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The purpose of this paper is to develop and apply the sequential incident laddering technique as a novel approach for measuring customer service experiences. The proposed approach aims to correspond with the concept's theoretical foundation in the extant literature.

The paper applies the sequential incident laddering technique to measure customer service experiences. The technique integrates two well‐established methods in service marketing: sequential incident and laddering techniques. The data collected from 41 customers in a hotel and restaurant experience context illustrate that the method corresponds with the key themes of the proposed experience concept and experience formation process.

Applying the proposed technique reveals first, the customer's cognitive and emotional responses to company stimuli. Second, the salient customer cognitions and emotions across several episodes of the service interaction process are identified. Third, the personal values which drive the customer's service experience are disclosed.

The empirical study is a first illustration of the proposed measurement approach in only one company based on a limited sample size. The methodological contributions and development opportunities for further applications are set out for different contexts and in combination with other methods.

The proposed method integrates customer and company‐related constructs. Therefore, the data collected can provide managers with guidelines for customer service experience design based on detailed customer feedback.

The paper proposes an innovative measurement approach to customer service experiences which can support knowledge development in an important marketing area.

Due to interactive fluctuations during service encounters, fuzzy requests frequently occur from either frontline employees or customers. While such requests from customers have been drawn wide attention, there exists a lack of research on frontline employees’ fuzzy requests and possible outcomes (e.g. compliance or refusal). The purpose of this study is thus to identify the underlying mechanism and enacting variables that influence customers’ compliance behaviour (i.e. positive outcome) to fuzzy requests.

Data were collected from a sample of ten express service companies in southeast China. The proposed model was empirically tested among 309 customers and further analysed through structural equation modelling.

The results indicated that expected technical quality, perceived reasonableness and perceived convenience are positively associated with compliance behaviour, whereas the effects of inertia and negative emotional response on compliance behaviour are significantly negative. The findings also demonstrated that negative emotional response partially mediates the impacts of expected technical quality, perceived reasonableness and inertia on compliance behaviour.

This study investigates an under-researched phenomenon, namely, frontline employees’ fuzzy requests in the service context. The underlying mechanism of customers’ compliance behaviours to fuzzy requests is articulated through an integration of three beliefs with emotional response. As an early exploration of employees’ fuzzy requests, this study provides important theoretical and managerial implications.

In retail settings, customer satisfaction is generally associated with a global evaluation of the store, i.e. the store image. Waiting for service is not part of the store image dimensions, but it does play an increasingly important role in the retail experience where waits are often inevitable. The present study seeeks to investigate how waiting for service at the checkout counter influences overall satisfaction, along with the store image.

The study combines services marketing and waiting literature. Data were collected in various supermarkets in The Netherlands. A partial least squares regression technique is used to analyze the data.

The paper demonstrates an important and complementary role of the behavioural construct “negative response to the wait” in explaining overall customer satisfaction in a retail environment. The effect of customers' negative emotional response to the wait on satisfaction is partially mediated by store image, and explained variance in the dependent variable increases by 24 percent when the effect of the wait at the checkout is included.

Measuring customer satisfaction without taking into account the effects of various waits during the retail experience will produce incomplete results.

Moreover, a range of controllable factors influences the customer's wait. Intelligently managing these factors can mitigate negative effects on customer satisfaction, or even increase the overall evaluation of the service. Specific recommendations for service managers and a research agenda are provided.

The study combines service marketing and waiting literature to address the issue of waiting in line and tests the theory with real‐world data from a field study.

This study aims to, first, identify how service perception can differ depending on the customers’ cultural background during intercultural encounters and, second, provide useful and specific directions of more culturally competent service interaction to restaurant managers and servers in US restaurants. Effective exchanges between service providers and international customers are important to ensure the success of restaurants. While frequently and explicitly checking in on customers is common in the USA, this may not be preferable to people from different cultures.

