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Despite the prevalent use of professional status and service feedback in online healthcare markets, the potential interaction relationship between two types of information is still unknown. This study used the signaling theory to examine the substitute relationship between professional status and service feedback in patients' doctor choice, as well as the moderating effect of illness severity.

To test the paper's hypotheses, we constructed a panel data model using 418 doctors' data collected over a period of six months from an online healthcare market in China. Then, according to the results of the Hausman test, we estimated a fixed-effects model of patients' choice in online healthcare markets.

The empirical results showed that the effect of a doctor's professional status and service feedback on a patient's doctor choice was substitutable. Moreover, patients' illness severity played a moderating role, in that the influence of professional status on a patient with high-severity illness was higher than that on a patient with low-severity illness, whereas the influence of service feedback on a patient with low-severity illness was higher than that of a patient with high-severity illness. In addition, we found that illness severity negatively moderated the substitute relationship between professional status and service feedback on a patient's choice.

These findings not only contribute to signaling theory and research on online healthcare markets, but also help us understand the importance of professional status and service feedback on a patient's choice when seeking a doctor online.

In services, customers’ successful performance of expected roles is critical to ensuring successful service outcomes. To help customers perform their roles better, service providers offer them feedback on their performance. To improve the design of customer feedback that contains both positive and negative messages, the purpose of this paper is to examine the order and the repetition effect of feedback message types on customer feedback satisfaction, motivation, and compliance intention, focusing on the moderating effect of customer involvement level. This paper also examines whether feedback satisfaction and motivation mediate the moderation effect of the order or repetition of feedback message type and customer involvement level on compliance intention.

This study employs two between-subject quasi-experimental designs: 2 (feedback message order: positive message first vs negative message first) × 2 (involvement level: high vs low) and a 2 (repeated feedback type: positive vs negative) × 2 (involvement level: high vs low). Data collection occurred through an online survey using eight health checkup scenarios. Hypotheses were tested by using MANOVA and PROCESS.

The customer involvement level moderated the effect of the presentation order of feedback message type on customer responses. With highly involved customers, offering positive feedback initially produced responses that were more favorable. With customers with low involvement, the order did not matter. The effects of feedback satisfaction and motivation as mediators in the effect of order on compliance intention were significant only with highly involved customers. The mediation effect of motivation was much stronger than that of feedback satisfaction. The repetition of a particular feedback type took effect only with customers with low-involvement level. Compared to the no-repetition condition (positive-negative), when positive feedback was repeated (positive-negative-positive), motivation increased. Compared to the no-repetition condition (negative-positive), when negative feedback was repeated (negative-positive-negative), feedback satisfaction and compliance intention decreased. In terms of mediating effect, only feedback satisfaction was a meaningful mediator and only when negative feedback was repeated to low-involvement customers.

This study contributes to research by extending feedback studies in services to include a consideration of the order and repetition of feedback message types as design variables; it contributes practically by suggesting how to design feedback for better customer responses such as feedback satisfaction, motivation, and compliance intention.

The purpose is to understand how the role of quality functions might evolve amidst digitalisation and an increased focus on services. This study focuses on customer feedback and how it can function as activation triggers for developing absorptive capacity, as well as how it relates to the value creation processes.

Following a qualitative research design, the authors gathered primary data from interviews with quality managers at 17 UK and Swedish firms and triangulated it with secondary information from the firms' web pages.

The findings show that customer feedback-based activation triggers can support development of absorptive capacity in the quality function if there are established processes for acting on customer feedback. This is often the case for codified feedback, which normally concerns products. However, digitalisation offers new opportunities of engaging in value co-creation, and firms need to develop digital capabilities to manage new technologies and data analytic tools. For personalised feedback (the main category of service-related feedback), established processes are missing.

This study work contributes to knowledge about how quality functions respond to customer feedback on both products and services. It clarifies why the quality function sometimes struggles to contribute to service quality as much as to product quality. From a theory development perspective, the authors contribute to understanding customer feedback-based activation triggers, how they lead to development of absorptive capacity and their relation to value co-creation on a functional level.

