Herm Joosten, Josée Bloemer and Bas Hillebrand
Focusing on decisional control of the outcome provides only a partial picture of how firms may handle customer complaints and ignores many (alternative) opportunities to recover…
Abstract
Purpose
Focusing on decisional control of the outcome provides only a partial picture of how firms may handle customer complaints and ignores many (alternative) opportunities to recover the relationship with the customer when service delivery fails. The purpose of this paper is to introduce other types of control and explore their effects.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper conducts a field study using survey instruments to collect data from real consumers, which are subsequently analyzed with structural equations modeling.
Findings
The main conclusion of this study is that there is more to control than having a choice. Different types of control have differential main effects: behavioral control affects distributive justice, cognitive control affects procedural justice and decisional control affects interactional justice (which in turn affect satisfaction and loyalty).
Research limitations/implications
Service recovery research should include behavioral, cognitive and decisional control of the service recovery as aspects of the firm’s organizational response to customer complaints. The effects of these customer control types on satisfaction and loyalty are mediated by dimensions of justice.
Practical implications
Firms should offer complaining customers information to interpret and appraise the failure (cognitive control), opportunities to personally take action and influence the recovery (behavioral control), and choices in the recovery process and outcome (decisional control).
Originality/value
This study is the first to offer a comprehensive investigation of the subtle interrelationships between types of control and dimensions of justice in a service recovery context.
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Carmen Neghina, Josée Bloemer, Marcel van Birgelen and Marjolein C.J. Caniëls
Consumers’ underlying motives to co-create value are important when determining their willingness to engage in co-creation activities. However, the importance of their motives may…
Abstract
Purpose
Consumers’ underlying motives to co-create value are important when determining their willingness to engage in co-creation activities. However, the importance of their motives may vary according to different service contexts. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the value co-creation research by investigating how the service contexts shape consumers’ motives to co-create.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper is based on a survey of 284 consumers. By focusing on professional vs generic services (context), based on differences in knowledge intensity and workforce professionalism, the paper pinpoints the contextual nature of consumer motives to co-create.
Findings
The results show that in professional services consumers are positively influenced to co-create by developmental motives, whereas empowerment motives have a negative impact. In turn, the positive effects of individualizing and relating motives are predominant in generic services. Willingness to co-create is a strong determinant of intended co-creation behaviors, regardless of the service type.
Research limitations/implications
This study clearly shows the contextual nature of motives to co-create value, thereby questioning the generalizability of single-context studies.
Originality/value
This is the first paper to compare consumer motives to co-create across different service contexts.
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Josée Bloemer and Ko de Ruyter
In this article the relationship between store image, store satisfaction and store loyalty is examined. A distinction is made between true store loyalty and spurious store loyalty…
Abstract
In this article the relationship between store image, store satisfaction and store loyalty is examined. A distinction is made between true store loyalty and spurious store loyalty and manifest and latent satisfaction with the store. We hypothesise that the positive relationship between manifest store satisfaction and store loyalty is stronger than the positive relationship between latent store satisfaction and store loyalty. Furthermore, we hypothesise a direct as well as an indirect effect through satisfaction of store image on store loyalty. Second, the relationship between store image and store loyalty is mediated by store satisfaction. We do not find evidence for a direct effect of store image on store loyalty.
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Value congruence (VC) (the similarity between personal and object‐relevant values (such as a product or service)) rarely appears in studies of services, despite its importance for…
Abstract
Purpose
Value congruence (VC) (the similarity between personal and object‐relevant values (such as a product or service)) rarely appears in studies of services, despite its importance for affective commitment. Existing research also neglects moderator variables. The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of VC on affective commitment to service brands and examine the moderating effects of selected psychological, situational, and demographic characteristics in two services contexts.
Design/methodology/approach
Four retail clothing brands and four major bank brands provide input for the empirical research. In total, 1,037 respondents completed an online questionnaire with items pertaining to VC, affective commitment, preference for consistency (PFC), switching costs (SC) and demographics.
