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1 – 10 of over 35000Rod McColl, Jan Mattsson and Kathleen Charters
A detailed conceptualization of how service experiences are transformed into a memory and the circumstances surrounding a memorable experience is not available in the customer…
Abstract
Purpose
A detailed conceptualization of how service experiences are transformed into a memory and the circumstances surrounding a memorable experience is not available in the customer experience literature. This paper aims to address this gap using a multi-dimensional framework (memoryscape) to explain memory processes for service experiences.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper integrates psychology research, and particularly autobiographical memory, within customer experience management.
Findings
The paper proposes a comprehensive, multi-dimensional framework (memoryscape) of memory and highlights managerial implications.
Research limitations/implications
Marketers have yet to fully understand the role of memory in service experience consumption. In today’s service-dominant economy, understanding more about the memoryscape should be a managerial and research priority.
Practical implications
The authors present four managerial priorities for managing customer experience memories.
Originality/value
The authors assimilate theories and empirical research in psychology, particularly autobiographical memory, to propose an integrated conceptual framework of the service memory process (memoryscape), to provide insights for managers looking to create memorable customer experiences.
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Jong-Hyeong Kim and SooCheong (Shawn) Jang
This study aims to identify the influences that lead to better memorability of a service by focusing on type of service failure, recovery condition and frequency of occurring.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to identify the influences that lead to better memorability of a service by focusing on type of service failure, recovery condition and frequency of occurring.
Design/methodology/approach
This study used a quasi-experimental design in which customers answered questions about a restaurant they had recently patronized and then evaluated experimentally generated failure and recovery scenarios. Two follow-up contacts were made (by phone and e-mail) to assess their memory of the imagined service failures stimulated by the scenarios. Participants were asked how clearly and vividly they could recollect the service failure and to indicate their behavioral intentions at the time of recall.
Findings
The type of service failure and the subsequent recovery efforts significantly affect whether negative service experiences are memorable. Specifically, individuals showed a higher likelihood of vividly recalling a core service failure than an interactional one. Moreover, service recoveries were found to be helpful in decreasing the memorability of service failures, and that they were effective in decreasing the resulting negative customer behavioral intentions (i.e. switching behaviors and negative word-of-mouth). However, frequently occurred service failures did not significantly influence the memorability of the failures.
Practical implications
The current study suggested what characteristics of service failures and situations lead to strong memorability and significantly affect future behavior. Thus, the findings provide important implications for avoiding and handling the failures that trigger strong memorability.
Originality/value
Previous researchers have emphasized on the importance and urgency of preventing critical service failures. However, it is still unclear what type of service failures and/or factors are critical ones. The current study expands the knowledge by incorporating service failures with memory and investigates the characteristics of memorable service failures, which are likely to be remembered more vividly.
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This paper seeks to re‐establish memory's role within reference librarianship, and to argue that continued research on how memory affects the reference librarian can encourage…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper seeks to re‐establish memory's role within reference librarianship, and to argue that continued research on how memory affects the reference librarian can encourage growth within the profession.
Design/methodology/approach
Neuroscience and psychological explanations of memory are introduced and then utilized to show how reference librarians access and impress memory. Perspectives on reference librarianship in relation to memory, service, education, and knowledge management are also presented and scrutinized.
Findings
Memory is an integral part of librarianship, yet often overlooked. Memory is also a complex tool which comprising overlapping systems. Owing to the nature of these systems, it is sometimes difficult to decipher when one system is being utilized and another is not.
Research limitations/implications
Memory is not tangible, though neuroscience has been able to map out some processes. Because of memory's elusive quality, the paper relies heavily on present biological and psychological theories. There is a need to assess memory practices further in the realm of librarianship and to determine more ways in which memory can contribute to the enhancement of library services.
Practical implications
The paper provides insight for the role of memory within reference librarianship, and suggests a structural basis to analyze librarian service through memory systems.
Originality/value
Utilizing both psychological views and biological constructs of memory, the author systematically incorporates these ideas into roles which are beneficial to the development of the reference librarian and enhancement of reference services.
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Rachel Fuller, Lara Stocchi, Thorsten Gruber and Jenni Romaniuk
Service branding research predominantly focuses on the purchase and postpurchase stages of the customer journey. This study aims to expand the lens of enquiry to the prepurchase…
Abstract
Purpose
Service branding research predominantly focuses on the purchase and postpurchase stages of the customer journey. This study aims to expand the lens of enquiry to the prepurchase stage, showing the role service brand awareness and service brand retrieval play before customer experiences and relationships can be established.
