Customer Emotions Research Articles

Post-service recovery emotion and customer trust: The role of satisfaction as mediation

Service failure is inevitable, leading to the provision of a recovery method by companies to overcome customer mistrust, that creates certain emotions. This research, therefore, aims to examine the indirect effect of customer emotion on trust and service recovery mediated by satisfaction. Data were obtained from 104 participants that read the vignette on service failure and recovery. This study used the data analysis of Process Hayes to measure the role of mediation. The result showed that customer satisfaction moderated the indirect effect between emotion and trust after service failure. In addition, cognitive appraisal theory supports the interactional and procedural process used to provide positive judgment. The implication of this study is useful for companies to minimize the possibility of service failure and provide recovery in order to maintain customer trust.

Visualizing theme park visitors’ emotions using social media analytics and geospatial analytics

Abstract Despite the popular use of social media analytics to scrutinize customer emotions, less scholarly efforts have been invested in visualizing theme park visitors' emotions. Employing the convergence of social media analytics and geospatial analytics, this paper visualized cohesive places where Disneyland visitors express distinct types of emotion in social media messages. Among 226,946 collected tweets, this study used 19,809 tweets containing one or more emotion words listed in Russell's Circumplex Model of Affect. Text mining analysis and GIS-based exploratory spatial data analysis showed that tweets reflecting each quadrant of emotions have considerable spatial variations and different topics related to visitor emotions. The research approach enabled displaying particular spots in theme park zones and areas of riding attractions where emotions of each quadrant are significantly clustered. This study highlights methodological implications of visualizing spatial patterns of visitors' emotions and provides practitioners with a useful guide to develop routes evoking pleasant emotions.

Emotion regulation in service encounters: are customer displays real?

PurposeDespite recognition of the importance of emotions and emotion regulation in service encounters, emotion regulation has been generally studied from an employee perspective. This study investigated customer emotion regulation behaviours (CEREBs) in face-to-face service encounters; arguing for a more nuanced approach through an emotion regulation matrix representing the playing up and downplaying of positive or negative emotions. Motivational factors and service-related situational conditions that influence the likelihood of emotion regulation were also examined.Design/methodology/approachFour focus groups and the critical incident technique method were used to obtain data from people who had interacted with service employees within the previous six months.FindingsThere was support for emotion regulation in the four facets of the emotion regulation matrix. Five CEREB dimensions, including verbal behaviours and facial expressions, were evident. Motivational factors and situational conditions that impacted on customer emotion regulation in service encounters were also identified.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings were based on two qualitative methods. A quantitative approach should be used to further validate the suggested framework.Originality/valueMost research on emotion regulation has focused on employees. We examined the phenomenon from a customer viewpoint and in a service encounter context. As customers are not bound by employment rules and conventions, a wider range of emotion regulation behaviours were found. The study used the four-faceted emotion regulation matrix to investigate this, developing a conceptual framework that provides a foundation for future research.

Delight spirals: the cause and consequence of employee perceived customer delight

PurposeWith increasing competition in the marketplace, there is a greater push for exceeding customer expectations and delivering customer delight to ensure firm’s success. The main reason for this push is the beneficial outcomes for the firm. More recently, hidden benefits have been identified (i.e. elevated customer emotions can positively impact other customers and employees in the service environment). Adding to this developing literature, the current research develops a model that links antecedents and outcomes to employee perceptions of customer delight.Design/methodology/approachBoth field and panel data, as well as multiple statistical methods, were utilized to test the hypothesized relationships. The field data were collected from employees of a national specialty retailer.FindingsService climate and interpersonal influence have a positive impact on customer delight and employee perceptions of customer delight. In turn, employee perceptions of customer delight positively impact harmonious passion and job dedication. In addition, accountability for pleasing customers is a significant moderator of the relationship between employee perceptions of customer delight and harmonious passion, but not between employee perceptions of customer delight and job dedication.Research limitations/implicationsThis research contributes to the ongoing debate on the viability of customer delight as a service standard by investigating the under-studied perspective of the frontline employee.Practical implicationsThis research contributes to the debate on the value of customer delight as a service standard by investigating the under-studied perspective of the frontline employee. A key takeaway for practitioners is how to create and manage the delight spirals that can occur when customers are delighted.Originality/valueThis is the first study that evaluates antecedents and outcomes of employee-perceived customer delight in a single model. This is also the first study to measure the impact of employee perceptions of customer delight with field data.

