Customer Emotions Research Articles

Mediating effect of store attachment in formation of store emotions and patronage through art and culture sponsorship in retailing

This research examined customer perceptions of the value and effectiveness of retailers' art and cultural sponsorship. In order to explain detailed values of cultural sponsorship, the values were classified into four categories: emotional, economic, relational, and socially responsible. This study proposed that these would affect the customer satisfaction which, in turn, has an effect on store attachment and store patronage. In order to validate the research model, SEM (Structural Equation Model) was used through Lisrel 8.3. As a result of the study, all hypotheses were accepted, except the relationship between customer and store patronage. We supplementally analyzed the mediating effects of store attachment on customer satisfaction and store patronage. This research broadens the scope of sponsorship marketing by considering the relationship between the benefits of sponsorship and customer emotion and customer behavior. This study has implications for marketing practictioners who want to establish a long-term cultural marketing strategy and increase store patronage through store attachment.

Mirror, mirror on the wall – how customers perceive their contribution to service provision

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to investigate customer perceptions of their own contribution to service provision, in order to enhance our understanding of customer contribution and its dimensions.Design/methodology/approach– In total, 27 in-depth interviews were conducted across nine service contexts. Qualitative data were then analyzed to identify the various dimensions of customer contribution.Findings– First, the study contributes to the understanding of customer contribution in identifying physical, mental, and emotional dimensions. The physical and mental dimensions of customer contribution are represented by activities, while emotions comprise mood and emotional states. Second, relationships among the three dimensions were identified; in particular, physical and mental activities were found to influence customer emotions. Third, the findings reveal that customer understanding of their own contribution to service provision encompass the co-creative sphere of customer and provider, and extends to the customer-sphere before the service encounter.Research limitations/implications– The qualitative study is limited in terms of generalizability, since the 27 interview cases were based on nine interviews each covering three service settings. Further research is needed to investigate how the dimensions of customer contribution are linked to different outcomes (e.g. service value, satisfaction, loyalty), thus providing a quantitative validation of our findings.Practical implications– Understanding the customer contribution to service provision is pivotal for service design. Service managers need to reflect on how the different dimensions of contribution manifest in their existing or potential service offering, since physical and mental customer activities shape their emotions, which in turn impact on the service experience and value.Originality/value– Little in-depth research has been conducted on the nature and dimensionality of customer contributions to service provision, particularly with regard to perceptions of their own contribution. Most previous empirical research on customer contribution is limited to a specific context and concerned with customer behaviors. Hence, this qualitative study examines customer contribution across different service context, focussing on customer perceptions in terms of physical, mental, and emotional contributions to service provision.

Customer delight and work engagement

Purpose– The purpose of the current research is to evaluate how customer contact level and customer service-based role conflict influence the relationship between customer emotions and work engagement, while simultaneously evaluating psychological capital as an outcome of work engagement. Customer service research highlights the impact of employee attitudes and behaviors on customer satisfaction. More recently, this relationship has been examined in reverse, evaluating how customer emotions influence the employee. Unfortunately, previous research has not evaluated variables that inhibit the impact of customer emotions on the employee.Design/methodology/approach– Data were collected from frontline employees across high and low customer contact service contexts. The hypothesized relationships were tested using structural equation modeling.Findings– This research provides empirical evidence that employee-perceived customer delight impacts employee work engagement. However, through a process of feedback, customer service-based role conflict impacts the relationship between customer emotions and employee emotions. Finally, the conceptual model illustrates how engaged employees can create their own personal resourcesvis-à-visthe broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions.Research limitations/implications– This research identifies both antecedent and outcomes variables associated with work engagement, as well as identified mediating factors.Practical implications– Results suggest that the quality and level of contact that frontline employees have with customers impact their work engagement. Furthermore, engaged frontline employees have the ability to create their own personal resources.Originality/value– This research makes contributions to the understanding of the impact of positive customer emotions on frontline employees.

