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This study aims to develop a comprehensive, theoretically grounded framework of customer-to-customer interaction (CCI) management, by revisiting three older services marketing models: the servuction model, the services marketing triangle and the services marketing pyramid.

Noting the lack of theoretical frameworks of CCI management, this study adopts a problematization approach to identify foundational services marketing models, question their underlying assumptions, develop an alternative conceptual framework and evaluate its adequacy for CCI management, on the basis of a systematic literature review and content analyses.

By revisiting the assumptions underlying three relevant models in the light of the present-day, technology-infused service environment, this study proposes a four-triangle CCI management framework encompassing four specific modes of CCI management: managerial decisions by the firm; frontline employees; the design of the physical environment; and technology. Furthermore, this study emphasizes the triadic relationships involving the focal customer, other customers and the four modes of CCI management. Building on these findings, this study concludes with an extensive research agenda.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study represents the first scholarly effort in services marketing literature to provide a comprehensive, theoretically grounded framework of CCI management. With its basis in foundational models, the new framework is well-suited to address future challenges to service marketplaces too.

This paper advances our understanding of the relationship between quality, value and satisfaction in the context of spectator sport services. This is achieved through an analysis and examination of relevant secondary data culminating in a conceptual model. Although extensive research has been conducted in the three separate areas of quality, value and satisfaction, to date no work has been reported attempting to develop macro models that capture the concepts and their potential interrelationships. Such macro models could enhance the communication and stimulate further research for sport marketing scholars. This paper proposes a model apposite for further research and in the process leads to the potential confirmation, rejection or indeed, adaptation of the conceptualization of sport services.

Draws on the extant literature in the areas of services marketing, sport tourism and service quality to present a range of concepts and models that have utility in heightening management’s appreciation of the complexities of achieving service quality in a sport‐tourism context. Emphasis is placed on the multidimensional nature of the issues involved. Generic service and quality concepts and models are tailored to sport tourism through a range of examples. More in‐depth illustrations are provided by case material relating to Club La Santa, which is located on the northern coast of Lanzarote. Marketed as “the world’s leading sport and leisure resort”, La Santa offers all‐year‐round training and leisure facilities for national and international standard sportsmen and women, as well as less competitive visitors who merely seek exercise and relaxation. The managerial implications of the issues are discussed.

The learning outcomes of this study are as follows:▪ to analyze service attributes that influence customers’ decisions to purchase services;▪ to identify the factors that influence customers’ perceptions of service quality;▪ to identify the “moments of truth” that the service provider (IndiGo) would need to monitor and manage through the service encounter; and▪ to use the Servuction model to analyze the various elements of the service process.

In May 2022, the chief executive officer of IndiGo Airlines - India’s largest passenger airline by market share, Ronojoy Dutta, faced flak over the airline staff's handling of a specially abled child travelling with his parents on IndiGo Airlines. The staff member, reacting to the tantrums of the disturbed child, had refused to allow the boy and his parents to board the flight. He had cited the “risk to other passengers” from the boy as the reason for such a refusal (Biswas, 2022). In spite of the boy’s parents being supported by their fellow passengers, the IndiGo staff member refused to relent, and the flight took off without the trio (Firstpost, 2022). The incident goes viral when a fellow flyer shares a Facebook post describing it first-hand and provokes widespread condemnation of the nation's “preferred airline” (IndiGo, 2023) by citizens and politicians on various social media platforms besides Facebook (Gupta, 2022). Dutta initially supports his employee even as he issues a statement expressing his regret at the “unfortunate incident” (Business Standard, 2022a). The regulatory body for aviation in India, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, imposes a fine of INR 5 lakh on IndiGo for denying boarding to a specially abled child (Indian Express, 2022). How could an incident like this impact the perception of IndiGo’s service quality? How could Dutta better ensure that IndiGo managed the various touch points with the customer over the entire service encounter – the “moments of truth”? How could he prevent such a fiasco in the future, ensuring that IndiGo remains India’s “preferred airline”?

This case is intended to be taught in an undergraduate or MBA marketing course in a module on service marketing. The case can also form a 90-min module in a service marketing course within an advanced management or executive education program.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CCS 8: Marketing.

The purpose of this paper is to report on research on the sensory perceptions that patients and bystanders experience during hospitalisation. Sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch influence both clinical outcomes and satisfaction. The paper offers suggestions to hospital management on ways to improve receivers’ sensory perceptions.

Considering services as social interactions, a subjectivist view of reality is adopted and, accordingly, a qualitative research approach implemented. Data are collected through participant observation. Desk activity includes reasoned literature review, categorisation and model adaptation.

A simplified system model for service provision in the hospital ward is proposed. A management tool is provided in the form of a check list that the ward management can employ to assess its service-provision system from a five-senses perspective.

The paper is affected by judgements subject to cultural biases. The validity of the management tool is still to be tested.

Once up and running, the model and the check list will be able to guide health managers towards improvements of satisfaction, clinical outcomes and working environment.

