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The purpose of this paper is to explore the contribution of conversation as an element of interaction that occurs in a hairdressing service encounter with the aim of seeking to understand variations in conversation between “short” and “long‐term” clients; how conversation contributes to the development of “commercial friendships”; and how relationships develop through conversation.

Quota sampling is used to select eight hairdressing service encounters in one Australian salon for recording and subsequent interviews with clients. Quotas address gender and duration of continued patronage. Conversations and interviews were analysed thematically and using conversation analysis.

The progress and evolution of conversations varied between short and long‐term customers; topics also varied by this classification as well as gender. Conversation played an important function with respect to building friendship with the service provider; conversation also assisted in the development of long‐term relationships.

Apart from the small sample, the study was highly contextualised because it investigated encounters in a single hairdressing salon and explored perceptions of the service conversation from the perspective of only one party to the conversation, the client.

The findings point out the important role non‐task conversation can play in retaining customers in people‐processing services. Service providers perhaps can achieve more to improve the service experience and satisfaction of customers by placing less emphasis on the need for physical resources or promotion, instead focussing on the intangible of improving the conversation skills of their providers. More non‐task conversation and less task‐related talk may also facilitate a closer relationship between hairdresser and client. Further research on the nature and role of conversation during service encounters should offer guidance for improving the conversation skills of service providers and in improving customer retention.

This study specifically focuses on the role and nature of non‐task conversation as a specific aspect contributing to a customer's service encounter experience in a people processing service.

Implicit within much of the migrant literature is an assumption that migrant flows are primarily motivated by economic differences. However, such an assumption raises three interesting questions. First, why would people wish to leave a country where income levels are relatively high, public services are extensive and the standard of living is well above global averages? Second, what are the socio-cultural attributes that might attract such potential migrant to a new domicile state? Third, how might this be reflected in consumptive attitudes and behaviours within their new domicile state? The paper aims to discuss these issues.

In order to investigate the answer to these questions, a two-stage qualitative research methodology incorporating photographic self-records and in-depth interviews is used to examine UK migrants’ decisions to migrate to New Zealand. Subsequently, the authors examine the celebration of Christmas in New Zealand by UK migrants to better understand meaning creation and re-creation of consumption activities within a new socio-cultural context informed by their decisions to migrate.

Findings suggest that with some lifestyle migrant groups, individualistic values and belief systems appear to play a significant role in determining consumptive attitudes and behaviours in their domicile states.

This research identifies how some migrant groups may adopt a more reflexive approach by undertaking a complex and sophisticated process of self and social identity construction reflective of their individualistic values and belief systems rather than the acceptance or rejection of their domicile culture.

This paper aims to examine the impact of service encounter quality within a service evaluation model. The conceptual model seeks to incorporate the following constructs: service encounter quality, service quality, customer satisfaction, perceived value, loyalty to the firm and loyalty to the employees.

A conceptual model was developed based on a comprehensive literature review. A questionnaire was developed with item measures that captures the constructs in the conceptual model. A survey of business customers was undertaken, and a response rate of 18.6 per cent was obtained. The data are analysed via confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling.

Service encounter quality is directly related to customer satisfaction and service quality perceptions, and indirectly to perceived value and loyalty. The paper offers insights into the specifics of business‐to‐business service dynamics by examining the role of service quality, satisfaction, value on loyalty to both employees of the firm and the firm itself. It demonstrates how firms may be able to contribute to the achievement of organisational objectives through careful and creative management of the service encounter.

Research examining the role that service encounter quality plays within service evaluation models is scarce. Moreover, most service evaluation models are operationalised within a retail customer context. The paper addresses both these shortcomings, by examining a comprehensive service evaluation model which incorporates service encounter quality within a business‐to‐business context.

This paper presents the approach of a one‐to‐one relationship for branding in business‐to‐business markets. With qualitative evidence, the paper seeks to clarify the links between branding, relationship marketing and purchase intention of resellers and to discuss the contribution of brand personified as brand representatives to the brand knowledge of resellers. The aim of this paper is to understand how this transfer of knowledge by brand personified as representatives of the brand is reflected in the selection process of brand for resale by resellers.

