Hedonic Service Research Articles

Influence of socio-demographics of leisure travellers on service experience equity

This paper investigates the influence of socio-demographic characteristics of domestic leisure travellers on evaluation of service experience equity in three hotels offering hedonic service in Kaduna city, Nigeria. Data for this research were obtained using 284 questionnaires, and the results of this research indicate a non-existence of an association between educational status and the dimensions of service experience equity while gender, age, marital status, type of occupation, and income level significantly affect at least one dimension in varying proportion. On the overall, income level of leisure travellers has the highest significant main effect on evaluation of service experience equity in the hotels. Moreover, higher income earners tend to show high expectation, and preference for quality, alluring hedonic service.

Don't be so emotional! How tone of voice and service type affect the relationship between message valence and consumer responses to WOM in social media

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to shed light on the boundary conditions of the effect of the valence of word-of-mouth on social networking sites (sWOM) on consumer responses (attitude toward the service provider, purchase intention and positive word-of-mouth intention). Specifically, the authors examine two moderators: the tone of voice (factual vs emotional) of the sWOM and service type (utilitarian vs hedonic) of the service that the sWOM is about.Design/methodology/approachA 2 (message valence: positive vs negative) × 2 (tone of voice: factual vs emotional) × 2 (service type: utilitarian vs hedonic) full-factorial between-subjects online experiment with 400 respondents was conducted and the data were analyzed using Hayes’ PROCESS macro.FindingsThe results show that message valence exerts a greater impact on consumer responses with factual sWOM messages compared to emotional ones. Furthermore, the impact of message valence is stronger for hedonic services compared to utilitarian services. In contrast to the authors’ expectations, there is no significant impact of matching the tone of voice to the service type.Practical implicationsFirst, for sWOM senders, factual messages are found to be more influential: backing an sWOM up with arguments and specific details increases the chance of it affecting consumers’ responses. As a result, marketers, especially of predominantly hedonic services, should encourage their followers and customers to spread positive factual sWOM about their service.Originality/valueThe study tests two previously unstudied moderating variables that affect the relationship between message valence and consumer responses to sWOM messages. Moreover, this study provides interesting insights for marketers and bloggers or reviewers.

The role of emotions in utilitarian service settings: The effects of emotional satisfaction on product perception and behavioral intentions

The role of emotions in hedonic service settings is well established, but their role in utilitarian service settings has received scant attention. This research attempts to fill this gap by investigating the effects of customers’ perceptions of service quality and servicescape on their emotional reactions, and their perceptions of product quality and subsequent behavioral intentions. Data are collected from 189 clients/patients who visited an optometry clinic. The study reports that perceived service quality (reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy) and service environment (atmosphere and layout) both increase positive emotional satisfaction. In turn, positive emotional satisfaction leads to a high perception of product quality, high recommendation, patronage intention, and likelihood of purchase. Additionally, product quality perceptions have a significant positive impact on behavioral intentions.

Social servicescape effects on post-consumption behavior

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to determine the role played by the social servicescape and positive emotions in the post-use in terms of response – satisfaction, perceived value and consumer loyalty – in hedonic services. Design/methodology/approach A quantitative study was conducted to gather data from 867 opera-goers through e-mail with a link to a questionnaire. Hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling based on partial least squares. The effects of the social servicescape and emotions as moderators were examined using interaction techniques. Findings The paper provides empirical support on the multidimensional configuration of the social servicescape composed by both characteristics and interactions of employees and customers. The results demonstrate significant relationships between the social servicescape and positive emotions in perceived value, satisfaction and loyalty of consumers. Positive emotions are a moderating variable, intensifying the relationship between the social servicescape and perceived value. The opposite effect in the relationship between the social servicescape and loyalty is found. Research limitations/implications Further research is required to generalize the findings to other hedonic services. Practical implications Knowledge on both social servicescape and emotional effects on consumer behavior may enable cultural managers to improve the consumption experience of performing arts attendees. Originality/value This paper fulfills a research gap in the area of social servicescape as well as the effects of emotions in hedonic services. It makes two main contributions. First, it provides knowledge on social servicescape conceptualization and measurement. Second, the moderation, by interaction effect, of emotions and social servicescape in consumer behavior are confirmed.