The Relationship between Service Failure and Service Recovery with Airline Passenger Satisfaction

Service failure and service recovery of a firm can greatly influence on customer satisfaction as well as the relationship quality with the firm, regardless of other firm’s efforts to establish the strong relationships with its customers in the long run. Airline companies particularly struggled with numerous obstacles regarding their continuity to survive. One of the problems is they are accountable to service failures which is unavoidable to evade. This research aims to recognize the relationship of service failure and service recovery with AirAsia passenger satisfaction. The data was gathered from 361 domestic passengers departing from Sultan Ismail Petra Airport, Kelantan. The convenience sampling has been employed as the sampling approach for this study. The findings indicated that the service failure has negative significant relationship with passenger satisfaction while the service recovery has positively influenced passenger satisfaction. The implications of this study are the management team and staff should plan effective recovery instruments to correct the failures such as well-planned corrective actions, effective apologies, willing to be responsible for failure occurred and other actions. The frontline employees should be aware of the customers’ emotions when the service failure happens, and the excellent recovery effort can thus prevent negative emotion of customers.

Customer engagement in online social crowdfunding: The influence of storytelling technique on donation performance

Crowdfunding has become a key approach in connecting people and equality distribution mechanisms. Digitalization enables various crowdfunding platforms to be built online for different purposes, one of those being donation crowdfunding for social purposes. To capture attention and obtain sufficient donations, customer engagement is a key focus for these platforms. To engage customer emotion and cognition, social crowdfunding content must be captivating. Storytelling techniques are one of the most popular approaches in creating engaging content. It is essential to explore the relationship between storytelling, customer engagement, and successful achievement of donations. This research explores the different effects of direct vs. indirect storytelling techniques on social-issue crowdfunding campaigns. Data from a crowdfunding platform suggest that storytelling techniques have a significant positive effect on customer engagement and donation performance, particularly the direct storytelling technique. However, customer engagement does not serve as a mediator between storytelling and donation performance. This study fills the research gap regarding digital customer engagement, particularly in the social purpose context. The theoretical and practical implications are also discussed.

A new path for building hotel brand equity: the impacts of technological competence and service innovation implementation through perceived value and trust

ABSTRACT To examine the brand development of starred hotels, this study examines asample of 615 five-star customers to confirm anewly proposed path for the formation of starred hotel brand equity. The research findings show that technological competence and service innovation implementation are the leading factors in hotel brand equity and have positive interaction effects on customers’ perceived value. The tandem mediation of customer cognition (perceived value) and emotional (trust) factors promotes the formation of brand equity. The moderating role of acceptance of electronic word-of-mouth (AEWOM) is highlighted to accelerate the path from customer cognition to customer emotions. This study not only contributes anew theoretical basis for the sustainable development of starred hotels but also provides anew perspective for future research on brand equity.