The theory is used to develop a testable model. Information from the field was gathered through 12 in‐depth interviews of brand managers of international IT brands. These interviews helped to give a deeper insight into the topic and contributed to the categorization of different themes to be developed into constructs. Components that emerged from the interviews were from different disciplines and were useful in making linkages between these disciplines.

Interviewees associated the role of brand personified (as brand representative) as a conduit between brand and resellers. Given the findings, brand when personified as a human can be used to manage reseller relationships in a business‐to‐business network. The brand personified with its metaphorical properties enables the resellers not only to clearly understand brand‐related information but also to make positive evaluations about the brand. Empirical research would be helpful to establish the indicators of brand personification and to enhance the understanding of the concept.

The study will be useful for senior managers of brands operating in competitive and complex business‐to‐business networks. It will enable them to use the categories and components to ensure that their brand is the preferred brand for resellers operating in the network.

The approach will be helpful in linking different functions of the organization to measure the contribution made by employees representing the brand to resellers in competitive markets by imparting knowledge about the brand to resellers.

The purpose of this paper is to report on a study which aims to identify the characteristics and determinants of client sophistication within the UK corporate legal services market and to investigate its effect in determining the nature and essence of client‐solicitor relationships.

The paper uses in‐depth interviews of a range of individuals involved in the selection and evaluation of legal services used by their organisations and practice lawyers working for a variety of regional and national law firms involved in the delivery of legal advice related to corporate and commercial issues.

Findings suggest the level of client sophistication has a moderating influence in a number of key areas. These are identified as: service evaluation criteria; interdependency and power; the atmosphere in which solicitor‐client interactions take place and relationships develop; the nature of joint personal relational goals and the role of trust and extent of commitment.

The paper enriches the limited literature on business‐to‐business credence services and develops a deeper understanding of the nature of relationships within such contexts.

The purpose of this paper is to gain a deeper understanding of the attributes of effective complaint management in business‐to‐business relationships, and to reveal the underlying benefits that buying organizations are looking for when complaining.

A semi‐standardized qualitative technique called laddering was applied successfully to an online environment with 22 representatives of companies in the manufacturing industry participating.

The resulting hierarchical value map displays 13 attributes which exemplify the complaint resolution management expectations. A total of 14 constructs represent consequences of such resolution activities, while four constructs can be interpreted as values. Take “Quick action” is the most important of the expected attributes and behaviours of complaint resolution management. Four consequences seem to dominate the assessment: Financial benefits, Prevention of future problems, Solution, and Effective resolution handling. “Maintain supplier relationships” appears as a dominant value in the perceptions of respondents, with half of them mentioning this as an end.

Owing to the exploratory nature of the study in general and the scope and size of its sample in particular, the findings are tentative in nature. The study involved a group of representatives of large UK manufacturing companies with complaint handling responsibilities and so the results cannot be generalised.

The findings enrich the existing limited stock of knowledge on complaint management in business relationships by developing a deeper understanding of the attributes that complaining customer companies desire from suppliers, as well as the underlying business logic (i.e. values) for these expectations. The quality of the results also suggests that the laddering questionnaire technique can be transferred effectively to an online environment.

This article aims to illustrate how service organizations (e.g. cancer resource centers) can create restorative servicescapes. The article addresses whether cancer patients respond favorably to a cancer center's restorative servicescape and explores the reasons they might patronize the center and interact socially with others.

This article synthesizes various streams of literature from services marketing, natural psychology, and cancer and medical research. The study defines and develops the framework's categories and advances propositions based on the framework.

The model proposes that cancer patients should respond favorably to a cancer center's restorative servicescape. By spending time in the center, people living with cancer may be able to remedy four frequently experienced, negative symptoms associated with fatigue.