Design/methodology/approach
The research presents and empirically examines a new framework that links service brand awareness and service brand retrieval to key “battlegrounds” in the prepurchase stage of the customer journey: entry into the Awareness Set, Consideration Set and Repertoire Set. The empirical work draws on data from both services and goods markets from two UK-based consumer surveys (N = 771 and N = 270, respectively).
Findings
The findings indicate that, prepurchase, service brands compete most intensively to establish and reinforce a broad array of memory associations, rather than a specific corporate or brand image.
Research limitations/implications
To improve the generalizability of the conclusions drawn, the findings of this study should be replicated in additional service categories and consumer samples.
Practical implications
The findings translate into novel, long-term strategies for the management of service brands at the prepurchase stage of the customer journey, especially opportunities for effective and creative marketing communications.
Originality/value
This study contributes to marketing research and practice by introducing the notion of service brand retrieval and highlighting its role, together with service brand awareness and prepurchase.
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Gilang Puspita Rini and Amie Kusumawardhani
This study aims to identify factors that can improve customer service performance by verifying the relationships between these factors, such as customer orientation, firm-specific…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to identify factors that can improve customer service performance by verifying the relationships between these factors, such as customer orientation, firm-specific resource integration, transactive memory system and service innovation capability. In other words, this study identifies the determinants of customer service performance from the perspective of the resource advantage theory of competition.
Design/methodology/approach
This research was conducted through an online survey of hotel managers and supervisors in Indonesia, which produced 327 questionnaires that could be processed with a response rate of 70.6%. Structural equation modelling was used to analyse the data and test the hypotheses with the help of AMOS 23.
Findings
This study confirms that firm-specific resource integration can improve customer service performance, with the antecedents of the former being customer orientation and a transactive memory system.
Research limitations/implications
This research was conducted with a sample of three-, four- and five-star hotels, which have different conditions. In future research, it would be interesting to compare how such hotels over a larger geographical area behave in improving customer service performance using the investigated variables.
Originality/value
This research provides additional insight into the resource advantage theory of competition, namely, that integrated enterprise-specific resources are good antecedents for innovation and customer service performance.
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Lena Goldkuhl and Maria Styvén
The intangible character of services makes it difficult for customers to evaluate a service offering before consumption. Scent offers a powerful means of making services tangible…
Abstract
Purpose
The intangible character of services makes it difficult for customers to evaluate a service offering before consumption. Scent offers a powerful means of making services tangible. Therefore, this paper aims to contribute to the understanding of how scents can be used for services marketing purposes.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper presents an overview of studies, mainly from the area of retailing, indicating how scents can be used in services, and this is followed by a number of examples of such applications.
Findings
The paper finds that, although there are examples of service providers utilising scents to tangibilise, enhance and differentiate services, this area has been relatively neglected in marketing literature.
Practical implications
By adding the component of scent to their offerings, service providers have the opportunity to create a competitive advantage. When using scents in services marketing, managers should consider the aspects of presence, pleasantness, congruity and memory of scents.
Originality/value
No other paper with a specific focus on scent as a tangibiliser, enhancer and differentiator of services has been found in marketing literature. This paper provides important insights into the use of scents for services marketing purposes.
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Rachael Frost, Kate Walters, Jane Wilcock, Louise Robinson, Karen Harrison Dening, Martin Knapp, Louise Allan and Greta Rait
Post-diagnostic dementia care is often fragmented in the United Kingdom, with great variation in provision. Recent policies suggest moving towards better community-based care for…
Abstract
Purpose
Post-diagnostic dementia care is often fragmented in the United Kingdom, with great variation in provision. Recent policies suggest moving towards better community-based care for dementia; however, little is known on how this care is delivered. This study aimed to map the post-diagnostic dementia support provided in England a decade after the introduction of a National Dementia Strategy.
Design/methodology/approach
A mixed-methods e-survey (open Nov 2018–Mar 2019) of dementia commissioners in England recruited through mailing lists of relevant organisations was conducted. The authors descriptively summarised quantitative data and carried out thematic analysis of open-ended survey responses.
Findings
52 completed responses were received, which covered 82 commissioning bodies, with representation from each region in England. Respondents reported great variation in the types of services provided. Information, caregiver assessments and dementia navigation were commonly reported and usually delivered by the voluntary sector or local authorities. Integrated pathways of care were seen as important to avoid overlap or gaps in service coverage. Despite an increasingly diverse population, few areas reported providing dementia health services specifically for BME populations. Over half of providers planned to change services further within five years.