F1 스코어를 이용한 한국어 감정 지수 연구

Digital companies are processing and managing their business relationships between their customers, suppliers and employees in digitalized way. These companies innovate the traditional social structure by applying digital technology to society. Enterprises build and utilize information and communication technology (ICT) as a platform, including cloud computing, artificial intelligence (AI), and big data solutions. Transformation into a digital company and using data analysis processes in an organization will create new values or services. In addition, analyzing the flow of data within an organization in an e-business environment is a necessary activity for corporate survival.<BR> The purpose of this study is to analyze the emotions of internal and external customers, which are diversified in atypical data analysis. Wheel of emotions(Plutchik, 1980) is used to classify emotions and prioritize emotion words within the categorized emotion sets. The Korean emotional word index process was studied by classifying and ranking the emotional words in the emotion set using the F1 score, a tool for measurement of effect. The emotion index was ranked in 200,000 comments using 190 generalized emotional words in the emotion set. Emotions such as anger and joy, fear and happiness can be identified through statistical values. In addition, it is confirmed that customer needs or product preference analysis can be applied to get more insights in the company"s point of view.

Emotional intelligence and perceived negative emotions in intercultural service encounters

PurposeThis paper aims to explore the perceived negative emotions of both customers and frontline service employees (FSEs) during intercultural service encounters (ICSEs); and the building and utilization of corresponding knowledge in the banking sector.Design/methodology/approachTo reach the paper’s goal, a qualitative approach through semi-structured interviews conducted in the context of the banking industry is developed and presented.FindingsThe findings presented and discussed the “perception of emotion” and the building of corresponding knowledge about ICSEs. Specifically, FSEs and foreign customers were found to be capable of perceiving negative emotions, both their own and of others. The authors further identified an array of emotions and feelings that facilitate the understanding of how ICSEs can be managed and improved. The findings finally highlight the degree and nature of the importance of building and storing knowledge on ICSEs soft processes, which are termed a key asset for service companies.Originality/valueAn encounter between a service provider and a customer of different cultural backgrounds can become complex and critical. Despite this, there is not enough empirical evidence neither on the socio-psychological processes that take place during these encounters nor on how different ethnic groups develop interpersonal trust within the service sector. This research offers empirical insights regarding the means of detecting emotions and of improving the quality and management of knowledge on ICSE.

Positive emotions as underlying mechanism between customer gratitude and behavioural intentions

Based on the growing importance of customer emotions like gratitude in organizational literature, current study is focused on finding out the underlying mechanisms through which customers' gratitude leverage the benefits to the service providers in the form of positive behaviours. Employing the reasoning of broaden and build theory of positive emotions, a customer emotion versus behaviours model has been developed and tested, in order to assess the mediation of customers' delight and overall satisfaction in parallel with each other among the association of customer gratitude and behavioural outcomes (positive word of mouth and revisit intentions). This research is conducted in context of Pakistan's mega shopping malls. Based on quota sampling method, cross-sectional research design has been used to obtain data (N = 352) from shoppers. Using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) analysis our results specify that among two parallel mediators, the links of customer gratitude with both outcomes has been mediated by customer overall satisfaction; in comparison customers' delight only intermediates the association of customer gratitude with revisit intentions. This study opens up a new side in the customer gratitude literature by finding the predictive differences in parallel mediatory mechanism of customer's delight and overall satisfaction.

A comparative study on bio-inspired algorithms for sentiment analysis

Data mining is one of the most explored and ongoing areas of research. Sentiment analysis is a popular application of data mining, where the information regarding the customer's emotions or attitude is extracted by applying various methods or techniques. The earlier work in sentiment analysis deals with supervised, unsupervised machine learning-based approaches and lexicon-based approaches. Nature-inspired algorithms are recently becoming an emerging topic of research for developing new algorithms and for optimizing the results as nature serves as an excellent source of inspiration. These techniques are divided into bio-inspired algorithms, physics–chemistry based algorithms, and others. This survey mainly deals with bio-inspired algorithms, which consist of swarm intelligence based and non-swarm intelligence-based algorithms. We present a comprehensive review of the significant bio-inspired algorithms that are popularly applied in sentiment analysis. We discuss state-of-the-art on these significant algorithms along with a comparative study on these algorithms by reviewing eighty articles from various journals, conferences, book chapters, etc. Finally, this review draws some essential conclusions and identifies some research gaps to motivate researchers in this area.