This study examines how service feedback and physician popularity affect physician demand in the context of virtual healthcare environment. Based on the signaling theory, the critical factor of environment uncertainty (i.e. disease risk) and its impact on physician demand is also investigated. Further, the research on the endogeneity of online reviews in healthcare is also examined in the current study.

A secondary data econometric analysis using 3-wave data sets of 823 physicians obtained from two PRWs (Healthgrades and Vitals) was conducted. The analysis was run using the difference-in-difference method to consider physician and website-specific effects.

The study's findings indicate that physician popularity has a stronger positive effect on physician demand compared with service feedback. Improving popularity leads to a relative increase in the number of appointments, which in turn enhance physician demand. Further, the impact of physician popularity on physician demand is positively mitigated by the disease risk.

The authors' research contributes to a better understanding of the signaling transmission mechanism in the online healthcare environment. Further, the findings provide practical implications for key stakeholders into how an efficient feedback and popularity mechanism can be built to enhance physician service outcomes in order to maximize the financial efficiency of physicians.

Mental health service user involvement in education has gained momentum and prominence over the past decade, but service user involvement in the assessment of students' practice remains underdeveloped. This paper reports findings from a qualitative analysis of documentary data that captured service users' feedback to mental health student nurses about their practice. Third year mental health nursing students in acute inpatient placements were required to elicit, record and reflect on the feedback that service users gave them about their practice.One hundred and eighty eight accounts of this feedback were analysed and findings are presented in terms of the methods that students used to gain feedback and the issues that emerged from this. The analysis also explored the role that students appear to play in care delivery and what aspects of their role service users most valued. The impact that the feedback had on the students' learning and practice is examined and discussed in relation to future opportunities for, and likely barriers to, continued service user involvement in assessing students' practice.

This paper aims to explore patient to care provider reverse exchanges to improve the care processes and service supply chain using an online feedback platform. This paper demonstrates how a better understanding of timely and unsolicited feedback (“voice of the patient as a customer”) stimulates local interventions to improve service delivery and enact the essential characteristics of highly reliable organisations (HRO).

A realist approach involving an exploratory hospital case study using user feedback from an IT patient feedback platform. The methodology included interviews, secondary data and access to thousands of patient feedback narratives.

The findings show that a systems approach to the supply chain, using real-time feedback to enact process improvement is beneficial and a fruitful source of innovation for professional services staff. The setting of the improvement focusses on a true “voice of the customer” rather than attempting to improve arbitrarily internal process efficiency has major benefits for staff and their engagement with the right interventions to support higher performance.

The findings show major positive benefits for the adaptation and constant reflection of staff on the service provided to patients. The approach provides a means of reflecting as to whether the current supply chain and service provision are fit for purpose, as well as reliable, efficient and of value to the consumer.

This study is one of a few that adopt the consumer orientation needed to fully exploit the concepts of patient-centric improvement by including dynamic feedback in the supply chain and systems approach to care.

Healthcare service quality in the USA has gained importance under value-based payment models. Providing feedback to front-line staff is a vital component of managing service performance, but complex organizational dynamics can prevent effective communication. This work explored the performance management of appointment desk staff at Mayo Clinic Arizona, identified barriers to effective management and sought to standardize the process for monitoring service performance.

Multiple data sources, including qualitative inquiry with 31 employees from the primary care and surgery departments, were used. The research was conducted in two phases – facilitated roundtable discussions with supervisors and semi-structured interviews with supervisors and staff six months after implementation of service standards. Participants were probed for attitudes about the service standards and supervisor feedback after implementation.

While all staff indicated a positive work environment, there was an unexpected and pervasive negative stigma surrounding individual feedback from one’s supervisor. Half the participants indicated there had been no individual feedback regarding the service standards from the supervisor. Presenting service standards in a simple, one-page format, signed by both supervisor and the patient service representative (PSR), was well received.

Combining rapid-cycle quality improvement methodology with qualitative inquiry allowed efficient development of role-specific service standards and quick evaluation of their implementation. This unique approach for improving healthcare service quality and identifying barriers to providing individual feedback may be useful to organizations navigating a more value- and consumer-driven healthcare market.