Value cocreation at its peak: the asymmetric relationship between coproduction and loyalty

Purpose – Coproduction, as one component of cocreation of value, offers many benefits to customers and management, but also requires customers to invest a considerable amount of effort and time. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the coproduction paradox of benefits and costs. Design/methodology/approach – One experimental study and two cross-sectional field studies across three service industries test the nonlinear relationship between level of coproduction and customer loyalty. Findings – Results show not only the optimum level but also the negative effects of increasing levels of coproduction on customer loyalty and, in turn, monetary expenditures. The negative effect can be partially offset by perceived process enjoyment (PE), such that consumers who enjoy the process exhibit increased loyalty after the optimum coproduction point. Customer self-efficacy (SE), however, further strengthens the inverted u-shaped relationship. Research limitations/implications – Further research should try to replicate the findings in more complex and less hedonic service settings (e.g. financial investments) because both PE and SE might be even more powerful here. Practical implications – Service managers need to determine the optimal degree to which customers want to engage in the creation of services and avoid overburdening them. Management should further explore opportunities to elicit feelings of fun and enjoyment through coproduction. Originality/value – Research usually highlights the potential benefits of coproduction for customers and companies and suggests a positive linear relationship between coproduction and success outcomes. This article instead shows that after an optimum level, the marginal benefits of coproduction for customer loyalty turn negative.

Attention, emotion and hedonic service experiences

Purpose– This paper aims to address the central guiding questions: What principles of services management need urgent re-thinking in the Asian Century? What opportunities and challenges lie ahead?Design/methodology/approach– This paper provides a review of relevant literature on hedonic consumption and related issues of emotion, attention, mental time travel and, importantly, how these phenomena may be measured.Findings– The paper addresses this question from a psychological and customer perspective. Services managers are well-positioned and have a great future for two reasons. First, services in general are the growing part of the global economy. Second, services managers provide the experiences required by increasingly affluent consumers. On the other hand, there is in general within the services sector, a lack of knowledge and expertise in understanding the consumer psychology of hedonic consumption. Additionally, and especially in Western countries, there is lack of knowledge about the cultural differences in experiential requirements of Asian consumers.Originality/value– The paper provides directions for future research in the area of tourism experiences and emotion.

The Role of Physical Environment in Leisure Service Consumption: Evidence From a Ski Resort Setting

Despite the importance of physical environment in hedonic service consumption, little is known about the extent to which physical environment influences ski resort visitors’ cognition, emotion, and behaviors. This study investigated the relationships among physical environmental stimuli (i.e., layout accessibility, aesthetics, cleanliness, and other visitors), perceived quality of physical environment, excitement, and behavioral intentions in ski resort. This study also attempted to test the moderating role of enduring involvement in the formation of behavioral intentions. Results showed that cleanliness and other visitors significantly and positively influenced visitors’ perceived quality of physical environment and excitement. The results suggest that physical environment is of great importance for the ski resort business. Perceived quality was indeed a significant predictor of excitement, which, in turn, positively influenced behavioral intentions. Finally, the study found that the effect of excitement on behavioral intentions was significant across high and low enduring involvement groups.

Price Discount Depth Effect on Perceived Value of Hedonic and Utilitarian Services: A Congruity Theory Approach

Price Discount Depth Effect on Perceived Value of Hedonic and Utilitarian Services: A Congruity Theory Approach

E banking strategies and consumers perception towards accepting internet banking a secondary approach

In the present scenario, the consumer is now becoming more technology savvy because most of the youth as a consumer demands more for less, thus saving time, money and energy. In this paper, we try to study private banking e-strategies and how they affect the consumers’ perceived trust. It is a descriptive research study based on the extant literature. We explore and arrive at an urgent need for developing an extended Technological Acceptance Model. This paper attempts to study and explore the Consumer awareness towards accepting a new technology following Davis et al (1989) TAM model based on the extant literature research study. This research aspires to better understand the consumers by examining their awareness in a utilitarian and hedonic service context in order to provide valuable knowledge of consumers’ awareness of various service aspects and to suggest guidelines for practical implementation. However, previous researches on electronic banking have not fully and thoroughly addressed the characteristics and awareness of electronic banking users.

The Impact of Servicescape on Customer Experience Quality through Employee-to-customer Interaction Quality and Peer-to-peer Interaction Quality in Hedonic Service Settings

This paper investigates how servicescape perception influences customer experience quality in hedonic service settings. In addition to the direct effect of servicescape quality on customer experience quality, the indirect effects of servicescape quality on customer experience quality via employee-to-customer interaction quality and peer-to-peer interaction quality are also investigated. We collected data through a self-administered survey. The proposed relationships were tested using structural equation modeling. The results show that servicescape quality influences customer experience quality both directly and indirectly through employee-to-customer interaction quality and peer-to-peer interaction quality, and customer experience quality influences customer loyalty. Additionally, we find that the indirect path via peer-to-peer interaction quality is significant only in a low-satisfaction customer group. The indirect effect of servicescape quality perception through peer-to-peer interaction quality is significant only in low-satisfaction customer groups. Therefore, if evaluations for this indirect effect fall below an acceptable level, it should be addressed first before improving on other attributes. However, after this point, further improvements offer few if any gains; therefore, service firms should allocate their resources to quality improvements to other factors. This study is the first to investigate the indirect effects of servicescape quality on customer experience quality via peer-to-peer interaction quality in hedonic service settings. Additionally, this study demonstrates that the significance of this indirect effect applies only to a low-satisfaction customer group.