Findings
The positive impact of VC on affective commitment is stronger when the levels of PFC and SC are higher. Demographic characteristics of consumers, including gender, age, and education, do not moderate the effect of VC on affective commitment.
Practical implications
Increasing VC for all consumers may not be sufficient to secure consumer affective commitment. Instead, service providers should focus on consumers with high levels of PFC or create situations with high SC.
Originality/value
The paper demonstrates how PFC, SC and demographics moderate the relationship between VC and affective commitment.
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Josée Bloemer, Ko de Ruyter and Pascal Peeters
This article investigates how image, perceived service quality and satisfaction determine loyalty in a retail bank setting at the global construct level, as well as the level of…
Abstract
This article investigates how image, perceived service quality and satisfaction determine loyalty in a retail bank setting at the global construct level, as well as the level of construct dimensions. At the global level the results of a large‐scale empirical study reveal that image is indirectly related to bank loyalty via perceived quality. In turn, service quality is both directly and indirectly related to bank loyalty via satisfaction. The latter has a direct effect on bank loyalty. At the level of the dimensions underlying aforementioned constructs, it becomes clear that reliability (a quality dimension) and position in the market (an image dimension) are relatively important drivers of retail bank loyalty.
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Ko de Ruyter and Josée Bloemer
In research on customer loyalty in services, satisfaction has often been mentioned as an important determinant. However, empirical evidence concerning the relationship between…
Abstract
In research on customer loyalty in services, satisfaction has often been mentioned as an important determinant. However, empirical evidence concerning the relationship between loyalty and satisfaction has remained equivocal. This may be even more so for services that are delivered over an extended period of time in which consumers actively take part. We propose that for the extended service experience consumers are motivated by the realisation of values and that attainment of these values affects patronage decisions. Moreover, as the service delivery process is extensive we argue that consumer mood during the service delivery is another important factor that may have an impact on loyalty deliberations. Therefore, in this paper we examine the simultaneous effect of satisfaction, value attainment and positive mood in an extended service setting. The results reveal that the relationship between satisfaction and loyalty with respect to extended services is moderated by value attainment and positive mood. More specifically, the satisfaction‐loyalty association is strongest when consumers perceive that the service does not help them in the attainment of instrumental values and when low positive moods are experienced. In contrast, the relationship between satisfaction and loyalty is weakest when the service helps consumers in attaining their values and when they experience a positive mood. This signifies that value attainment and positive mood do indeed play an additional role in explaining customer loyalty. An important implication is that value attainment and positive mood may function as a buffer for diminishing loyalty as a result of lower levels of service satisfaction.
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Josée Bloemer and Gaby Odekerken‐Schröder
The paper aims to investigate the impact of employee relationship proneness (RP) on the three different types of attitudinal loyalty (affective, calculative, and normative…
Abstract
Purpose
The paper aims to investigate the impact of employee relationship proneness (RP) on the three different types of attitudinal loyalty (affective, calculative, and normative commitment (NC)) and relate these different types of attitudinal loyalty to employee loyalty behaviours in terms of word‐of‐mouth, intention to stay (ITS), benefit insensitivity (BI), and complaining (COM).
Design/methodology/approach
An empirical research among 199 employees of a bank was conducted to test the hypothesized model.
Findings
Structural equation modelling results reveal that employee RP is a strong antecedent of affective and NC. Affective commitment plays a pivotal role in creating all positive loyalty behaviours of employees, whereas NC only supports ITS and BI while it has a negative impact on COM. Calculative commitment has a negative impact on BI and COM.
Research limitations/implications
As a result of the single industry, cross sectional design the external validity of the findings is somewhat limited.
Practical implications
The main practical implication of the study is that banks should incorporate RP when assessing potential employees. These relationship prone employees are most likely to exhibit affective and NC, which can be considered as the foundation of employees' loyalty behaviours.
Originality/value
The value of this paper is that we develop an extended model on the complex phenomenon of employee loyalty which is generally acknowledged as one of the important building blocks of customer loyalty and the organizational performance of a bank.
