Christo Boshoff

Recovsat An Instrument to Measure Satisfaction with Transaction-Specific Service Recovery

Persistent poor service delivery will have a harmful impact on the survival and growth prospects of service firms. If service failures occur, the literature contends, there are tactics and strategies service firms can employ to return customers to a state of satisfaction. However, no attempt has as yet been made to assess how satisfied customers are after service firms have tried to recover from service failures. The purpose of this study is, first, to identify the dimensions of transaction-specific service recovery satisfaction by analyzing consumer expectations and, second, to develop a validated measuring instrument to measure satisfaction with transaction-specific service recovery based on those dimensions. The evidence of validity (convergent, discriminant, and nomological) and reliability reported here confirms the construct validity of the 17-item RECOVSAT instrument to measure satisfaction with transaction-specific service recovery.Persistent poor service delivery will have a harmful impact on the survival and growth prospects of service firms. If service failures occur, the literature contends, there are tactics and strategies service firms can employ to return customers to a state of satisfaction. However, no attempt has as yet been made to assess how satisfied customers are after service firms have tried to recover from service failures. The purpose of this study is, first, to identify the dimensions of transaction-specific service recovery satisfaction by analyzing consumer expectations and, second, to develop a validated measuring instrument to measure satisfaction with transaction-specific service recovery based on those dimensions. The evidence of validity (convergent, discriminant, and nomological) and reliability reported here confirms the construct validity of the 17-item RECOVSAT instrument to measure satisfaction with transaction-specific service recovery.

Service Advertising An Exploratory Study of Risk Perceptions

Against the background of the challenge service marketers face in influencing the risk perceptions of potential services buyers, this study attempts to assess the impact three independent variables can have on potential service buyers’risk perceptions, namely, providing general service information, providing price information, and providing a service guarantee in a printed advertisement. The empirical study was of an experimental nature and used a 3 3 2 factorial design to assess the impact of different mock advertisements on risk perceptions. The empirical results indicate that all three of the independent variables (providing general service information, providing price information, and providing a service guarantee) in any combination (the two-way interactions) exert a significant influence on risk perceptions. Another important finding is that a conditional service guarantee has a significant impact on risk perceptions but that an unconditional service guarantee does not significantly decrease risk perceptions beyond what a conditional guarantee does.

The antecedents of relationship commitment in the management of relationships in business-to-business (B2B) financial services

The importance of commitment in the management of long-term marketing relationships is well accepted in the marketing literature. There is, however, uncertainty regarding the antecedents of relationship commitment. The study on which this paper is based focused on four possible antecedents of relationship commitment, namely trust, communication, shared values and attractiveness of alternatives. The study was conducted in the South African business-to-business (B2B) financial services industry. A web-based approach was used to survey 300 relationship managers, while data from 400 B2B clients were collected using a telephone survey. The relationship-manager data were analysed with regression analysis, while structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to analyse the client data. The uniqueness of the study is the simultaneous consideration of the perceptions of both relationship managers and clients. As far as could be ascertained, a study of this nature has not yet been conducted in the B2B financial services industry. Based on the perceptions of both relationship managers and clients, the contribution of this study is the confirmation of the important roles of trust, communication, shared values and attractiveness of alternatives in the management of commitment to a relationship from both a customer and a provider perspective.

A Neurophysiological Assessment of Consumers’ Emotional Responses to Service Recovery Behaviors: The Impact of Ethnic Group and Gender Similarity

Service marketers are particularly interested in consumers’ emotional response to service failure and recovery. However, efforts to measure emotional responses in these types of situations by means of post-encounter, self-report measures are far from satisfactory. In this study a neurophysiological approach is used to measure consumers’ emotional responses during a service encounter. This approach enables one to assess the impact that the physical features (ethnicity and gender) of service providers can have on consumers’ emotional responses to service recovery efforts throughout an entire service recovery interaction. It emerges that consumer responses to service recovery are characterized by both neutral (not statistically different from the baseline) and negative emotional responses as the service encounter unfolds. Individuals with high similarity to the service provider (in terms of gender and ethnicity) exhibit significantly more negative emotional responses than those with low similarity. However traditional measures of post-encounter satisfaction show no differences between high similarity and low similarity and consumers report fairly positive evaluations of the encounter. This discrepancy suggests that, in a situation where social desirability bias may play a role, consumers may exhibit negative emotional responses but may not report these negative responses. The results suggest a need to reconsider social identity theory and similarity-attraction theory in a service recovery situation because physical similarity between service provider and customer leads to significant negative emotional responses. Managerially, frontline service employees should be trained to ensure adequate sensitivity to potentially negative responses when the complainant is of the same gender and ethnicity as the service provider.

