Search results

1 – 10 of over 8000
Article
Publication date: 1 February 2002

Josée Bloemer, Tom Brijs, Gilbert Swinnen and Koen Vanhoof

Customer satisfaction continues to be an important topic in the financial services industry. However, there is an increasing awareness that customer satisfaction as such is not…

2791

Abstract

Customer satisfaction continues to be an important topic in the financial services industry. However, there is an increasing awareness that customer satisfaction as such is not enough. Distinguishes between overall satisfied customers and latently dissatisfied customers; the latter being those customers who, although reporting satisfaction in a survey, have other characteristics (i.e. satisfaction with specific service items and/or socio‐demographic characteristics) that resemble dissatisfied customers. The identification of these latently dissatisfied customers may function as an early warning signal. Indeed, their probability to defect is relatively high and can be compared to that of dissatisfied customers. Proposes a data mining technique called “characteristic rules” to identify latently dissatisfied customers of a Belgian bank. Appropriate marketing actions (dissatisfaction management) may help to avoid these customers leaving. Therefore, the objective of this study is to provide scholars and business managers with theoretical, methodological and managerial insights into identifying latently dissatisfied customers.

Details

International Journal of Bank Marketing, vol. 20 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0265-2323

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 22 May 2007

Lesley White and Venkata Yanamandram

The purpose of this paper is to present a theoretical framework of the factors that potentially influence dissatisfied customers to continue purchasing from their existing service…

10419

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to present a theoretical framework of the factors that potentially influence dissatisfied customers to continue purchasing from their existing service provider in the business‐to‐business (B2B) services sector.

Design/methodology/approach

This review paper synthesises the findings from previous studies on switching barriers, and relationship variables, dependence, and calculative commitment.

Findings

Five major factors deter customers from switching to an alternative service provider: switching costs; interpersonal relationships; the attractiveness of alternatives; service recovery; and inertia. These factors are mediated by dependence and calculative commitment.

Originality/value

This is the first comprehensive study of the factors that potentially influence dissatisfied customers to remain behaviourally loyal to a service provider in the B2B services sector. This important study has significance for marketers in developing strategies for customer retention and service recovery.

Details

Managing Service Quality: An International Journal, vol. 17 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0960-4529

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 October 1995

Jeffrey G. Blodgett, Kirk L. Wakefield and James H. Barnes

Presents a dynamic model of the consumer complaining behaviorprocess. Is unique in that it distinguishes between negativeword‐of‐mouth that occurs prior to seeking redress (or in…

17415

Abstract

Presents a dynamic model of the consumer complaining behavior process. Is unique in that it distinguishes between negative word‐of‐mouth that occurs prior to seeking redress (or in lieu of seeking redress) and negative word‐of‐mouth that occurs after seeking redress. Another unique aspect of this study is that it specifically recognizes positive word‐of‐mouth as a possible post‐complaint response. The results indicate that the major factor that determines why some dissatisfied consumers seek redress and give the seller a chance to remedy the problem, while others exit and engage in negative word‐of‐mouth behavior, is the perceived likelihood of success. Results also show that, once a dissatisfied customer seeks redress, that person expects to receive a fair settlement but, more importantly, to be treated with courtesy and respect. Based on these results, discusses the pervasive effects of customer service on consumer complaining behavior, and offers managerial recommendations.

Details

Journal of Services Marketing, vol. 9 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0887-6045

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 17 April 2018

Ki Hyun Um and Antonio K.W. Lau

Few scholars have so far explored how healthcare service quality affects patient dissatisfaction, leading to negative behavior responses when a healthcare service fails. The…

2694

Abstract

Purpose

Few scholars have so far explored how healthcare service quality affects patient dissatisfaction, leading to negative behavior responses when a healthcare service fails. The purpose of this paper is to examine how different service quality attributes affect patient dissatisfaction leading to a variety of asymmetric negative behavior responses.

Design/methodology/approach

Following a survey of 453 dissatisfied outpatients in Korea, structural equation modeling with a series of post hoc analyses is used to test the research model. It consists of five hypotheses.

Findings

Outcome quality is found to be the most significant variable affecting patient dissatisfaction, followed by administrative quality, interactive quality, and environmental quality. Dissatisfied patients tend to engage more in active behaviors (e.g. negative word-of-mouth, switching, and complaining) than in remaining passive in a non-linear way. Also, the mediating role of dissatisfaction is found to be significant.

Research limitations/implications

This paper has empirically identified the most significant service quality attributes that lead to dissatisfied patients and negative behaviors on their part. These findings indicate that different quality attributes of service failure lead to different actions. However, this study has suffered from a few limitations as a result of its research context and scope.

Originality/value

This paper is one of the very few empirical studies examining the relationships among the output and process quality attributes, patient dissatisfaction, and actual behaviors in a healthcare service failure context.

