Creating customer value through service experiences: an empirical study in the hotel industry

Abstract

The main research objectives of this paper are: first, to identify the three levels of a service evaluation: attributes (service value), outcome (service experience), and values (developing service relationships); secondly, to differ and to relate the perceptions of service value with service experience components. According to the ‘theory of cognitive schemata’ and the ‘means-end theory’, the components of a service experience are hierarchical in nature. Thus, customers evaluate their experiences – and build their service relationships – taking into account not only the attributes of the service (first level of abstraction), but also the outcomes and consequences that those attributes cause on them (highest level of abstraction). Marketing research has been mostly focused on the detection of affective aspects of quality and satisfaction. However, little attention has been devoted to the cognitive organization of the structure of evaluative judgments in the customer’s mind. According to our results, servicescape provides the strongest driver of service value when creating service experiences, followed by service equity. Elements such as the service atmosphere, hotel facilities, etc. are significant contributors to customer’s easiness to relax and escape from routine, which are the two major factors in the service experience. Similarly, hotel managers should take note of the importance of service equity by developing strong brand images which capitalize on customer’s experiences rather than service attributes.