While digital media changed the nature of communication in service contexts, often allowing customers to interact instantly with service providers, the implications and opportunities for managing service employees are widely unknown. This is surprising, given that service employees are an important determinant of service firms’ success. This article examines the effects of real-time performance feedback on employees’ service performance and investigates both how and under what conditions timely feedback encourages employees’ engagement.

Two experiments test the conceptual model and the proposed hypotheses. A field experiment uses real customer feedback gathered after interaction with the app-chat of a large telecommunications provider. It tests the effect of feedback timing on service employees’ performance and also examines the effect of feedback timing on their engagement. A subsequent scenario-based experiment then investigates the influence of selected moderators on the feedback timing–engagement relationship.

This article finds that real-time feedback leads to greater service performance than subsequent feedback. Furthermore, real-time feedback positively affects service employee engagement through the perceived controllability of the feedback and the service situation. Finally, feedback valence, task goals, individuals’ need for closure (NCL), and gender interact with feedback timing to influence employee engagement.

This research investigates the potential of real-time performance feedback for service firms, combines and extends a variety of literature streams, and provides recommendations for the future management of service employees.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the feedback discourse by exploring how public managers and politicians use complaints from citizens to improve the overall and specific performance of public services. The main research questions are: Can citizen complaints analysis be a useful planning tool in the public sector? What can public managers learn from citizen feedback?

Applying an empirical approach (Yin, 2005), the multiple case studies treated in the paper aim to clarify a series of decisions (particularly, why feedback is not used to its maximum potential). The overall design includes a defined set of questions, and the research protocol includes data retrieval, collection and analysis. A new cataloging model is proposed to homogenize the spectrum of analysis. This model is intended to create a parallel between two local bodies different in size, mission, and complexity, but which have front office facilities and are in the same territory and have the same potential target population.

In total, 698 complaints and 183 corrective or preventive actions were analyzed. Public managers’ attention seems to focus on technical or normative issues rather than on aspects of public services. This may be explained by the lack of funds for training, the scarce use of relational and human capital development leverage, and the concomitant necessity to guarantee at least the same level of services as provided in previous years, confirming the “Blame the rich and credit the poor” mantra.

This paper offers a strategic approach to learning from citizen’s feedback that other scholars or practitioners have not yet provided. There are many academic studies on customer feedback as a continuous improvement tool for the private sector, but few for public administration.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the importance and extend the understanding of the underresearched concept of personal positive customer feedback (PCF). By comparing and contrasting front-line employees’ (FLEs) and customers’ perspectives, this study aims to develop a deeper understanding of the main elements, characteristics of PCF, its various impacts and the perceived importance of this phenomenon for both parties.

An exploratory research study was conducted using a novel integrated methodological approach combining two well-established qualitative techniques: structured Laddering interviews and various elements of the Zaltman Metaphor Elicitation Technique. In total, personal interviews with 40 participants consisting of 20 customers and 20 FLEs were conducted.

This study conceptualizes personal PCF in the service literature by identifying the various PCF elements and characteristics. The authors extend PCF understanding beyond what the current literature shows (i.e. gratitude, compliments) by identifying nine characteristics of PCF. This study also proposes a number of impacts on both customers and FLEs. While both customers and FLEs have a similar understanding of the various elements and characteristics of PCF, the significance of the various elements and the subsequent impacts vary between the two groups. Finally, three key themes in PCF handling that help position PCF within the extant customer management literature are identified and discussed.

This study contributes to a well-rounded understanding of customer feedback by counter-balancing the prevailing focus on customer complaining behaviour and proposing a complimentary look at the positive valence of personal feedback. It also provides managerial implications concerning the management of positive service encounters, an emerging topic within service research.

This multidisciplinary study is the first to extend the understanding of personal PCF by comparing and contrasting customers’ and FLEs’ perspectives. The findings of this study highlight the need to explore the positive side of service interactions to create positive service experiences.