Details

International Journal of Operations & Production Management, vol. 38 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-3577

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 March 2006

Venkata Yanamandram and Lesley White

To investigate the determinants of behavioural brand loyalty amongst dissatisfied customers in the business‐to‐business (B2B) services sector.

7205

Abstract

Purpose

To investigate the determinants of behavioural brand loyalty amongst dissatisfied customers in the business‐to‐business (B2B) services sector.

Design/methodology/approach

A qualitative study was conducted, with 28 personal interviews undertaken with managers who are involved in the choice of service providers. The respondents belonged to 24 organisations located in Australia. Template analysis and eyeballing were techniques used to analyse the data collected.

Findings

Assessment of the reasons why dissatisfied customers stayed with the service providers resulted in six categories. The categories were found to be, in order of decreasing frequency, impact of alternative providers, switching costs (18), others (17), inertia (14), investment in relationships (13), and service recovery (13). The results not only confirmed factors found in the literature, but also uncovered 11 other factors.

Research limitations/implications

The sample size, whilst appropriate for qualitative research, should be considered adequate only for exploratory analysis and a further quantitative study is needed to validate the study.

Practical implications

This study is important for those firms who have many prospective switchers because it is important to understand why these customers stay, and to what extent such firms can discourage such customers from leaving in both positive and negative ways. For those service firms that are attempting to attract these prospective switchers, an understanding of why they do not switch is important, as it will enable them to develop strategies to overcome these switching barriers and gain market share.

Originality/value

This research is the first study to investigate in a single model a range of barriers to switching in a B2B services context. The results that confirmed categories found in the literature also discovered 11 other factors not evident in the extant literature.

Details

International Journal of Service Industry Management, vol. 17 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0956-4233

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 February 2006

Ah‐Keng Kau and Elizabeth Wan‐Yiun Loh

The primary objective of this study is to investigate the effects of service recovery on customer satisfaction. Specifically, it examines the perception of “justice” in service…

13528

Abstract

Purpose

The primary objective of this study is to investigate the effects of service recovery on customer satisfaction. Specifically, it examines the perception of “justice” in service recovery and how it affects the level of satisfaction and behavioral outcomes. In addition, the study also explores whether the “recovery paradox” exists.

Design/methodology/approach

Data were collected through a survey using a structured questionnaire. The 428 respondents were analyzed according to whether they did or did not make a complaint to the service providers.

Findings

The findings showed that the complainants' level of satisfaction with service recovery was significantly affected by perceived justice. The behavioral outcomes of the complainants in terms of trust, word‐of‐mouth (WOM) and loyalty were also found to be affected by their satisfaction with the service recovery. T‐tests confirmed that the levels of trust, WOM and loyalty were significantly higher for those respondents who were satisfied with the service recovery compared with those who were dissatisfied. Further t‐tests also indicated that respondents who were initially satisfied with the service expressed greater trust and positive WOM compared with the satisfied complainants. Finally, the study showed that dissatisfied complainants would exhibit a lower level of trust and were more likely to engage in negative word‐of‐mouth behavior compared with those who were dissatisfied initially but chose not to complain.

Practical implications

The findings in this paper confirmed the importance of perceived justice in service recovery. Satisfaction with service recovery also leads to a higher level of trust, positive word‐of‐mouth behavior and, to a lesser extent, the level of loyalty. Finally, the lack of support of the “recovery paradox” effect suggests that successful service recovery alone would not bring customer satisfaction to pre‐service failure levels. It is therefore essential to provide service right at the first time.

Originality/value

This is a new study on the service provided by mobile phone service providers in an Asian environment. It also reinforces the important of perceive justice in service recovery and debunks the existence of the “recovery paradox” effect.

Details

Journal of Services Marketing, vol. 20 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0887-6045

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 5 March 2021

Vinay Chittiprolu, Nagaraj Samala and Raja Shekhar Bellamkonda

In business, online reviews have an economic impact on firm performance. Customers’ data in the form of online reviews was used to understand the appreciation and service…

2207

Abstract

Purpose

In business, online reviews have an economic impact on firm performance. Customers’ data in the form of online reviews was used to understand the appreciation and service complaints written by previous customers. The study is an analysis of the online reviews written by the customers about Indian heritage hotels. This study aims to understand the dimensions of service appreciation and service complaints by comparing positive- and negative-rated reviews and find the patterns in the determinants of the satisfaction and dissatisfaction of the customers.

Design/methodology/approach

A total of 23,643 online reviews about heritage hotels were collected from the TripAdvisor website by using a Web crawler developed in Python. A total of 1000 reviews were randomly selected for further analysis to eliminate the bandwagon effect. Unsupervised text mining techniques were used to analyze reviews and find out the interesting patterns in text data.