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Josee Bloemer and David Dekker
Different authors suggest that personal values (as opposed to economic values of objects) are important antecedents of service satisfaction. This paper seeks to investigate…
Abstract
Purpose
Different authors suggest that personal values (as opposed to economic values of objects) are important antecedents of service satisfaction. This paper seeks to investigate empirically two specific processes that relate personal values to satisfaction with (financial) services (the value percept disparity model and the (value) disconfirmation model).
Design/methodology/approach
The paper generalizes both models into a new value disparity‐disconfirmation model, providing testable conditions to evaluate and compare the validity of the original models. The paper specifies the model in terms of hierarchical linear models and assesses their empirical fit with data on 18 bank branches.
Findings
The results of the study best support the value disconfirmation model. Furthermore, the paper shows that in the research's setting of a financial service provider the external dimension of values is more instrumental in predicting satisfaction than the internal dimension.
Research limitations/implications
Since only a single service setting has been studied and a limited number of values have been focused on at one particular moment in time, the authors are hesitant to generalize the results beyond the scope of this study.
Practical implications
Employee values are clearly associated with customer satisfaction. In fact, irrespective of their own values, customers do not seem to appreciate it when employees have values that differ from their own. Moreover, external values are more important than internal values in explaining satisfaction.
Originality/value
The paper is an empirical test of which model (the value percept disparity model or the value disconfirmation model) is better in explaining customer satisfaction, thereby providing conceptual clarity, theoretical parsimony and practical implications of the impact of personal values on satisfaction.
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Hans Kasper, Josée Bloemer and Paul H. Driessen
The purpose of this paper is to provide insight into how consumers cope with confusion caused by overload in information and/or choice. The paper investigates whether consumers…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide insight into how consumers cope with confusion caused by overload in information and/or choice. The paper investigates whether consumers who face different degrees of confusion use different coping strategies depending upon their decision‐making styles.
Design/methodology/approach
The Dutch mobile phone market is a typical example of a turbulent market, overloaded with information and/or choice, which creates consumer confusion. A survey was conducted among 203 mobile phone users, using valid and reliable multi‐item scales to measure consumer confusion, decision‐making styles and coping strategies. Cluster analysis and Mancova were used to provide insight into the results.
Findings
The paper finds that consumers of mobile phones can be characterized by combinations of decision‐making styles and find three clusters based on decision‐making styles: “price conscious and cautious” consumers, “brand‐loyal and quality‐driven” consumers, and “functionalist” consumers. Results show significant main effects of the degree of confusion and the decision‐making styles on the use of coping strategies as well as a significant interaction effect of these two. Higher levels of consumer confusion lead to an increased use of seven coping strategies: downsizing the consideration set; keeping status quo; reduced information search; search deferral; buying what others have bought; disengagement from decision; and decision delegation. “Price conscious and cautious” consumers engage less in downsizing the consideration set than the two other clusters, and are less inclined to keep the status quo as compared to “functionalist” consumers.
Originality/value
Because of the intangible and heterogeneous nature of services, knowledge about coping with confusion due to an overload in information and choice is especially important for service providers in their efforts to build and sustain strong relationships with consumers. Practical implications in terms of different approaches on how to cope with confused consumers are provided.
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Josée Bloemer, Ko de Ruyter and Martin Wetzels
In recent research on service quality it has been argued that the relationship between perceived service quality and service loyalty is an issue which requires conceptual and…
Abstract
In recent research on service quality it has been argued that the relationship between perceived service quality and service loyalty is an issue which requires conceptual and empirical elaboration through replication and extension of current knowledge. Focuses on the refinement of a scale for measuring service loyalty dimensions and the relationships between dimensions of service quality and these service loyalty dimensions. The results of an empirical study of a large sample of customers from four different service industries suggest that four dimensions of service loyalty can be identified: purchase intentions, word‐of‐mouth communication; price sensitivity; and complaining behaviour. Further analysis yields an intricate pattern of service quality‐service loyalty relationships at the level of the individual dimensions with notable differences across industries.