미용실의 감각서비스가 고객감정반응에 미치는 영향

미용 서비스는 단순히 헤어스타일을 연출하는 차원을 넘어 자기만족, 자신감 부여 등의 감성을 자극하는 서비스로 인식되면서 고객들은 미용서비스 경험을 통해 다양한 종류의 감정들을 느낄 수 있을 것이다. 이에 본 연구에서는 오감을 자극하는 미용 서비스 경험 시 느끼는 감정반응과 관련한 연구를 통해 더 나은 미용 서비스를 제공할 수 있는 서비스 개선 방향과 소비자의 경험에 대한 새로운 안목을 제공하는 마케팅 전략 수립을 목적으로 한다.BR 본 연구는 20대 이상의 성인 남녀 중 최근 6개월 이내에 미용 서비스를 이용해 본 경험이 있는 소비자 594명을 대상으로 자기기입식 설문조사를 진행하였으며, SPSS 20.0을 이용하여 빈도분석, 탐색적 요인분석, 신뢰도분석, 다중회귀분석을 실시하였다.BR 연구결과 미용실의 다섯 가지 감각서비스 모두 고객에게 긍정적인 즐거움의 감정을 주는 것으로 나타났으며, 특히 미각적요인과 촉각적요인이 많은 영향을 미치는 것으로 나타났다. 이는 고객과 직접적인 접촉이 되는 미용서비스의 특성상 촉각적요인의 만족이 고객의 긍정적인 감정반응에 많은 영향을 미치는 주요인 임을 나타내었다. 또한, 미용실에서 부가적으로 제공하는 다과 및 음료 등의 미각서비스가 고객들에게 긍정적인 감정을 불러일으키므로 고객들이 만족할 수 있는 다양한 다과 및 음료 등을 준비하는 것이 고객만족 및 매출 증대에 많은 도움이 된다는 것을 의미한다.BR 본 연구는 미용실의 규모에 따라 제공되는 서비스에 차이가 있을 수 있어 모든 미용실에 맞는 감각서비스들을 모두 포함 하여 연구를 할 수 없었던 근본적인 한계점을 지닌다. 이에 추후 에는 미용실에서 제공되는 다양한 감각서비스들을 더 세분화하여 변수들 간의 관계를 파악할 필요가 있을 것으로 사료된다.

Increasing customer loyalty through customer engagement in the retail banking industry

Purpose This study aims to determine the main antecedents of customer engagement (market orientation, satisfaction, emotions and self-brand connection) and the relationship between customer engagement and customer loyalty in the retail-banking context. Design/methodology/approach A theoretical model of effects is tested using dyadic methodology, based on 225 dyads (bank branch manager–average of five branch customers). The authors use structural equation modelling (EQS 6.1) to test the relationships. Findings The results reveal a strong relationship between customer engagement and customer loyalty. Satisfaction is the main antecedent of customer engagement. Self-brand connection and emotions during the service also have a significant influence. Finally, branch market orientation has a positive influence on satisfaction and emotions. Research limitations/implications The first concerns the transversal data used. Geographical context is the second limitation. Third, the study sample only included customers with experience of the financial services of a specific bank (online customers are not included). Finally, the dyads are based on the opinion of the branch manager, on one hand, and an average of five customers per branch, on the other. Practical implications The combination of the branding strategy at the corporate level and the relationship marketing strategy at branch office level creates a situation in which customer engagement and customer loyalty can thrive. The communication campaigns designed to promote the brand image and associate brand values with the personality of the banks’ current and potential customers help to create an emotional bond that represents a switching cost for the customer. The moments of truth in branch offices are crucial aspects in the retail bank strategy. Originality/value First, from the conceptual perspective, it establishes a direct relationship between customer engagement and customer loyalty. Second, it empirically tested Pansari and Kumar’s (2017) customer engagement framework, which establishes customer satisfaction and customer emotions as the antecedents of customer engagement. Third, the study took an innovative step in establishing two levels of customer emotions in the retail bank context: emotions generated by corporate branding and emotions that arise during the experience of purchase and consuming. Fourth, the study shows that the market orientation adopted not at the macro corporate level but at the individual branch level is crucial to the generation of positive relational outcomes in the service the customer receives. The fifth contribution is related to the fact that the research streams associated with market orientation and relationship quality have traditionally been studied in isolation.

