Customer Personality Taxonomy: A Theoretical Analysis of Customer Diversity Management in the Hospitality Industry

Abstract

Development in Nigerian Tourism industry and the emerging shift toward the culture of leisure by most Nigerians have attendant challenges in management of customer satisfaction in hospitality industry. Cultural diversity combined with personality diversity calls for improvement of understanding of interface staff in hospitality based firms to enhance customer satisfaction. This paper presents a theoretical taxonomical analysis of customer personality typologies and further designs a framework of corresponding treatments for managing each identified and isolated personality, for effective customer satisfaction. The paper adopted the DISC framework to identifying and isolated four distinct personalities corresponding to: Expressiveness, Assurance, and Compliant personalities. The framework for managing DISC is FEAS, corresponding to Firmness, Expressiveness, Assurance, and Straightforwardness. The paper concluded that every unique personality typology demands an appropriate attention to achieve the customer expectation and satisfaction based on his uniqueness. Therefore, FEAS should be adopted to manage DISC in the hospitality industry.