Study 1 (n = 975) utilized a survey, and Study 2 (n = 145) used an experimental design to, first, examine cultural differences between American and Japanese participants in their preferences about restaurant servers’ check-back style and, second, examined the moderating effect of culture (i.e. American and Japanese culture) on the relationship between the servers’ check-back behavior and the evaluations of service effectiveness, emotional response and the intention to return to a restaurant.

The results showed that the frequency of a server’s visits had a positive effect on evaluations of service effectiveness, emotional response and intent to revisit for the Americans, but not for the Japanese.

This research has practical implications for restaurant managers and servers who are expected to interact with international customers. They can apply the findings of this research to examine culturally appropriate check-back styles, which are an important attribute of effectiveness in intercultural service encounters in US restaurants.

The current study indicates that providing standardized service to all customers, regardless of cultural differences, might not be ideal.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of customer perceptions of service quality on electronic word of mouth (eWOM) and switching intentions through cognitive and emotional responses.

The authors have developed a theoretical framework based on behavioural theories to analyse the environmental aspects of relationships that affect customer behavioural intentions. The authors adapted a quantitative methodology along with the positivist philosophical approach to investigate the hypotheses within the theoretical framework. The authors applied a protracted stimuli-organism-response model to highlight the peripheral reliability, responsiveness, tangibility, empathy, assurance, and the impact of the customer’s feelings while simultaneously linking the elements to each other. In addition, the authors applied the theory of reasoned action to reflect the marginal elements of subjective norms, attitude, and customers’ behavioural intentions. A survey with 601 responses has been used in this study.

In the setting of KSA’s mobile telecom industry, the authors confirm that there is a positive effect of customer perceptions of service quality on their eWOM and switching intentions through their cognitive and emotional responses.

The framework of this study enhances our understanding of the role of service quality as an environmental influence on an individual’s intentions to switch and eWOM. This conceptual framework is essential in evaluating the mediating roles of attitude and emotions in relation to eWOM and intention to switch.

The customer retail experience is frequently interrupted by disturbances such as ringing phones and other people. Employees must be able to respond to retail disturbances effectively to ensure that customers have a satisfactory experience in the retailer. Using Affective Events Theory as a framework, the purpose of this paper is to develop and test a model for understanding how retail disturbances affect customers outcomes and how retail employee response mitigates the negative impact of retail disturbances.

The model was tested using a pre-study of retail managers and consumers, a survey study and four experimental studies.

Retail disturbances reduce interactional justice and customer positive emotions. Customers pay attention to how employees address retail disturbances, even when they are not directly involved.

The research experiments focus on sound-based disturbances. Other stimuli (e.g. olfactory or visual) should be examined in more detail.

Employees can mitigate the negative effects of retail disturbances on customers with a positive response to the disturbance and to customers. Employee responses influence customers currently receiving service and nearby shoppers.

The findings demonstrate the deleterious effect of solicitation calls on small retailers and provide recommendations for reducing solicitation calls.

This research shows that retail disturbances reduce customer outcomes, employee response becomes part of the disturbance event, and that it is possible for employees to address a group of nearby customers indirectly through unintentional observation.

Various digital banking platforms (website and apps) are offered to bank customers in order to create an experiential service, which is essential in retaining customers and generating brand bank loyalty. The current study aims to examine the dynamics of customer emotional experience generated during digital banking service delivery and investigate the effect of customer psychological engagement with various digital platform types on brand bank loyalty creation.

A conceptual framework was constructed. Data were collected from digital banking customers through a web-based survey conducted via an online Internet panel. It involved 502 participants. The study employs a path analysis method using structural equation modeling.

The empirical results suggest that there are two paths from emotional attachment to bank loyalty: a direct path and an indirect path shaped by customer psychological engagement with service platforms. Additionally, it was found that the digital platform (website vs apps) used by the customer determined the magnitude of the impact of emotional attachment to the bank on psychological engagement with service platforms.

This research claims that features of digital banking services are sufficient to enhance affective brand responses and maintain long-lasting relationships with customers. Using experiential services and psychologically engaging the customers, this goal can be achieved. Additionally, well designed apps can improve interaction with services and subsequently enhance loyalty.

