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The present research aims to summarize the literature on customer delight, identify trends and debates, create an instrument to measure delight and propose directions for future research.

A comprehensive review of the literature has been undertaken. Flowing from a variety of conceptual, qualitative and quantitative articles, operational measures have been identified, and an instrument to measure customer delight has been proposed.

Past research on customer delight identified various emotions that trigger delight, as well as human needs, traits and behaviors associated with delightful experiences, and features of the service experience commonly related to delight. On the basis of these findings, the researchers have developed an instrument to measure customer delight.

The proposed instrument enables managers to measure customer delight in various service settings. Measuring and attaining higher levels of customer delight can help generate greater loyalty as compared to customer satisfaction.

The authors unify the conceptualization and measurement of customer delight and create a new instrument to measure the construct. Similarities and debates in the past research are identified, and directions for the future of customer delight are presented. Future studies can further test and validate the presented instrument in various service industries.

The purpose of this paper is to uncover how emotions change (or remain constant) throughout the course of the vacation experience. Although the importance of affective experiences has been recognized in the literature, the momentary effects of each stage of the vacation on the overall appraisal of the experience deserve more attention.

A survey instrument was developed using the PANAS scale. Customers were asked for their emotions at different points of their vacation. Data were analysed using multinomial logistic regression, correlations and path analysis.

The results indicate that it is possible for guests to experience different affective states at different parts of the vacation experience. Furthermore, it is also likely for each service experience to impact the next service, in spite of the apparent distinction between them. Finally, the researchers noted the tendency of consumers to recall mostly positive emotions, thus raising the possibility of various kinds of memory biases in recalling a vacation experience.

Emotions are by their very nature momentary. Consequently, these affective states can change over time, especially over a vacation spanning several days. Therefore, the present research contributes to the literature, in that it measures emotions at various points in time, determines the impact of emotions towards one service provider on the next and ascertains the impact of said emotions on the overall vacation experience.

The present research sought to analyze the effects of customer delight on both internal and external financial structures of publicly traded, service firms.

Primary (i.e. survey) and secondary (i.e. financial records) data sources were gathered. A total of 685 participants responded to one questionnaire focusing on hotels and another one focused on restaurants, both of which measured levels of customer delight and satisfaction. Financial data were gathered from Center for Research in Security Prices, CRSP/COMPUSTAT.

Results of MANOVA revealed that there was a significant difference in the net profit margin (NPM) based on customer delight. Canonical correlation results exposed a significant correlation between satisfaction and delight combined and the financial performance measures (net profit margin, cash flow margin, return on assets and b-beta) combined.

By delighting their customers, managers will achieve higher profit margins. However, these are not likely to result in improved cash flow margin or return on assets. The effects of COVID-19 can alter yearly returns; thus, longitudinal research is needed to continue testing for the effects on delight on financial performance.

The relationship between delight and financial measures had not been previously determined (notwithstanding a few studies using substitute measures for financial performance). The present study uses actual data from the financial filings to empirically test their relationship to customer delight.

Adopting a socio-spatial approach, this study develops a consumer-centric conception of service experience customization. In contrast to existing service customization research, which has focused on company-centric approaches, the purpose of this paper is to examine the practices through which consumers use, abuse, subvert, transform, or complement organizational resources to construct their consumption experiences.

The empirical context for this study is a Meetup group: a consumer network organized around members’ shared interests and activities in theme parks. The research utilized participant observation of members’ face-to-face activities during two years and over 80 events, interviews with key informants, and content analysis of online interactions.

The findings outline how consumers interact across physical and virtual spaces utilizing technologies and material objects. The data are used to propose a new consumer-centric conceptualization of experience customization, distinguishing between three modes: collaborative co-production, cooperative co-creation, and subversive co-creation.