Findings

Based on Herzberg two-factor theory, this study found satisfied and dissatisfied determinants separately. The study revealed some common categories discussed by satisfied and dissatisfied customers. The factors which satisfy the customers may also dissatisfy the customers if not delivered properly. Satisfied customers mentioned about tangible features of the hotel stay, which includes physical signifiers, traditional services, staff behavior and professionalism and core products (rooms, food). However, most of the customers complained about intangible service problems, such as staff attitude, services failure, issues with reservation and food, value for money and room condition. The results are contradicting with commercial hotels-based studies owing to the unique services provided by heritage hotels.

Practical implications

The dimensions for satisfaction and dissatisfaction among customer of heritage hotels provide marketers to understand the real emotion and perception of the customers. As these dimensions were extracted through text mining of the reviews written by the customer of heritage hotels, the results would certainly give better insights to the hotel marketers.

Originality/value

The study is a rare attempt to study online reviews of customers on heritage hotels through a text mining approach and find the patterns in the behavior and the determinants of satisfaction and dissatisfaction of customers.

Details

International Journal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research, vol. 15 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1750-6182

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 16 February 2023

Sarat Kumar Jena

The purpose of this study is to provide a unique competitive advantage to businesses in providing a wide range of products to prospective customers. To the best of the author’s…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to provide a unique competitive advantage to businesses in providing a wide range of products to prospective customers. To the best of the author’s knowledge, there is no study to discuss the impact of customer-centric retailing on total supply chain profit under price competition between organized and unorganized retailers.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper considers a supply chain comprising of organized and unorganized retailers and a single manufacturer. This paper proposes three mathematical models considering a customer-centric approach in a competitive environment. Stackelberg game is used to examine how members of the chain interact, and Nash equilibrium was used to find optimal strategies for players under different customer-centric approaches.

Findings

The results show that the total supply chain profit is higher when both organized and unorganized retailers use a customer-centric approach independently instead of collaborating process. The result, in addition, establishes that when the dissatisfying cost exceeds a certain threshold (1.5), the total profit is higher for the organized customer-centric effort model compared to the other two models.

Originality/value

The main contribution of the study is to examine the effect of customer-centric retailing, considering dissatisfying costs on supply chains profit and individual decision-making under price competition between organized retailers and unorganized retailers. The authors developed different mathematical models in the different customer-centric approach.

Details

Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, vol. 38 no. 11
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0885-8624

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 May 2004

Ka‐shing Woo and Henry K.Y. Fock

The axiom that “the customer is always right” is no longer valid when companies realize that some of their customers are not right at all. Paying too much attention to these…

4970

Abstract

The axiom that “the customer is always right” is no longer valid when companies realize that some of their customers are not right at all. Paying too much attention to these so‐called “wrong” customers may jeopardize a company's survival and profitability. Right customers have to be retained, “at‐risk” right customers have to be recovered, and wrong customers have to be divested. This study attempts to operationalize the concept of customer “rightness” and “wrongness” in terms of different configurations of attribute satisfaction and overall satisfaction. Based on the result of a discriminant analysis of satisfaction survey data, customers with different configurations of attribute satisfaction and overall satisfaction are re‐examined in terms of switching intention, behavioral patterns and demographic characteristics in order to highlight any significant descriptor.

Details

Journal of Services Marketing, vol. 18 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0887-6045

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 19 October 2015

Philippe Duverger

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how negatively worded innovative ideas can be rejected during a crowdsourcing event sponsored by a service firm via an online forum…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how negatively worded innovative ideas can be rejected during a crowdsourcing event sponsored by a service firm via an online forum. The goal of an ideation forum is to collect user-generated content in the form of ideas for new products or services. An ideation forum attempts to clarify the “fuzziness” on the front-end of new product development.

Design/methodology/approach

A 2 × 2 (satisfied/dissatisfied customers and negatively/positively worded ideas) experiment replicates the effect of mood-incongruent interactions within ideation forums and measures the likelihood for an idea to be buried or selected on the basis of its merit rather than its negative/positive wording.

Findings

The results demonstrate that mood-incongruent interactions have different effects on different groups of participating customers. Negatively worded innovative ideas are rated lower by satisfied customers, despite their superior merit.

Research limitations/implications

The nature of the experiment shows a high validity, but lacks in reliability. Thus, future research should attempt to replicate this experiment on a larger scale and across different industries.

Practical implications

In an open forum where thousands of customers can give a thumbs’ up or down to an idea, merit should prevail over mood-congruency. If the crowdsourcing mechanism cannot be trusted, it puts the burden back on the firm’s review team to promote or review any downgraded innovative idea, which ends up being counterproductive.

Originality/value

These findings shed light on the hidden aspect of crowdsourcing when the aim is to find unique, if not radical, ideas for services. Thus, hoteliers and other hospitality and tourism managers should use these findings to design better ideation forums.

Details

Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Technology, vol. 6 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1757-9880

Keywords

1 – 10 of over 8000