A decision support system for service recovery in affective computing: an experimental investigation

With the development of information technology, information technology not only improves human’s living environments and the quality of life but also increases the productivity of industries. Information technology helps businesses to provide customers with quality services using existing resources and make the right and effective service decisions. Accordingly, businesses have to not only understand customer needs but also pay attention to customer emotions when they make service decisions. This study aims to build a service recovery decision support system by adopting affective computing, artificial neural networks and decision trees approaches. Three experiments are conducted to evaluate the feasibility and performance of the service recovery decision support system. The experiment results show that the service recovery decision support system can have the high performance of customer recognition. Meanwhile, customer emotion can be a clue to enable businesses to make the right service decisions in service recovery.

Understanding emotional customer experience and co-creation behaviours in luxury hotels

PurposeA holistic understanding of sources that evoke customer emotions is essential for creating a positive emotional customer experience (ECX). Despite a significant focus on the cognitive aspect of customer experience and traditional customer behaviours (e.g. loyalty and satisfaction), limited attention has been paid to ECX and co-creation behaviours. The purpose of this paper is to address this important knowledge gap by identifying different emotions and prominent sources of ECX (i.e. emotion triggers and constructors) during service interactions. By doing so, key customer co-creation behaviours are also identified, which help enhance positive customer experience.Design/methodology/approachA combined application of the appraisal theory and thematic analysis was used to explore ECX, its sources and co-creation behaviours as observed from 1,063 TripAdvisor customer reviews of luxury hotels in Ireland.FindingsThe results show that a single service interaction can evoke multiple emotions during the interaction process. The findings capture prominent emotions that customers experience and various important emotion triggers (physical environment, service management and offerings and human interaction) and constructors (customer expectation, accumulated service experience and culture fusion and authenticity). Three main customer co-creation behaviours (reinforcing intention, active and resourceful behaviours), which help facilitate the co-creation of positive customer emotions, are also identified.Originality/valueThe study proposes a new framework that provides unique insights into ECX to guide service improvement and innovation. A novel approach of applying the appraisal theory to a netnographic study is used to develop an ECX framework, which integrates various emotion triggers and constructors, and subsequent customer co-creation behaviours in the hotel industry.

Measuring the impact of soft and hard total quality management factors on customer behavior based on the role of innovation and continuous improvement