The study explores a not‐for‐profit cancer resource center that offers members an array of participatory activities within a homelike environment. However, it may be difficult for traditional medical facilities to fashion restorative servicescapes.

The study helps inform medical practitioners about the psychosocial benefits cancer resource centers offer cancer patients. This article provides a discussion regarding a cancer center's development of its Connect‐to‐Care program, based on an oncologist and a cancer center representative joining together to discuss a patient's cancer diagnosis and care.

This article proposes a theoretical understanding on how the physical and restorative qualities of an environment transform human health. It links the services domain to the health sciences and suggests a means by which cancer patients can “do more with less” by combining medical treatment with cancer resource center patronage.

This study aims to provide empirically generated insights into a gamification approach to online customer engagement and behavior (CE and CEB). There is a substantive discrepancy between popular coverage and empirically based research as to the effectiveness of virtual brand gamification in engaging customers.

Using Samsung Nation as a unit of analysis, a mixed-methods research design using netnography and participant observation is adopted to address the research aim.

Taken holistically, the findings identify key processes and outcomes of CE and CEB within virtual gamified platforms. Additionally, insights are provided into implementation flaws deriving from gamification that may potentially impact the CE experience.

The contribution of this paper is twofold. First and from a theoretical perspective, it offers both a conceptual foundation and empirical-based evaluation of CE and CEB through a gamified brand platform. Second and from a pragmatic perspective, the conceptual model derived from this research may aid practitioners in developing more robust gamified CE strategies.

The primary objective of this paper is to investigate the attitudes, feelings and perceptions of Australian consumers towards service frontline employees with accents that differ from Standard Australian English, taking into consideration service‐country image and customer emotions.

This paper reports on a qualitative study designed to uncover the attitudes and perceptions of Australians towards service personnel with foreign accents.

The findings revealed that hearing a service provider with a foreign accent, particularly in services encounters without face‐to‐face contacts, often evokes a negative predisposition to certain accents, reduces the customers' level of tolerance and increases the perception of the service provider's lack of understanding. This negative stereotype bias seems to be moderated by the accent (a proxy of ethnicity) and service‐country image and influenced by customer emotions in the service interaction.

Future studies could also use a controlled experimental design where accent could be used as a sensory cue to further test the validity and reliability of the current findings while controlling for factors such as ethnic background, employment, education and age. Further research should also take service types and service outcomes into consideration in examining the effect of accents on customer service evaluation.

Accent as a service employee attribute influences customers' evaluation of the service encounter because of the stereotype customers have. Training in language skills, cross‐cultural interpersonal skills and authority to deviate from the script should be given to minimise the negative effect of service employee accent. Service firms also need to develop strategies to manage customer emotions and reactions.

This paper contributes to the service literature about service employee attributes and is particularly relevant to economies such as the USA, Canada, the UK, New Zealand and Australia where immigrants are a large part of the service workforce.

This paper aims to review previous work in the domain of marketing accountability, an issue which has become of increasing concern to chief executive and financial officers. It principal purpose is to attempt an elementary epistemology, with a view to setting a research agenda for scholars in finance, microeconomics or marketing.

The paper consists of a relatively catholic literature review of the domain of marketing accountability, exploring its antecedents in related domains such as strategy and finance and then proposing a research agenda.

Much confusion exists in the literature about the dimensions of marketing accountability. This review specifies a researchable model of the domain of marketing and proposes three related areas – the micro‐promotional level, the strategic level and the financial, shareholder value added level and suggests an agenda for research for scholars.

Because of the enormous breadth of the related domains of strategy and finance, the author had to adopt a somewhat normative approach based on his own research outputs in order to make the literature review manageable. While the proposed research agenda is justified by the foregoing review, it is recognised that other models may well be possible.

There is a growing body of evidence, amounting to what might be described as a “clamour” from the world of practice for more structure and guidance in the relatively under‐researched domain of marketing accountability. This paper attempts to meet this challenge.

Much of the research emanating from the Cranfield Research Clubs is original, such as, for example, the model for marketing due diligence described in the paper.