Search results

This paper aims to contribute critical discussion about the role of expectations and anticipation in subsequent satisfaction by incorporating anticipated emotions into a model to measure satisfaction. Emotions have provided a foundation for many causative models in marketing, notably advertising, brand development and buyer behavior. However, models of customer satisfaction have been dominated by cognition rather than affect which has been under-researched in this context. Furthermore, a significant omission in the current literature is the impact of affective expectations.

A series of hypotheses relating anticipated and experienced emotions to satisfaction and behavioral intention are tested in the context of a relatively high involvement, hedonistic service encounter in a longitudinal quantitative study involving 304 participants.

The results indicate that the emotions expressed by respondents when thinking about the forthcoming event were significantly associated with post-experience emotions. Furthermore, it was observed that positive emotions had no effect on satisfaction, but there was a significant effect of negative emotions on (dis)satisfaction.

The results indicate a complex relationship between emotions, satisfaction and behavioral intention. Implications for management during the pre-consumption phase are discussed, including the benefits to be gained from pre-consumption communication that seeks to engage with consumers by arousing an anticipatory affect.

The paper makes a methodological contribution by using longitudinal data rather than retrospectively collected data of emotions, and uses an actual service encounter rather than a hypothetical scenario which has limited many previous studies of emotions.

The development of effective customer relationships is increasingly recognised as an important component of marketing strategies, particularly in the case of service industries. Developing and maintaining satisfactory customer relationships can help to reduce perceived risk, reduce transactions costs, increase customer loyalty and customer retention and thus impact on organisational performance. From the customer’s perspective, the determinants of relationship satisfaction are thought to include factors such as customer orientation, trust, length of relationship, expertise and ethics. Provides further evidence on the cognitive antecedents of relationship satisfaction based on evidence from the financial services sector.

Brands scintillate on the twin pillars of external brand communication and staff commitment to the envisioned customer experience (CE). However, until very recently the contribution of staff to internal brand building has not received the importance it deserves. With customers becoming more knowledgeable and moving towards a holistic experience rather than buying “products”, the quality of customer interaction (CI) is becoming the deciding factor in brand creation and CE. From this on‐going research based on the emerging services dominant logic popularised by Vargo and Lusch, this paper aims to explore a model to measure the awareness, understanding and commitment of staff to the vision of the service‐oriented brand.

Answers to a Likert questionnaire with six question sets will give researchers an insight into the awareness, understanding and commitment of staff to the brand vision. At a later stage researchers will use the above data to calculate the internal brand proprietor‐like quality rating of the organization based on the percentage of employees at high/low internal brand proprietor levels. Findings will assist in understanding and improving quality of CI and brand image.

Successful brand builders identify and spend aggressively on interactions that will have the most impact on revenue growth and profitability and ensure that the touch points that matter are synchronized to successfully convey the brand's promise (Hogan).

Limitations of this research are sample constraints and test persons being highly involved in the research. More accurate results could be obtained if future research is carried out on a sector‐wise basis.

The paper explores a model to measure the awareness, understanding and commitment of staff to the vision of the service‐oriented brand.

Analyses the variety of loyalty programmes that exist within the UK corporate hotel sector. A literature review leads to the proposition that in order to be cost‐effective in stimulating repeat business, loyalty programmes should reflect the business environment in which they operate. Loyalty programmes vary in the extent to which they collect, analyse and use customer information. A conceptual framework is developed in which information management and customisation are related to each other. This proposition supports the argument that there is no single formula for the development of a successful loyalty programme within the hotel sector. Although questions are raised about how the effectiveness of a loyalty programme can be measured, the proposition that market characteristics, information intensity and level of customisation can influence the effectiveness of a loyalty programme, is accepted.

There has been considerable analysis of buyer‐seller relationship development within the services sector. While a lot of attention has been given to the processes by which relationships are developed, the subject of relationship deterioration is less well researched. Examines the impacts of service failure on the quality of relationships between airlines and their customers who have suffered service failure. In particular, the effects on customers’ trust and commitment to the relationship are studied, the latter being assessed in terms of their willingness to recommend the airline they use to others. Reports on a study of airline customers in the south‐eastern USA which suggests that the impact of a given level of service failure is dependent on the duration to date of a customer’s relationship with the airline they use. However, a non‐linear correlation was found, suggesting that customers experience stages of being initially open‐minded about service failure, followed by lower tolerance of failure, which gradually gives way to a closer relationship which is more resistant to service failure

Co‐operation is crucial to the successful marketing of tourism destinations, and electronic commerce offers exciting new opportunities for co‐operation among tourism suppliers. This article examines the reciprocal linking of Websites to create “virtual” tourism destination organisations, whereby consumers can access information and purchase multiple components of a holiday online. A very simple starting point in the formation of a virtual destination marketing organisation is the linking of individual suppliers’ Websites, so that a visitor arriving at one site can click through to complementary sites which contribute to the total destination offer. This paper examines the theoretical and practical benefits of virtual co‐operation and reports on a survey, which examines the extent to which electronic commerce is superseding or complementing traditional hierarchical marketing organisations. Based on a sample of tourism suppliers’ Websites in Northern Ireland, very little co‐operation was observed. The reasons for this are discussed and recommendations made for future co‐operation.