PurposeTotal quality management (TQM) is a part of the total quality assurance perspective. This system, which is considered as a type of managerial philosophy, employs all organizational levels to constantly ameliorate the quality of goods and service. The purpose of this paper is to measure the effect of hard and soft TQM factors on the behavior of customers based on the role of innovation and continuous improvement.Design/methodology/approachThe research model was extracted from TQM variables in hard and soft parts, customer behavior, innovation and continuous improvement by reviewing the literature and research background. Based on this, a questionnaire was prepared and then, distributed among the statistical population including 374 project managers, quality assurance managers as well as quality control managers by using simple random sampling. All sub-criteria of questionnaire were determined using Delphi technique, to test the research model. Having gathered the questionnaire, the hypotheses were analyzed by using structural equation modeling and AMOS software.FindingsAccording to the statistical analyses, TQM has a significant effect on customer behavior through continuous improvement of the quality and innovation. Also, regarding the obtained results, the highest effect was related to the effect of hard TQM factors on customer behavior through innovation as 0.62. Furtheremore, TQM soft factors such as human resource management have significant effect on customer behavior through quality improvement and innovation. Moreover, TQM hard factors are effective on customer behavior through quality improvement and innovation.Research limitations/implicationsThe questionnaire was designed and distributed in order to evaluate the hypotheses in this study. One of the primary rationales behind utilizing this method instead of other methods such as interview was high geographical distribution of organizations. Using other moderator variables such as knowledge management, customer knowledge management and customer emotions can be conducted in the future in this area.Practical implicationsChanging the organizational relationships from task orientation to the process orientation, and controlling the organizational performance by measuring process innovations and improvements, while paying attention to the customer satisfaction system are suggested in this paper. These implications should be implemented in construction projects by department of project management office. Furtheremore, providing different communication for receiving the opinions of the customer and imposing them in the product and service, paying attention to the response system and customer complaint, implementation of this process in the organization, and having a process approach for presenting and developing services are the main subjects in this regard.Originality/valueUnlike previous studies on this subject, a structural equation model is used for assessing unobservable latent constructs and their related interrelationship in measuring the impact of TQM factors. Focusing on customer behavior which is a broader domain than customer satisfation through continuous improvement of the quality and innovation is another value of this research.

A Study of Customer Orientation and Customer Commitment in the Food Sector of Pakistan

This study examines the relationshipofa firm’scustomer orientations, salesperson customer-orientedbehaviorandcustomer intimacywithcustomer commitment. For the purpose of this study, the interpersonal relationship marketing model and the interpersonal attractioninvestment model are employed to propose the conceptual model. The conceptual model suggests that (1) firm’scustomer orientation positively influencesthe salesperson customer-orientedbehavior;(2) salesperson customer-orientedbehavior positively influences the customer intimacy;(3) customer-orientedbehavior positively mediates between customer orientation and customer intimacy;and (4) customer intimacy actsa positive mediatorbetweenthesalesperson customer-orientedbehavior and customer commitment. Through the course of this study, theproposed conceptual modelswere tested with the data collected from the firm and customer dyads. Moreover, thedata is collected from the food sector ofPakistan. Furthermore, the Smart-PLSis usedto testthestandardized dyadic data sets. Results have providedsubstantial support for the proposedconceptual model. Thereis strong support for the salesperson customer-orientedbehavior,and customer intimacy as mediator. Additionally, the results validate the interpersonal relationship marketing modeland the Rusbult investment modelas well. From a managerial perspective,this study canhelp organizational policy makersto understand the importance of salesperson behavior,and customer emotions for a long-term relationshipwith the targetedcustomer of the specific firm.

The effect of cuisine creativity on customer emotions

The fierce competition in today’s restaurant industry contributes to the need for unique and creative products and services to maintain a competitive edge. There are many studies that examine the effect of physical stimuli on customer emotions in a restaurant setting, but very few investigate the role of food. Furthermore, most studies only include pleasure and arousal as dependent variables. Dominance has not been included. This study bridges these gaps. A questionnaire was used to collect 400 responses from customers of a Michelin-rated restaurant. Structural equation modeling was used to test the impact of cuisine creativity on customer emotions. The results indicate that aesthetics is the most influential factor. Both theoretical and managerial implications of the results are presented.

Mediational Role of Customer Emotions in the Relationship Between Customer Experience and Purchase Behavior in the Hotel Industry