Recognising emotional expressions of complaining customers

Purpose– This study aims to test service providers’ ability to recognise non-verbal emotions in complaining customers of same and different cultures.Design/methodology/approach– In a laboratory study, using a between-subjects experimental design (n= 153), we tested the accuracy of service providers’ perceptions of the emotional expressions of anger, fear, shame and happiness of customers from varying cultural backgrounds. After viewing video vignettes of customers complaining (with the audio removed), participants (in the role of service providers) assessed the emotional state of the customers portrayed in the video.Findings– Service providers in culturally mismatched dyads were prone to misreading anger, happiness and shame expressed by dissatisfied customers. Happiness was misread in the displayed emotions of both dyads. Anger was recognisable in the Anglo customers but not Confucian Asian, while Anglo service providers misread both shame and happiness in Confucian Asian customers.Research limitations/implications– The study was conducted in the laboratory and was based solely on participant’s perceptions of actors’ non-verbal facial expressions in a single encounter.Practical implications– Given the level of ethnic differences in developed nations, a culturally sensitive workplace is needed to foster effective functioning of service employee teams. Ability to understand cultural display rules and to recognise and interpret emotions is an important skill for people working in direct contact with customers.Originality/value– This research addresses the lack of empirical evidence for the recognition of customer emotions by service providers and the impact of cross-cultural differences.

The ups and downs of online dating: Effects of positive and negative anticipatory emotions on participant volition behaviour

Existing literature on customer emotions devotes much attention to post-consumption emotions, which are feelings elicited towards actual external stimuli. However, little is known about the concrete impact of consumers’ anticipatory emotions — the pre-factual, mentally stimulated emotions due to anticipation of possible outcomes — on consequent volition behaviours that are cognitive-driven where individuals are determined to act in a planned way. In this study, I integrate (hot and emotional) anticipatory emotions with (cold and cognitive-based) volition processes into a single research model. I chose to model seven positive anticipatory emotions (PAEs) and 10 negative anticipatory emotions (NAEs) on three dimensions of behavioural volition: territory planning, account-specific planning and effort. A sample of 93 real paying members registered on online dating websites in China was employed to test the model empirically. This context entails a high personal stake and exhibits a high level of intrinsically motivating and goal-directed behaviour that appears most suitable to elicit the anticipatory emotions for this study. Partial least squares structural equation modelling techniques validate the hypotheses and yield some interesting findings regarding the interplay among PAEs, NAEs and three types of volition.

The impact of perceived customer delight on the frontline employee

A plethora of research has investigated the impact of the frontline employee on the customer, with the consensus that employees can have a tremendous impact on the customer. What remains to be discovered is the extent to which this relationship exists in the reverse. Utilizing broaden-and-build and emotional contagion theories, this study suggests that employee perceptions of a specific customer emotion (delight) have an impact on the frontline employee. Specifically, results from a structural equations model reveal that employee perceptions of customer delight lead to employee positive affect, which in turn positively influences commitment and job satisfaction as well as creates stronger external representation behaviors, internal influence behaviors, and service delivery behaviors from the employee. These findings contribute new evidence to the debate of the viability of providing customer delight and extend our knowledge beyond emotional contagion in explaining how positive customer emotions manifest in employees.

Managing Customer Retention of Hotel Industry in Malaysia

This study conceptualized the customer retention of three star hotels in Malaysia by measuring the hotel's room service quality and customer's consumption emotions, moderated by customer's satisfaction. This will facilitate authors the reasons and importance of room service and their sense for customer choice to procure same service for their next stay especially in middle class hotels. The target for purposive sampling is three star hotel s’ customer around Malaysia segregated by all 14 states. Findings on the critical factors for customer retention will provide benchmarking for Malaysian hoteliers in strategizing their room service quality.

Shiny happy people buying: the role of emotions on personalized e-shopping

Personalized services are diffusing rapidly in online shopping communities. However, the current understanding of the influence of personalization is limited. This study extends personalization literature into the area of emotions related to intention to purchase and into the context of online shopping. Responses from 182 online shoppers were used to examine the impact of personalization on customer emotions and intention to purchase. The results show that there is a direct positive association between personalization and purchase intentions. In addition, provision of personalization features in e-shops may evoke positive emotions to online shoppers but does not evoke nor mitigate negative ones. Finally, our study reports that emotions influence online shopping behavior either positively, through the formulation of positive emotions, or negatively, through negative emotions. These findings indicate that positive emotions mediate the relationship between personalization and purchase intentions. Our study concludes with a critical appraisal of our findings and a discussion of prospective theoretical and managerial implications for e-shop practitioners.

THE EFFECT OF CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE DESIGN, RELATIONSHIP QUALITY, AND EMOTION CONNECTION ON LOYALTY

The purpose of this study is to determine the effect of customer experience design, emotion connection and relationship quality on customer loyalty. Hotel must manage the consumer experience well. When the consumer experience increase, it will give effect to increasing relationships quality and emotional connection. Increasing the quality of the relationship and emotional connection between the consumer and hotel is expected to increase customer loyalty. The sample in this study is 142 respondents. The analysis in this study uses a structural equation model, in which we use Amos version 20 to help data analysis. The result of this study : (1) there are positive and significant effects between customer experience design on relationship quality and between customer experience on emotional connection; (2) there are not any positive and significant effects between customer experience design, emotional connection, and relationship quality on custimer loyalty.

