s commitment to providing superior customer value, reducing their unethical intentions and improving sales performance. Results indicate that business-to-business salespeople’s psychological ethical climate perceptions influence their perceived relationship with their sales supervisor (i.e. LMX relationship) as well as their commitment to providing superior customer value. LMX also directly influences commitment to providing superior customer value, which in turn affects salespeople’s unethical intent and quota performance. Theoretical and managerial implications based on the study’s findings are provided, as well as directions for future research.     

社会支持视角下顾客在线互助心理和行为机制

消费结构升级促使顾客通过参与价值共创获得更高层次心理满足感。顾客间通过网络平台参与交流、互动、分享和互助等价值共创行为,能够获得美好的情感体验,有助于形成人际之间的友谊,也使得顾客得以寻求自我表达和自我实现,收获更高层次的满足感。本研究以社会支持理论为基础,聚焦不同属性顾客在不同类型网站中参与在线互助的心理动机、心理收益和行为方式,采用行为实验、实证调查、案例研究、神经营销学等多种研究方法,深入剖析顾客参与在线互助过程中的心理和行为反应机制。预期研究成果将丰富现有顾客参与心理和行为的理论体系,也为企业激励顾客参与在线价值共创提供理论指导。     

Manager–salesperson congruence in customer orientation and job outcomes: The bright and dark sides of leadership in aligning values

To create customer-oriented organizations, managers are often asked to promote a values-based vision. Yet, many managers struggle with transferring their values to employees making strategic value changes difficult. Despite this challenge, research has yet to demonstrate how managers effectively align values within the sales force, or the impact alignment has on job outcomes. Therefore, we develop and empirically test a conceptual framework to examine the role of transformational leadership in aligning salesperson customer orientation (CO) values. We find that transformational leadership is a strong mechanism in creating perceived value congruence, yet may have a surprising dark side. Results suggest that transformational managers achieve congruence by raising or, contrary to conventional wisdom, lowering salesperson CO values to meet the perceived values of the manager. Response surface modelling results support the importance of perceived manager values. Customer-oriented salespeople have higher job satisfaction and sales performance when they perceive their manager to also have high CO. When values are misaligned, job satisfaction increases more for low CO salespeople as perceptions of manager CO increase. Exploratory findings show that performance was higher under situations of perfect alignment but also under severe misalignment suggesting that values generate performance under complementary or supplementary conditions.     

Customer reactions to encountering consecutive service failures

According to previous studies, many consumers in Taiwan have experienced consecutive service failures. Despite these failures, many consumers still remain loyal to a service provider for a variety of reasons, such as money deposits, contractual agreements, associated costs, time constrains, and health concerns. We attempt to investigate the emotional reactions and expectations of consumers after they have experienced two consecutive service failures. Our findings reveal that for high‐involvement services, although customers display strong negative emotional reactions after each service failure, the reaction to the second service failure is less intensive than that to the first one. Furthermore, our findings show that as long as the products or services remain in use, customers tend to retain high levels of expectation in regard to the service provider. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Reconsidering the path for neural and physiological methods in consumer psychology

Recent decades have witnessed a burst of neuroscience research investigating mental and physiological processes central to consumer behavior, including sensory perception, memory, and decision making. Nonetheless, few publications that include neural and physiological measures, or develop conceptual frameworks around neuroscience principles, have been published in consumer psychology. It is clear that “consumer neuroscience” has thus far not lived up to its promises in the marketing literature. We suggest three main reasons for this. First, neural and other biological markers are often mistaken to be identical to the overlaying psychological constructs in traditional consumer psychology work. Second, somewhat surprisingly, there has been an overly narrow utilization of neural data. Most previous work focused on linking existing behavioral phenomena or psychological constructs central to consumer research to neural correlates using brain imaging techniques while ignoring other methods. We argue that much can be gained from improved integration of physiological measures and through them, different levels of analysis. Third, there remain significant structural hurdles to the broad adoption of neural and physiological measures for consumer researchers. We outline how addressing these three components can translate to a more holistic understanding of the consumer via both broader and deeper consumer insights.     

Promoting fan engagement: An exploration of the fundamental motives for sport consumption amongst premier league football spectators

The aim of this study was to examine whether fan engagement could be predicted by the motivational dimensions of sport consumption. A sample of 806 football sport fans (African = 85%, male = 67.4%, part of an organised supporters club = 57.6%) were participants. They completed the Fan Engagement Scale (FES), the Motivation Scale for Sport Consumption (MSSC) and a biographical questionnaire. Structural equation modelling was applied to evaluate the postulated regressive paths between the motivational dimensions for sports consumption and fan engagement. The motivational dimensions for sport consumption were clustered into personal and game-related factors. Both these clusters of factors were predictive of fan engagement. Customer engagement (CE) theory appears to explain the findings.     

Task clarification, performance feedback, and social praise: Procedures for improving the customer service of bank tellers

Customer service for bank tellers was defined in terms of 11 verbal behavior categories. An audio-recording system was used to track the occurrence of behaviors in these categories for six retail banking tellers. Three behavior management interventions (task clarification, performance feedback, and social praise), applied in sequence, were designed to improve overall teller performance with regard to the behavioral categories targeted. Clarification was accomplished by providing clear delineation of the various target categories, with specific examples of the behaviors in each. Feedback entailed presentation of ongoing verbal and visual information regarding teller performance. Praise consisted of verbal recognition of teller performance by branch managers. Results showed that clarification effects emerged quickly, producing an overall increase in desired behaviors of 12% over baseline. Feedback and praise effects occurred more gradually, resulting in overall increases of 6% and 7%, respectively. A suspension of all procedures led to a decline in overall performance, whereas reinstatement of feedback and praise was again accompanied by performance improvement. These findings extend the generality of behavior management applications and help to distinguish between possible antecedent and consequent effects of performance feedback.