Consumers experience a broad range of emotions, both simultaneously and successively while interacting with service providers. The role and effect of emotion are drawing greater attention from marketing intellectuals in their quest for a better understanding of consumers and their consumption experiences. This study aimed at assessing customer experience and its relative effects on customer emotions and purchase behavior in the Kenyan hotel industry. The study adopted Berry and Carbone’s conceptualization of customer experience; Ritchins’ (1997) clues to measure customer emotions and Shen and Zhao (2005) indicators to measure purchase behavior. A mixed exploratory research design was adopted to conduct the research where self administered questionnaires were used to collect quantitative data. The study assessed luxury hotels within Nairobi (20), Kisumu (1) and Mombasa (10) since they had a clear and consistent organizational structure and can give more insight into experiences because of their experienced and demanding clientele. The study population was 5,800 guests staying in the hotels. A total of 361 guests were selected as the sample size using multi stage sampling procedure. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics which involved use of means, percentages and tests for normality and inferential statistics which included the use of correlation, principal axis factor analysis, regression and bootstrapping. Regression results showed that of the three customer experience factors, only humanic clue factor had significant influence on purchase behaviour (β = .17, t = 1.94, p = .05), with the rest of the two factors having no significant influence. The three customer experience factors together with customer emotions account for 44% of the total variance explained in purchase behaviour. Mediation results showed that customer emotions (CE) fully mediates the relationship between Functional clues factor (FCF) and purchase behaviour (PB) (β = .08, t = 1.97, p = .05, VAF = 200%). Customer emotions (CE) partially mediates the relationship between Humanic clues factor (HCF) and purchase behaviour (PB) (β = .14, t = 3.24, p = .00, VAF = 45%) and the relationship between Mechanic clues factor (MCF) and purchase behaviour (PB) (β = .11, t = 2.21, p = .03, VAF = 50%). The study findings complement the existing literature regarding the role of emotions in service settings and offer a new point of view for the linkage among customer emotions, customer experience drivers and customer purchase behavior. The study findings emphasized that hotel operators must consider the impact of customers’ emotions on post-purchasing behaviors in developing better marketing and service strategies for retaining customers. Keywords: Customer, Customer experience, Customer emotions, Purchase behavior. DOI : 10.7176/JMCR/58-05 Publication date :July 31 st 2019

Influence of Customer Experience Dimensions on Purchase Behavior in Kenyan Hotels

Customer experience has been found to be a competitive edge for many hospitality industries. The growth and survival of many hotel industries depend on its ability to manage and create memorable experience. Research on customer experience tends to focus more on managerial outcomes than on the theories underlying the antecedents and consequences of experiences. Whilst realizing the gap between traditional quality management practices and what customers desire from their experiences, firms are challenged to define experience, identify its determinants, make it operational and manage its implementation effectively. This study aimed at assessing customer experience and its relative effects on customer emotions and purchase behavior in the Kenyan hotel industry. The study adopted Berry and Carbone’s conceptualization of customer experience and Shen and Zhao (2005) indicators to measure purchase behavior. A mixed exploratory research design was adopted to conduct the research where self-administered questionnaires were used to collect quantitative data. The study assessed luxury hotels within Nairobi (20), Kisumu (1) and Mombasa (10) since they had a clear and consistent organizational structure and can give more insight into experiences because of their experienced and demanding clientele. The study population was 5,800 guests staying in the hotels. A total of 361 guests were selected as the sample size using multi stage sampling procedure. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics which involved use of means, percentages and tests for normality and inferential statistics which included the use of correlation, principal axis factor analysis and regression. The research findings indicate that the respondents agree with all the 35 dimensions as describing their perceptions about customer experience in the hotel given that all the means of the 35 customer dimensions was &gt; 4. The results proved that customer experience is composed of three set of clues (humanic, functional and mechanic) which impact on customers perception of overall customer experience. Regression results also showed that of the three customer experience factors, only humanic clue factor had significant influence on purchase behavior (β = .17, t = 1.94, p = .05), with the rest of the two factors having no significant influence. The implication of this finding was that any efforts towards enhancing customer experiences in a hotel should focus primarily on aspects of a hotel operation that are equally important to the customer. While acknowledging the importance of all aspects of the hotel operation, managers should recognize the significance of each aspect in influencing purchase behavior. Keywords: Customer, Customer experience, Purchase behavior, customer emotions, luxury hotels. DOI : 10.7176/EJBM/11-21-07 Publication date :July 31 st 2019