The Impact of Servicescape on Customer Experience Quality through Employee-to-customer Interaction Quality and Peer-to-peer Interaction Quality in Hedonic Service Settings

This paper investigates how servicescape perception influences customer experience quality in hedonic service settings. In addition to the direct effect of servicescape quality on customer experience quality, the indirect effects of servicescape quality on customer experience quality via employee-to-customer interaction quality and peer-to-peer interaction quality are also investigated. We collected data through a self-administered survey. The proposed relationships were tested using structural equation modeling. The results show that servicescape quality influences customer experience quality both directly and indirectly through employee-to-customer interaction quality and peer-to-peer interaction quality, and customer experience quality influences customer loyalty. Additionally, we find that the indirect path via peer-to-peer interaction quality is significant only in a low-satisfaction customer group. The indirect effect of servicescape quality perception through peer-to-peer interaction quality is significant only in low-satisfaction customer groups. Therefore, if evaluations for this indirect effect fall below an acceptable level, it should be addressed first before improving on other attributes. However, after this point, further improvements offer few if any gains; therefore, service firms should allocate their resources to quality improvements to other factors. This study is the first to investigate the indirect effects of servicescape quality on customer experience quality via peer-to-peer interaction quality in hedonic service settings. Additionally, this study demonstrates that the significance of this indirect effect applies only to a low-satisfaction customer group.

Linking Travel Motivation and Loyalty in Sporting Events: The Mediating Roles of Event Involvement and Experience, and the Moderating Role of Spectator Type

ABSTRACTSporting events are an important kind of travel attraction and hedonic service offering. This study examines the effects of travel motives and purpose on event loyalty through the mediating roles of event involvement and experience as well as the moderating role of spectator type. Based on a sample of event tourists at a major sporting event, the findings show a full mediation of event involvement and a partial mediation of event experience. Yet, the mediating effect of event involvement is moderated by spectator type in that the travel motives effect is significant for on-site paid and off-site spectators, but not for on-site complimentary spectators. In addition, the relationship between travel purpose and event involvement is more salient for on-site paid and off-site spectators than for complimentary spectators. This article concludes with a discussion of the implications of the findings for theory and practice, the study’s limitations, and future directions of research.

중국 스마트폰 서비스의 지속적 사용의도에 관한 실증연구

With the active smartphones user exceeding 500 million by the end of 2014, China has now become the largest smartphone market in the world. Smartphone companies provide variety of information through a range of applications, such as communications, entertainment, games, and so on. There were many studies conducted about the user acceptance and continuous intention of mobile service. However, it is still not quite clear what factors attract people to reuse smartphone in China. This paper examines the continuous intention of smartphone about Chinese customers. This study incorporates perceived enjoyment as a additional construct into a extended TAM model, by integrating a hedonic service of smartphone. We propose a research model that reflects the individual characteristics and usage contexts of smartphone, such as innovativeness, social influence, and service quality, and analyze the structural relationship between the main variables through empirical study. This study empirically investigated a research model and conducted a survey of smartphone service users in China. Our study proved that perceived enjoyment has a positive influence on continuous intention to use smartphone services. This paper provides the managers an insight that smartphone companies should take more consideration on how to provide more enjoyable service and attract customers to reuse their services.

Enlightened hedonism: Exploring the relationship of service value, visitor knowledge and interest, to visitor enjoyment at heritage attractions

Service provision at heritage attractions is evolving at a rapid pace, transforming management directed initiatives into more creative, visitor inspired relationships. These connect the historic and natural environmental fabric of the properties visited, directly to the enhancement of the visitor's hedonistic aims and behavioural dispositions. Heritage attractions have traditionally been polarised between those, whose main aim is to entertain and others, where conservation and issues of authenticity are pre-eminent. The findings described in this paper should encourage managers of heritage attractions to recognise that entertainment and conservation priorities are not exclusive alternatives but are complementary and can be reconciled with the active involvement of the visitor, creating their own servicefacilitated experience.This paper reports the findings from a survey of over 184 heritage attractions in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and a sample population of 109,000 respondents. The critical dimensions of heritage knowledge and interest and the evaluations of service and behaviour are measured. The study developed and tested a structural equation model which was validated and reliably predicted levels of enjoyment and behaviour from two latent constructs, anthropogenic service value and hedonic service value.