This study facilitates a better understanding of the customer's emotional–psychological state during engagement with digital service delivery. Its novelty and contribution to the literature focus on the notion that the impact of emotional attachment on bank loyalty is mediated by experiential psychological engagement with the digital platform and moderated by the type of digital platform used.

Customers often experience negative emotions during service experiences. The ways that employees manage customers’ emotions and impressions about whether the service provider is concerned for them in such emotionally charged service encounters (ECSEs) is crucial, considering the criticality of the encounter. Drawing on cognitive appraisal theory, this study proposes that two key competencies – employee emotional competence (EEC) and employee technical competence (ETC) – affect negative customer emotions and customer satisfaction with employee response in ECSEs.

This study relies on a video-based experiment that depicts a customer involved in an ECSE as a service provider delivers bad news to him. The hypothesis tests use a two-way independent analysis of covariance.

Both emotional and technical competencies must be displayed to improve the customer experience in an ECSE. When EEC is low, ETC does not decrease negative customer emotions or increase customer satisfaction with employee response. When EEC is high, ETC instead has a significant impact on both customer outcomes.

Managers must train employees to develop both technical and emotional competencies. Employees who demonstrate only one type cannot temper customers’ emotions or enhance their perceptions of the employees’ response as well as can those strong in both competencies.

Using a video-based experiment, this study examines the moderating role of EEC in the relationship between ETC and two key aspects of the customers’ experience in an ECSE (negative customer emotions and customer satisfaction with employee responses) following the delivery of bad news.

The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to determine the role of emotions in customer evaluation of service failures; and second, to examine how customers’ emotion regulation impacts customer satisfaction and behavioural responses (e.g. repurchase intentions and negative word-of-mouth).

A scenario-based survey was used to elicit responses in a hospitality setting. Structural equation modelling and hierarchical regression analysis were used to test the proposed hypotheses.

Results show that both positive and negative emotions mediate the relationship between perceived injustice and customer satisfaction. The emotion regulation of customers through suppression and reappraisal influences the effects of satisfaction on both negative word-of-mouth and repurchase intentions.

This study advances service managers’ understanding of customer experience during service failure by demonstrating how emotion regulation influences customer response behaviours. With a better understanding of customers’ emotion regulation strategies, managers and frontline employees can more effectively develop and execute recovery strategies which adapt to customer emotions while eliciting more satisfying outcomes.

This research is one of the first to examine the moderating role of customers’ emotion regulation strategies in determining their behavioural responses. Conducted in the hospitality services context, this study provides support for relationships among perceived injustice, customer emotions, emotion regulation, customer satisfaction, negative word-of-mouth and repurchase intentions.

Emotional responses to complaint experiences have received limited research interest. The current paper seeks to address this gap by considering the role of perceived justice in the elicitation of differential emotions following complaint‐handling experiences.

Service scenario scripts were devised to depict a complaint‐handling encounter in relation to holiday check‐in arrangements. The scripts, which varied in terms of levels of interactional, procedural and distributive justice, were presented to a total of 384 respondents. Respondents were asked to imagine themselves as the person in the scenario and to indicate the extent to which different emotional adjectives described their reaction to the complaint‐handling encounter.

Analyses of variance (ANOVA) revealed that perceived justice evaluations were predictive of the type of emotion (i.e. positive or negative) elicited.

Existing theoretical frameworks focus primarily on cognitive evaluations of perceived justice associated with the complaint‐handling encounter; the findings of the current study suggest that a cognitive appraisal of perceived justice may also elicit an emotional response, which in turn is expected to impact on satisfaction with complaint handling.

With a better understanding of the nature and causes of the emotions experienced by customers during service recovery, it should be possible to implement and manage recovery systems that are designed to elicit strongly positive evaluative judgements from consumers.

Demonstrates that different degrees of justice during service recovery will impact on consumers' emotional states.