Allard Van Riel

Consumer Evaluations of Service Brand Extensions

Branding decisions are becoming increasingly important in services, but little service-specific research has focused on this domain so far. This is surprising, as the service industry accounts for an ever-growing share of the global economy, whereas service aspects have become increasingly important for all goods. Marketing managers may want to capitalize on previously acquired brand equity by extending a reputable brand to a new category. Little is known, however, about the extent to which consumerbased brand equity transfers to unrelated categories in a services context. The authors have replicated Aaker and Keller’s (1990) study and extended it to the services domain. Our data set provides evidence that in a services context, consumers use complementarity to the original category as a major cue to evaluate extensions. As a consequence, brand extension strategies could probably be used most successfully in cases where a significant similarity in service delivery processes exists.

Technology‐based service proposal screening and decision‐making effectiveness

Purpose – Decision‐making in early stages of technology‐based service (TBS) innovation projects proves to be challenging. Current failure rates in service innovation are high, while the investments in innovation projects are substantial. Research suggests that enhancing decision‐making in the screening stage could substantially increase success rates. By investigating the screening decision process from an information processing perspective, this article aims to identify antecedents of effective TBS screening decision‐making, and could thus help companies to enhance their decision‐making and reduce innovation project failure rates.Design/methodology/approach – Reviewing literature regarding service innovation, new product screening and decision‐making under uncertainty, we identify antecedents of decision‐making effectiveness in the TBS screening stage. Hypotheses are developed and tested with data from 251 TBS innovation projects.Findings – The study demonstrates the importance of decision‐making team co...

Boost customer loyalty with online support: the case of mobile telecoms providers

The paper explores the effect of customer satisfaction with online supporting services on loyalty to providers of an offline core service. Supporting services are provided to customers before, during or after the purchase of a tangible or intangible core product, and have the purpose of enhancing or facilitating the use of this product. The Internet has the potential to dominate all other marketing channels when it comes to the interactive and personalized communication that is considered quintessential for supporting services. Our study shows that the quality of online supporting services powerfully affects satisfaction with the provider and customer loyalty through its effect on online value and enjoyment. Managerial implications are provided.

Brand Equity and Shareholder Value

It is often assumed that brands represent an asset, as well as a source of current and future earnings and cash flows for a firm. As such, the value of the brand, or brand equity, should manifest itself in the market value of the firm and thus have an impact on shareholder value. Yet, almost no research exists that has empirically investigated this relationship between brand value and shareholder value. In the present study, brand equity is measured for 43 Dutch corporate brands using the Brand Asset Valuator® for the years 1993 and 1997. Directional changes within the BAV Power Grid, measuring Brand Strength and Brand Stature, are statistically compared with directional changes in shareholder value between 1993 and 1997. Three different measures for determining shareholder value are used: Total Shareholder Return, Earnings per Share, and the Market-to-Book ratio. Various indications are found that confirm the expected relationships, but a clear need is observed to develop reliable and valid indicators for shareholder value. Some managerial implications, limitations of the study and directions for future research are discussed.

Effects of perceived employee emotional competence on customer satisfaction and loyalty: The mediating role of rapport

Purpose – During service encounters, it has been suggested that emotionally competent employees are likely to succeed in building rapport with their customers, which in turn often leads to customer satisfaction and loyalty. However, these relationships have not been empirically examined. The purpose of the present study is to investigate the effects of customer perceived employee emotional competence (EEC) on satisfaction and loyalty. The paper also examines how and to what extent rapport mediates these effects.Design/methodology/approach – Drawing on the theory of affect‐as‐information, suggesting that emotions inform human behavior, the paper develops a structural model and tests it on a sample of 247 customers in a personal service setting.Findings – Customer perceptions of EEC positively influence customer satisfaction and loyalty. Rapport partially mediates both effects.Practical implications – The extent to which customers perceive employees as emotionally competent is related to the development of ...

CUSTOMER SATISFACTION WITH E-SERVICES: THE CASE OF AN ONLINE RECRUITMENT PORTAL

In this contribution we aim to present a state of the art review of academic literature on e-service quality and customer satisfaction with online services. We illustrate some of the research issues by means of a presentation of an empirical study, performed with respect to an online job-search service, or so-called job board. In addition we develop a number of suggestions for further research.

Consumer perceptions of service constellations: implications for service innovation

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the service constellation perspective affects innovation strategies and potentially contributes to the innovation literature, proposing a research agenda.Design/methodology/approach – By analyzing the notion of a service constellation, the authors provide an overview of major implications for service innovation research and practice.Findings – Firms and service innovation researchers need to focus on the perceived consumer value of the constellation rather than on individual services. The authors illustrate how service innovation from the constellation perspective requires coordination and synchronization between projects and different approaches to portfolio management and screening.Originality/value – Adoption of the service constellation perspective creates new opportunities.

Associative Networks: A New Approach to Market Segmentation

This paper aims to expand the domain of brand image perception measurement by providing a method for eliciting brand associative networks and comparing it with traditional brand image measurement methods. This paper then argues that these networks may differ from one individual to another, depending on the cultural background and/or the experience with the brand. Accordingly, the authors introduce a methodology of clustering consumers with similar perceptions into distinct segments, which can be targeted differently. Using picture analysis and metaphor-based elicitation techniques, Liptons Ice Tea brand associations are extracted and utilised as an input for the creation of 160 individual associative networks. These networks are first aggregated to measure the brand reputation and subsequently clustered into six segments. This paper provides clear arguments for using associative networks as the preferred method to capture the complete brand image. The paper discusses implications of perceptual segmentation for image management, brand positioning, perceptual competition analysis and brand communication.

Employee Emotional Competence: Construct Conceptualization and Validation of a Customer-Based Measure

Customers often experience intense emotions during service encounters. Their perceptions of how well contact employees demonstrate emotional competence in emotionally charged service encounters can affect their service evaluations and loyalty intentions. Previous studies examining employees’ potential to behave in emotionally competent ways (i.e., employee emotional intelligence [EEI]) have used self- or supervisor-reported scales to predict customer outcomes, presenting EEI as stable and independent of the context. However, service firms should be more concerned with the actual display of emotionally competent behaviors by employees (employee emotional competence [EEC]), because employee behaviors vary across encounters. Moreover, a customer perspective of EEC is useful, as customer perceptions of employee performance are crucial predictors of satisfaction and loyalty. Therefore, this study proposes a conceptualization and operationalization of EEC in a service encounter context. On the basis of a comprehensive literature review and in-depth interviews, the authors develop a scale to capture customer-perceived EEC, defined as an employee’s competence in perceiving, understanding, and regulating customer emotions during a discrete service encounter. The scale achieves good reliability and validity. Researchers can use it to explore the role of EEC in service contexts, and managers can employ the scale to diagnose EEC and improve the customers’ service encounter experiences.

Introduction to the special issue on service innovation management

Purpose – This paper introduces the special issue on service innovation management.Design/methodology/approach – Provides a brief review of the papers within the issue.Findings – Compares and contextualizes the contributions, finding that the papers use state of the art methodologies and each furthers knowledge of service innovation management – a recently emerged academic discipline.Originality/value – The perspectives considered represents a small sample of the diversity that exists within this area.