Practical implications
There is a need for greater availability of and consistency in services in post-diagnostic dementia care across England.
Originality/value
Post-diagnostic dementia care remains fragmented and provided by a wide range of providers in England.
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Jill Manthorpe and Kevin Goodwin
Advanced care planning (ACP) involves the discussion of preferences relevant to a possible future time when one’s ability to make decisions may be compromised. ACP is considered…
Abstract
Purpose
Advanced care planning (ACP) involves the discussion of preferences relevant to a possible future time when one’s ability to make decisions may be compromised. ACP is considered as having potential to enhance choice and control and thereby to improve the experience of care for people with dementia and their carers. Care coordinators have been highlighted as possibly playing a central role in facilitating these discussions among people with long-term care needs. However, there is limited evidence of how ACP is facilitated by community mental health professionals who may be supporting people with dementia and carers. The paper aims to discuss this issue.
Design/methodology/approach
This exploratory study took the form of qualitative semi-structured interviews to explore the views and experiences of community mental health professionals when discussing ACP with people with dementia and/or their carers. A convenience sample of 14 participants working in community mental health services in one NHS Mental Health Trust in London, England, was recruited and interview data were analysed using a framework approach.
Findings
Five themes emerged from the interviews – knowledge and experience, use of ACP, inhibitors of discussion, service influences and the future. The depth of ACP facilitation appeared dependent on the knowledge, confidence and skills of the individual professional. Limited resources leading to service rationing were cited as a major barrier to ACP engagement. Helping people with dementia and their carers with ACP was not viewed as a priority in the face of competing and increasing demands. A further organisational barrier was whether ACP was viewed by service managers as “core business”. Findings indicate that practice was generally to refer people with dementia to other agencies for ACP discussions. However, pockets of ACP practice were reported, such as explaining proxy decision making options for finances.
Research limitations/implications
This exploratory study took place in the community mental health services in one NHS Mental Health Trust that may not be representative of other such teams. Case records were not scrutinised or clinical conversations with people with dementia or carers.
Practical implications
Barriers to initiating ACP discussions were cited, such as limited resources, lack of time and knowledge; unclear role remit, uncertain service direction and poor documentation sharing processes. However, participants held a common belief that ACP for people with dementia is potentially important and were interested in training, a greater team focus on ACP and pathway development. This indicates the potential for staff development and continuing professional development.
Originality/value
Few studies have asked a wide range of members of community mental health services about their knowledge, skills and confidence in ACP and this study suggests the value of taking a team-wide approach rather than uni-professional initiatives.
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As an alternative explanation of incongruent findings in the literature, the purpose of the present study is to introduce the concept of hedonic versus utilitarian service context…
Abstract
Purpose
As an alternative explanation of incongruent findings in the literature, the purpose of the present study is to introduce the concept of hedonic versus utilitarian service context as a moderating variable in the relationship between the affect (pleasure and arousal) and perceived service quality and satisfaction.
Design/methodology/approach
A consumer survey was conducted to test moderation hypotheses, which was analyzed with hierarchical regression equations.
Findings
The results show that pleasure had stronger influences on perceived service quality and satisfaction in the hedonic service context than in the utilitarian service context. Arousal is found to influence perceived service quality and satisfaction in the hedonic service context but not in the utilitarian service context.
Research limitations/implications
It is likely that in hedonic related services, consumers will often use some affective criteria to evaluate service quality, in addition to the traditional service quality measures.
Practical implications
Companies providing hedonic services should modify the content of their services or add novelty stimulus into their services from time to time in order to evoke the most desired consumer emotions and enhance satisfaction.
Originality/value
The proposed moderating effect of service contexts improved predictions and explanations of the theoretical relationship between affect and perceived service quality/satisfaction. It specifies the conditions under which affect will or will not impact perceived service quality and satisfaction.
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Jill Manthorpe and Steve Iliffe
This article is the first of a series on older people's mental health services (OPMH Focus 2008‐09). It sets out some of the challenges facing commissioners, and uses…
Abstract
This article is the first of a series on older people's mental health services (OPMH Focus 2008‐09). It sets out some of the challenges facing commissioners, and uses recommendations from a recent inquiry to outline possible commissioning objectives.
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