Emotional Intelligence in Marketing Exchange Enhances Business Performance

The objective of this study is to find out factors, which enhance salesperson's ability to influence purchase decisions of customers. Furthermore, it also aims at identifying the impact of Emotional Intelligence, Customer Orientation, Adaptive Selling and Manifest Influence on sales performance. Study reveals that emotionally sound salespersons are successful to identify customer needs and alter their emotions, accurately evaluate customer's emotions are more likely to perform better in different perspectives. Theoretical implications evaluating salespersons abilities and capabilities only telecom sector may result as generalizability. There are valid chances might occurred that the salespersons belongs to other industries might answer differently to research questionnaire. Therefore, this theoretical framework should be tested in other industries as well.

Exploring customer attachment behaviour to sustain the retail industry in Malaysia

Purpose – The effectiveness of customer experience management to current market growth and perhaps business sustainability has drawn the attention of practitioners and academicians. This paper aims to address the gap by empirically investigating the effect of service encounter, trustworthy promotion and customer attachment behaviour with the moderating influence of customer emotional experience and commitment. Design/methodology/approach – The study has used a survey approach with a self-administered questionnaire distributed in a retail store intercept: a drop off and collect technique. A hypothesized model was developed, analyzed and tested rigorously using the structural equation modelling procedure. Findings – The findings reveal that customer emotional experience has positive significant effects on customer attachment behaviour, but not commitment. However, consumers in general will look for the trustworthiness of promotional activities when purchasing both local and international products. Originality/value – The novelty of this study is the contribution of original knowledge through the development of new findings from a new invention, using the practical tool of comprehensive customer emotion experience, with new dimensions, scale and model. These findings have important implications for future research directions and management of the local or international retail industry.

Territoriality revisited: Other customer's perspective

In this study, we investigate the impact of other customers’ territorial behaviors on observing customers with a focus on a specific type of territorial behavior: refusing to share a table with another customer. Drawing from the other-customer-perception (OCP) framework, social projection theory and deontic justice theory, we examine how the observing customer's territorial tendency, perceived similarity to the rejected intruder and the level of crowding influence customer reactions to territorial behaviors. The results of this study suggest that these three factors jointly influence the observing customer's negative emotions. Moreover, the level of crowding and the observing customer's territorial tendency together influenced fairness perceptions. Finally, negative emotions and fairness perceptions had a significant impact on the observing customer's satisfaction. Implications for hospitality scholars and practitioners are discussed.

The influence of atmospheric elements on emotions, perceived value and behavioral intentions

Article history: Received December 28, 2013 Accepted 28 March 2014 Available online April 12 2014 This research proposes a comprehensive integrated model, which investigates the relationships between atmospheric elements, emotions, perceived value and behavioral intentions. Data collected through customers of three Salian chain stores by using stratified random sampling method and the analysis uses 390 questionnaires to collect the information. Structural equations modeling by using LISREL was performed to empirically test the relationships between the constructs of this research. Results show that ambience, interaction and design factors had a positive influence on customer emotions. However, effects of ambience, interaction and design on perceived value were not significant. In addition, results indicate that customer emotions and perceived value had a positive and significant effect on behavioral intentions. Finally, it suggests that managers should focus on designing atmospheric elements in a way that contributes positively in creating positive emotions in customers, which in turn enhance customer’s positive behavioral intentions. © 2014 Growing Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Mediating role of emotion in personalised relationship formation: study of patient-physician relationship

The paper tests a comprehensive model that explains relative influence of ‘professional service provider behaviour’ and ‘customer emotions’ on ‘relationship’, ‘satisfaction’, and its subsequent influence on ‘post purchase behaviour’ in the high contact, high credence extended service situations. One-on-one interviews with 256 patients were used to construct and validate relationships using the structural equation model. The results suggest that customers’ positive appraisal of essential service provider behaviour results in customer satisfaction and re-patronisation intention. Customers’ perception of relationship with the service provider which is consequent of service providers’ interpersonal behaviour and customer experience of positive emotions in service interaction result in customer advocacy.