It is argued that the three modes of customization provide a way to understand how consumers mobilize and (re)deploy organizational resources to create experiences that may complement existing service propositions, but may also transform them in ways that challenge the service provider’s original goals and expectations. Furthermore, this study identifies the factors that shape which modes of customization are possible and how they are enacted. Specifically, the discussion examines how experiential complexity, governability, the compatibility of consumer and organizational practices, and the collective mobilization of resources may determine the scope and form of customization.

Despite multiple studies of customer delight in various service industries, limited research exists in the hedonically driven theme park context. The purpose of this paper is to explore the key drivers of customer delight and outrage in theme parks by analyzing TripAdvisor’s comments from visitors to the top 20 North American theme parks.

Following the analysis of thousands of extremely positive and negative comments using MAXQDA qualitative software, keywords drivers of delight and outrage were identified. The researchers applied both thematic and root cause in order to ascertain the sources leading to both positive and negative consumer feedback.

Delighted guests relayed various aspects of their experience including positive affect experience, positive value perceptions, and limited wait times. Root causes that influenced customer delight included: excellent core product, quality food and beverage, servicescape, pricing decisions, and low visitor demand or sensible admissions policies. Outraged guests described various aspects of their experiences such as negative perceptions of value, long waits, poor customer service, and negative emotions. Root causes for customer outrage included low quality or deficient core products, poor quality of food and beverage, poor facility maintenance, aggressive pricing decisions, poor staff selection, training, and working conditions, and high customer demand on any given date or aggressive admissions policies.

The present research is unique in that it exposes the key themes of customer delight and outrage in the theme park setting, presents a conceptual model, and analyzes its root causes.

Asynchronous video interviews (AVIs) enable recruiters and job candidates to conduct and review employment interviews at different points in time, promising improved cost and time efficiencies for all users. This research aims to investigate the implementation and normalization process of AVI in the hospitality industry with the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) and the normalization process theory (NPT) providing theoretical support.

Semi-structured interviews have been conducted with hiring managers from three different hospitality companies, which were in different stages of the implementation process. The data have been recorded, transcribed and coded according to the UTAUT and NPT constructs, revealing emergent themes.

Five overarching themes emerged: AVI effort and efficiency expectation; augmentation to the interview process; challenges for the applicant; challenges for the recruiter; and issues with applicant interviewing aesthetics. Additional coding and analysis with NPT identified the following in terms of evaluation of the implementation process: participants’ implementation activities showed a tendency to emanate from cognitive participation (relationship work), leading to coherence (sense-making work), followed by collective action (enactment of work/operational work) and finally reflexive monitoring (appraisal work).

Findings from this research include recommendations for the best practices integrating AVI into the hospitality employee selection process.

Given the increased demands on the recruitment and selection of talent in the hospitality industry, several organizations have turned to mechanized HR software platforms. The impact of interview modalities and particularly AVI has received limited research attention, thus this study expanded this new stream of literature. Furthermore, this research is among a nascent stream using NPT to evaluate the implementation and normalization of this new technology.

The purpose of this paper is to draw upon the theory of consumption values and the experiential value scale to develop a conceptual model concerning hospitality customer’s use of self-service technologies (SSTs) and their impact on consumers’ service experience.

Questionnaires were administered to 220 hotel and restaurant customers. The researchers tested the hypotheses by using descriptive analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and path analysis.

Both extrinsic and intrinsic attributes of SSTs influence consumers’ satisfaction with SST usage significantly, while the extrinsic attributes play a stronger role. It is worth noting that while the intrinsic attributes have a significant impact on consumers’ transcendent service experience, the extrinsic attributes negatively influence such experience.

The findings help managers create effective strategies to better match consumers’ needs and to deliver more customized self-service experience. The role of SSTs can be expanded beyond functional attributes to satisfy consumers’ curiosity, foster customer–customer interactions and personalize consumer experience.