The paper represents an original effort to adapt tools already used in the commercial field to influence health service receivers’ perceptions positively. While the positive results of improvements to a single sensory perception have been well documented, an integrated approach has not been put forward previously in the health industry.

This commentary aims to identify the myopic drift of the marketing discipline and to opine on the areas in which the leadership of service scholars is needed. The authors identify specific areas where the input of service scholars is needed to enable the discipline to better contribute to users, providers, and society. For example, the growing gap between marketing scholarship and practical business needs is acknowledged, emphasizing the unique position of service scholars to bridge this divide. While consumer well-being is crucial, the exclusive focus on behavioral science is critiqued. Marketing’s roots are deeply connected to economics, shaping consumer choices, and service scholars can help revive marketing’s essence.

Personal reflections and historical literature assessment.

The services discipline is caught in the general myopic behavioral drift of the marketing discipline. However, they are well positioned to reverse the trend by seeking leadership in PhD programs, journal editorships and review boards, faculty recruiting, hiring and promotion, and by continuing its engagement with industry professionals.

The authors suggest extensive goals for service scholars. To accomplish these goals, it will be necessary to challenge the increasing behavioral drift of the majority of existing scholars in the discipline.

This work is original and controversial. It is meant to inspire discussion and focus attention on the problems inherent in the increasingly myopic behavioral orientation of the members of the discipline’s academic community.

The rapid growth in volume and value of on-demand restaurant food delivery, accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, is causing a paradigm shift in the food service sector. However, there is a lack of hospitality management research into this emerging phenomenon. To address this gap, this paper defines and develops a novel conceptual model and typology and proposes a research agenda for ghost production in the context of food service.

This paper uses the Servuction model to explore, define and model the radical separation between food service production sites, points of sale and consumer interaction from the perspective of on-demand restaurant food delivery. A novel typology is developed and illustrated with eight industry examples from the UK and an accompanying cost benefit analysis. Future research priorities are identified.

In the hospitality literature, little attention has been paid to changes on-demand restaurant food delivery brings to production and business models of food service organisations, resulting in significant gaps between food service practice and theory. The knock-on effects to stakeholders include increased convenience for customers, uncertain employment status of riders and, for restaurants, striking a balance between capturing new markets and losing control of the customer. Additionally, for aggregators, there is a lack of profitability in existing models, despite holding the balance of power (and data).

The concept of “ghost production” and its associated typology is novel and offers a contribution to hospitality management literature by defining the term, scope and scale of this new phenomenon. Practical implications are proposed.

States that the importance of retailing to the vitality and viability of many town and city centres is widely acknowledged. However, the marketing of these locations to date has largely focused on tourism or inward economic investment. Identifies many of the factors to be considered in the definition of the “place” product, with particular reference to how urban centres can define their retail “offer”. Proposes an exploratory conceptual framework for the determination of the urban retail offer based on the servuction system.

This tribute to Dr Pierre Eiglier, who passed in February 2020, was prepared for the “17th International Research Conference in Service Management 2022” in La Londe les Maures, France. Tribute is defined as, “an act, statement, or gift intended to show gratitude, respect, or admiration”.

Sampled Pierre's publications; consulted the 1993 Journal of Retailing “Special Services Issue” on the evolution of the field; collected reflections from another founder and two of Pierre's former doctoral students who have helped co-chair the La Londe conference and drew from my own interactions with Pierre over the years at La Londe.

In the mid-1970s, Pierre was one of the first to specify the unique characteristics of services vs products, and the implications and introduced, with Eric Langeard, the “servuction” (service production) model, highlighting customer participation in the servuction process and determinants of the service experience. Pierre continually applied a synthesis of systems thinking, researcher–practitioner interaction, and interdisciplinary/cross-functional perspectives.

Pierre's contributions came at a time when marketing practice was geared largely toward products/goods, yet the service sector was growing. Pierre's pioneering framing, along with other founders, of service attributes, service models, and the service experience had much-needed implications for services marketing practice.

This detailed tribute to a service field founder is, regrettably, quite original; too rare. There is value in revisiting these founding contributions which often were broader and more interdisciplinary in perspective than now.

The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of service authenticity, customer participation (CP) and customer-perceived service climate on customers' service evaluation within the context of smartphone repair services in South Korea. A conceptual model, including customer-perceived service climate, service authenticity, CP, service value and service satisfaction, was proposed and tested.

The authors test the research model using a structural equation modeling approach (Amos) based on a mobile survey of 430 South Korean consumers. The authors design the research based on causal relationships and collect the data using the convenience sampling method.

The authors found that the independent variables (customer-perceived service climate, service authenticity and CP) have a positive effect on service value as well as service satisfaction. Further, service value has a mediating effect on the relationships between the independent variables and service satisfaction.

This is the first study to examine the effects of smartphone repair service on customers' evaluation. As the number of smartphone users increases, the results obtained from this study will provide important managerial implications for service managers.