Marketers agree that consumer complaints are useful sources of information that help marketers identify sources of dissatisfaction, and therefore should be encouraged. However…
Abstract
Marketers agree that consumer complaints are useful sources of information that help marketers identify sources of dissatisfaction, and therefore should be encouraged. However, does complaining have a more direct beneficial effect? Can consumer complaining by itself cause increased satisfaction by allowing dissatisfied consumers a chance to vent their anger and frustration? An experiment was conducted on real consumers to test what effects complaining may have on changes in the consumers’ satisfaction and product evaluations over a one‐week period. It was found that consumers who were encouraged to complain reported greater increases in satisfaction and product evaluation compared to consumers who were not explicitly asked to complain. The changes in satisfaction and product evaluations were found to be related to the complaining intensity. The effect of complaining on actual purchasing behavior was also studied.
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Stephanie Dellande and Prashanth Nyer
The purpose of this study is to shed greater light on the factors that influence consumer compliance behavior, e.g. SRF, in compliance dependent services (CDS). CDS, e.g. weight…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to shed greater light on the factors that influence consumer compliance behavior, e.g. SRF, in compliance dependent services (CDS). CDS, e.g. weight loss, retirement savings, education, credit repair, are long term in nature, often requiring lifestyle changes. In addition, and importantly, the customer's role in CDS extends beyond the face‐to‐face interaction and requires the consumer to comply with prescribed behaviors when away from the service provider.
Design/methodology/approach
The subjects were 243 female clients (aged 20 to 45) at a weight loss/fitness center located in south India. Subjects were selected from among the new clients who signed up for an eight‐week long weight loss and fitness program which seeks to help clients lose modest amounts of excess weight (averaging approximately ten pounds). On signing up, respondents completed a survey that included several scales of regulatory focus, and a question eliciting reasons for wanting to lose weight.
Findings
This study exams the role of self‐regulatory focus (SRF) in long‐term customer compliance behavior in weight loss. A specific measure of SRF led to better outcomes than the generalized measures of SRF.
Originality/value
Though this research project examines consumer behavior in the context of weight loss activities, it has far‐ranging implications for various services requiring consumers to engage in prescribed behaviors over the long run. For example, the success of debt counseling services and retirement savings programs require clients to engage in certain behaviors over the long run. Marketers of CDS programs will be able to use the findings of this research project to find new ways to increase long‐term customer compliance behavior.
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Brand theory and practice have remained quite two-dimensional to this day and focus on logos, corporate design, website design, etc. As with atmospheres, it was the sales room…
Abstract
Brand theory and practice have remained quite two-dimensional to this day and focus on logos, corporate design, website design, etc. As with atmospheres, it was the sales room where the brand idea was spatialised early on. This chapter discusses how to spatialise brand theory and to connect it with the place atmosphere model. Moreover, the chapter works out how the bridge between the strategy of an organisation (company, hotel, destination, etc.), its brand personality and the strategy of spatial design can be built. The brand personality shows itself in the long-term handling of the eight W questions of the brand space strategy (Who, Where, Wherein, What, Whom, Way to, What for and Why).
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Louise Maguire and Susi Geiger
– This study aims to examine how the temporal aspect of service consumption impacts the emotions that are created within consumers during service encounters.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to examine how the temporal aspect of service consumption impacts the emotions that are created within consumers during service encounters.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors adopted mobile phone or ‘SMS’ diaries to capture the emotions that participants experienced at the very moment they were being felt or ‘in-vivo’. The study included thirteen different services including both ‘brief’ and ‘extended service transactions’.
Findings
The study suggests that the temporal perspective is a dominant cause of consumption emotions in services, influencing consumers’ emotions from before the service encounter commences to its conclusion and, in some cases, beyond the conclusion of the service event. Other antecedents of consumption emotions such as interactions with staff and the servicescape are influenced by and interwoven with this temporal aspect. By capturing emotions as they were experienced, recall difficulties that might have been encountered had the emotions been measured retrospectively were eliminated, allowing the researchers to construct a comprehensive account of the chronology and contiguity of the emotions created within consumers during service encounters.
Originality/value
Although certain aspects of time such as the consequences of queuing and waiting have been addressed in the services marketing literature, a detailed understanding of how time impacts consumption emotions in services from the start to the conclusion of service encounters has not been undertaken to date. This research addresses that gap by examining how the temporal perspective influences not only consumption emotions in customers per se but how it also influences other causes of consumption emotions that customers encounter during service transactions.
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Martina G. Gallarza, Maria Eugenia Ruiz-Molina and Irene Gil-Saura
Consensus on how value dimensions are drivers of overall perceived value is a widespread reality in consumer behaviour literature. But scanty research has been done on which of…
Abstract
Purpose
Consensus on how value dimensions are drivers of overall perceived value is a widespread reality in consumer behaviour literature. But scanty research has been done on which of these value dimensions best predict customer loyalty. The purpose of this paper is to propose a causal model that examines how PERVAL dimensions of value affect customers’ loyalty, through both cognitive and affective satisfaction.
Design/methodology/approach
The model is tested on a sample of 820 Spanish retail customers and the findings suggest that product quality and value for money (cognitive) impact customer loyalty through emotional and social value (affective), with significant direct and indirect effects through both cognitive and affective satisfaction.
Findings
Notably, the results highlight the mediating role of shoppers’ emotional and social value on the linkages between satisfaction and loyalty. Therefore, this study has proved the embedded impact of value dimensions on overall satisfaction and behavioural intentions in a cognitive-affective-behavioural framework.
Practical implications
Managerially, retailers who intend to build long-term relationships with their customers will benefit by investing in emotional factors along with cognitive factors, on the assumption that cognitive factors lead to emotional factors, and that both affect loyalty to the service provider through cognitive and affective satisfaction.
Originality/value
This work can be said to have made two substantial contributions to previous literature. First, the old but constantly renewed dichotomy between utilitarian and hedonic attributes in retailing has emerged in the work, in the sense that different value dimensions (two utilitarian, one hedonic and one social) have been proved to be differently related to customer satisfaction (both cognitive and affective), and indirectly to customer loyalty. And second, this work has also proved the existence of a chain of effects between value dimensions: product quality and value for money to emotional value, and this to social value.