The Effect of Customer Experience Design, Relationship Quality, and Emotion Connection on Loyalty (Empirical Study on Hotel Industry in Solo, Indonesia)

The Effect of Customer Experience Design, Relationship Quality, and Emotion Connection on Loyalty (Empirical Study on Hotel Industry in Solo, Indonesia)

Emotion and feedback: The keys to customer engagement

This paper explores the topic of customer engagement, and in particular, the key driver at the heart of effective customer engagement — emotion. Customer emotion is linked to measurable business benefits and return on investment measures. The paper examines effective communication channels to achieve this emotional engagement, focused on Short Message Service (SMS — text messaging) ‘the single most powerful real-time channel on the planet’. This includes practical examples of planning, implementation and achieving expected success measures/return on investment, including case study examples from the hospitality, retail and banking sectors in the UK and USA.

An Investigation into the Determinant of Jordanian Customer’s Loyalty towards Travel Agencies

Relationship marketing aims to build and maintain relationships between customers and organizations. While keeping customers loyal is a key objective for service firms such as travel agencies, critical antecedents of customer loyalty still need to be understood. This study aims to empirically investigate the associations among relational bonds (including, financial, social and structural), customer emotions, trust, commitment and customer loyalty. The research is based on data collected from 319 Jordanian customers of Jordan travel agencies. The results of an integrated SEM suggest that financial, social and structural relational bonds contribute to customers’ emotions and that these emotions are important determinants of customer trust, which impact customer commitment. In return customer commitment predicts customer loyalty. Implications for research and practice are derived.

The Modern Retail Customer's Experience on Customer Engagement: Evidence from Health and Personal Care Stores in Malaysia Using Structural Equation Modelling Approach (SEM)

Objective- The modern retail experience is about more than buying products. It's about the feeling the customer gets from being in your store, the way it makes them feel, and how it addresses the person they want to be. In today's business arena customers are prime assets for an organization and managing the customer relationship is equally critical for the organizations. This paper aims to address the emotional response of customers, which would lead to three dimensions of emotions which are a pleasure, arousal and dominance. This research was conducted in order to observe the buying behaviour of customers that shop at health and personal cares retail outlets. Methodology/Technique A hypothesized model which integrates two major antecedents of health and personal cares retail stores brand was analysed and tested rigorously using the SEM. The model was tested using 400 usable questionnaires of adult respondents who reside in chosen urban areas in Malaysia. The study has used a self-administered questionnaire distributed by using retail outlets intercept. This paper contributes to the understanding about the importance of food allergy awareness among public. Findings - - The results show that socio-demographic variables such as age, education, income level and work sector as well as modern grocery retail format, servicescape and customer emotion experience have significant positive effect of customer engagement on health and personal cares of retail stores brand. Novelty - These findings have important implications that demonstrate the originality or value for health and personal cares retail stores and consumer behaviour body of knowledge. Type of Paper Empirical Paper Keywords: Customer Emotions; Customer Engagement; Modern Retail and Health and Personal Care Stores.

감정유형이 판매원에 대한 고객평가와 행동의도에 미치는 영향

This study investigates the effect of customer emotions on customer evaluation and behavior intention. The subjects used in this study were customers of a fashion shop in Sunchon South Korea. The questionnaires were conveniently sampled from July 2010 to August, 2010. Questionnaire data from 335 customers of a national brand were analyzed through a reliability analysis, factor analysis, and multiple regression analysis. The results of this study are as follows. First, emotions of customer were divided into 2 patterns, positive emotion and negative emotion. Second positive emotion have significant (+) influences on the trust and negative emotion have significant (-) influences on the trust. Third positive emotion have significant (+) influences on the customer orientation and negative emotion have significant (-) influences on the customer orientation. Forth, the emotions of customer have a considerable impact on the interaction intention. And the positive emotion have significant (+) influences on the word-of-mouth intention and negative emotion have not a considerable impact on it. Fifth the positive emotion have significant (+) influences on the attitude toward store and repurchase intention, and negative emotion have significant (-) influences on the attitude toward store and repurchase intention.

Prioritization of aesthetic attributes of car profile

The viability and success of a product in the market depends on its aesthetic design. Quality function deployment (QFD) is a structured methodology for the design a new product with improved quality. The Kano model has been found to be a useful tool to establish the relationship between performance criteria. In order to make its use more objective, fuzzy Kano modeling may be more beneficially applied than the traditional Kano modeling. A fuzzy approach has been adopted for calculation of the relative importance of different aesthetic attributes. The proposed method has been illustrated using customer survey data. Four out of 12 aesthetic attributes (i.e., elegant, family-feeling, modern, and youthful) were found to be attractive (more significant). Relevance to industryThis research paper presents an integrated approach that convert customer's emotions into usable design data. This enables industrial counselors, professional product designers and academician to categorize requirements of users that can be subsequently incorporated into final product design.