Cosmetic surgery intent in emerging economies - evidence from India

The objective of this paper is to study the drivers of cosmetic surgery intention in an emerging economy. Influence of closed ones and body image satisfaction impacts cosmetic surgery intent in an individual. Magazine is found to be the preferred medium to advertise about cosmetic surgery. Findings reflect the collectivist nature of these societies that looks for significant others in the usage of a hedonic service. Also, people of emerging economies are increasingly conscious of their appearance and are interested in rectifying it, if they want to change.

Investigating the moderating role of sport service type and personality on audiences' emotional responses to hedonic vs. cognitive advertisements

Although advertising theorists have suggested that for maximum effectiveness the type of message appeal needs to match the type of service offered (i.e., a rational advertisement message appeal is more effective for a utilitarian service; an emotional advertisement message approach is suitable for a hedonic service), empirical inquiry in the area of advertising for services has produced contradictory evidence. After considering the limitations of previous research, this study utilized a series of mixed experimental designs to examine the moderating role of the type of sport service and personality trait (i.e., sensation seeking) on the relationship between the type of advertisement message and the consumers' emotional responses. The mixed measures ANCOVA results revealed that sensation seeking fails to show a moderating effect between the type of message appeal and participants' emotional responses. However, sport service type moderates the effect of the advertising message on the participants' emotional responses, indicating that the proper usage of advertising message strategies might improve the effectiveness of advertising for the service segment of the sport industry.

Physical and social atmospheric effects in hedonic service consumption: customers' roles at sporting events

This study examines the comparative effects of physical and social atmospherics in a hedonic service context. This article focuses on other customers as the social factors in the service environment and distinguishes three dimensions: density, appearance, and behaviour. The main purpose of this article is to highlight the relevance of other customers as the atmospheric factors of the servicescape. The findings of our empirical study suggest that in addition to the perceived physical properties, favourable perceptions of other customers – particularly, their behavioural patterns – exert a strong positive influence on favourable overall affective responses. These responses, in turn, have a positive impact on customers' on-site spending and positive word-of-mouth behaviours.

Service convenience and social servicescape: retail vs hedonic setting

PurposeWhile there have been numerous studies on the antecedents and consequences of service quality, there has been little investigation of the moderators of service quality. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate the effects of two moderators: service convenience and the social servicescape. The moderating effects are tested in two service settings: retail and hedonic (concert).Design/methodology/approachA survey of 270 customers at kitchen display showrooms and 320 concert‐goers was undertaken. The results were analysed using regression analysis.FindingsThe results show support for ten of the 12 hypotheses. Service convenience moderated the relationships between perceived service quality and its three sub‐dimensions (interaction, environment, and outcome quality), differently in different settings (retail vs hedonic). This supports the authors' general argument that the outcome dimension tends to be more important to customers in a retail setting, while interaction and environment quality dimensions tend to be more important in hedonic service consumption.Practical implicationsThese findings suggest that managers need to use different service management tactics in retail and hedonic service settings. Specifically managers in retail settings need to pay more attention to service convenience to achieve service quality and managers in hedonic settings should concentrate on the social servicescape.Originality/valueThis paper is the first to test the moderating factors of service convenience and social servicescape on service quality.

Exploring customer equity and the role of service experience in the casino service encounter

This article adopts the customer equity framework to study how service experience shapes customer satisfaction and loyalty in the casino service encounter. This study reconceptualizes customer equity by postulating service experience equity to supersede value equity. An empirical model is developed to examine the direct and indirect roles of service experience equity, relationship equity, brand equity, and customer satisfaction on loyalty outcomes. The results suggest that service experience is driven by four first-order factors: the service environment, employee service, service convenience, and hedonic service. In addition, the findings suggest that customer satisfaction and brand equity mediate the relationship between service experience and relationship equities and loyalty outcomes. This article ends with a discussion of the implications and future research directions.

Creating Loyalty in Collective Hedonic Services: The Role of Satisfaction and Psychological Sense of Community

Generally, researchers consider that customer satisfaction is the core driver of loyalty. However, in the case of collective hedonic services, feelings of connectedness among service users might also play an important role in forming brand loyalty. A study among visitors of a music festival actually shows that a feeling of community has a greater impact on loyalty intentions than does overall satisfaction. Thus, satisfying customers is not always the key route to value creation. Sometimes customer interaction more effectively enhances what Prahalad (2004) calls the “co-creation of experience”.