The Role of Selected Team Design Elements in Successful Sibling Teams

For any team to function effectively, several basic elements need to be present. The extent to which these elements are present increases the chances of a successful team outcome. Since a family business can be viewed as a type of team, the literature on how to design effective teams is also relevant to business families. The primary objectives of this study are to identify the team design elements commonly referred to in the family business literature and to empirically test their influence on the effectiveness of South African sibling teams in family businesses. The empirical findings of this preliminary study show that physical resources, skills diversity, and strategic leadership are important determinants of sibling team success whereas role clarity and competence are not.

The Antecedents of Trust in Business-to-Business Financial Services

Purpose: To explore how satisfaction, communication, customization, competence, and shared values (as antecedents) influence trust in B2B financial services relationships, and to assist decision makers in this industry to manage long-term relationships with their clients. Methodology/approach: Based on a literature review, five hypotheses were developed. The hypotheses were addressed by empirically evaluating a theoretical model based on data from both relationship managers and the clients of a leading South African B2B financial services provider. Regression analysis was used to assess the relationships in the relationship-manager sample, while structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to assess the relationships in the client sample. Findings: In the relationship-manager sample, satisfaction, competence, and shared values were found to be significant predictors of trust. However, in the client sample, all five of the hypothesized antecedents were found to contribute significantly to trust. Originality/value/contribution: The major contribution of this study, for both marketing academics and practitioners, lies in the simultaneous consideration of the perceptions of both financial services providers as well as their clients. As far as it could be ascertained, this combination of both exchange partners (service providers and clients) in a single study has not been reported in a financial services context.

Measuring Consumer Ethnocentrism in a Developing Context: An Assessment of the Reliability, Validity and Dimensionality of the CETSCALE

Research in the field of international marketing has identified consumer ethnocentrism as a possible reason why consumers would buy domestic rather than imported products. Consumer ethnocentrism implies that consumers may regard the purchase of foreign products as “wrong,” as it might harm the domestic economy and result in job losses in industries that compete with imports. Consumer ethnocentrism and the measurement thereof has been actively researched in many, especially developed, countries but there is a dearth of knowledge about the impact of consumer ethnocentrism in developing countries. This study was conducted in response to calls by several researchers to investigate the validity, reliability, and dimensionality of the CETSCALE, a scale to measure consumer ethnocentrism, in developing markets. An original contribution of this study is that two subsamples, namely a sample of white and a sample of black South African respondents were surveyed to account for the ethnic diversity in South Africa. Results indicate that, as has been found for two other African countries (Mozambique and Ghana), the CETSCALE should be regarded as a multi-dimensional measuring instrument for South Africa.

An instrument to measure the customer-based corporate reputation of large service organizations

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to develop a valid and reliable instrument to measure the corporate reputation of large service organizations. The validity of a discipline’s constructs is a prerequisite for effective theory development and testing. Construct validity thus lies at the very heart of both decision-making and scientific progress in marketing. The use of marketing instruments that do not demonstrate sufficient evidence of construct validity can lead to invalid results, erroneous conclusions and poor decision-making. Despite several attempts to develop an instrument to measure the corporate reputation of service organizations effectively, lingering doubts remain about the construct validity of several published instruments. Design/methodology/approach – Empirical data were collected from the clients of service organization using an online survey during three waves of data collection and scale purification. Invariance testing in two different service industries confirmed that the final in...

Development of application-based mobile-service trust and online trust transfer: an elaboration likelihood model perspective

ABSTRACT Many firms are developing application-based mobile services (ABMS) as a complementary channel to their online service. Although perceptions of the ABMS determine trust in the ABMS, trust transfer from the online channel plays a role in the formation of ABMS trust. Applying the elaboration likelihood model (ELM) to the study, two objectives were pursued: (1) to investigate the role different influence processes play in the formation of ABMS trust and (2) to assess whether the effects of these influences vary across users, and if so, how. Data collected from 344 users of the online services of a price-comparison service also offering an ABMS were analysed. Based on the ELM, central and peripheral routes of information processing were identified in the formation of ABMS trust. The central routes of information processing that play a role are the influence of online-service trust and ABMS perceived usefulness on ABMS trust, while the influence of ABMS perceived ease-of-use on ABMS trust emerged as a peripheral cue. Furthermore, online-service trust is also a peripheral cue for ABMS perceived ease-of-use. Other theoretical contributions offered by this study are findings that show that ABMS self-efficacy and online-service use influence information processing, but use different ELM routes.

The role of trust in relationship marketing in business-to business financial services

The role of trust on the intention to stay in a relationship is investigated. Communication, satisfaction, customisation and competence as antecedents of trust are investigated; and trust on a party’s intention to stay in a relationship. The study confirms the important roles of satisfaction and trust on intention to stay.