Although most SSTs research focus on technology adoption intention, features, functionality and benefits to the service provider, this research is among the first attempts to examine the role of SSTs in creating better consumer experience. The bidimensional conceptualization of SSTs experience developed in this research suggests that SSTs in the hotel and restaurant sector should be utilized for reasons beyond their utilitarian attributes: SSTs should be designed to help create a transcendent service experience.

This study aims to identify different approaches to conceptualize value co-creation and analysing firms’ co-creation strategies aided by various advancing technologies. This study further discusses the strengths and weaknesses of these strategies and suggests solutions to overcome the limitations.

Following a critical literature review, the authors propose a conceptual framework to denote the relations between evolving technologies and co-creation activities.

On one hand, technology influences the co-creation processes by empowering consumers, offering greater ability to connect, providing greater access to information and furnishing a platform that facilitates co-creation; on the other hand, technological advancements may add complexity, variability and lead to loss of control for service organizations. A role of customers and value definitions are identified and elaborated in the value co-creation process.

Advanced information and communication technologies transcend the traditionally defined service encounters by enabling co-creating actors to exchange resources through virtual interfaces, thus redefining the strategies of value co-creation. Though many studies have discussed value co-creation in diversified standpoints, a perspective from its relationship with technological progression over time remains nascent. The study contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of technology-enabled value co-creation in service ecosystems.

This paper aims to develop a theoretical model to understand co-creation/co-destruction of value through customer engagement in online channels. It also investigates the contributing factors.

The qualitative approach uses the critical incidents technique to answer the research questions. The authors identify 350 critical incidents in which customers expressed online customer engagement-induced value co-creation or co-destruction experiences. The factors and resulting propositions are identified through data analysis. Data coding and analysis are facilitated by using MAXQDA 12.

Co-creation through positively valenced engagement behaviors may occur when customers are delighted, feel valued, experience reciprocity, receive organizational incentives, are solicited for feedback, can count on service recovery efforts and interact with helpful, empathetic, polite and responsive employees. Co-destruction through negatively valenced engagement behaviors emerges from rude employee behaviors, indifference, confrontation with company representatives, technological failure, the lack of complaint outlets and customers’ desire for revenge.

Selecting and training employees to be helpful, polite, responsive and empathetic toward online visitors can trigger co-creation. Communication between firms and customers should boost customer approval and delight. Organizations can offer incentives, reliable service delivery and a recovery design to stimulate visitor participation. Soliciting feedback requires sound technological support and direct communication links with visitors.

This study presents the conditions and framework contributing to the duality of customer engagement-induced co-creation and co-destruction values in online channels from the customer, organizational, employee, service design and technological perspectives. It also addresses how value is co-created or co-destructed through examples.

The present research aims to examine the scholarly literature on high-performance work practices (HPWPs). Relevant comparisons were made between the hospitality industry, service industry and various other contextual environments in general business that might impact the choice and implementation of HPWPs, and a set of work practices was proposed for the hospitality industry.

A comprehensive review was conducted of scholarly literature related to HPWPs that was published in the past 25 years (1991-2015). A total of 89 scholarly articles were considered in this summary. Based on this review, HPWPs in the hospitality industry were compared and contrasted with other industry sectors.

There is little consensus among researchers concerning specific HPWPs that should be used by every company to improve their organizational- or individual-level performance. Thus, a specific set of 13 HPWPs that take into consideration the unique characteristics of the industry, based on a review of empirical research, was identified for the hospitality industry as a starting point for future research in the hospitality industry.

Following a comparison of HPWPs in the hospitality, services literature and manufacturing-based industry context, the authors extend the body of knowledge and propose a set of HPWPs for future research in the hospitality industry. HPWPs can have positive impacts on both organizational- and individual-level performance. Thirteen specific hospitality HPWPs were identified that are most beneficial, and the circumstances under which they might yield optimal results enhance the scholar’s understanding of HPWPs and provide guidance to human resource professionals to make evidence-based decisions. A better understanding of HPWPs can assist human resource professionals in making policy decisions that optimize the use of human capital in their organizations.