Daniel J. Mount

The impact of selected customer characteristics and response time on E-complaint satisfaction and return intent

Customer service centers have become an important element in the complaint-handling process. In response to the changing needs of the Cyber customer, many hospitality companies have put the power to complain in the hands of their customers via e-mail complaints. The primary purpose of this study was to examine the impact of customers’ technology readiness or enthusiasm and response time on satisfaction with the complaint handling process and return intent. The data collection involved re-contacting hotel guests (n=446) who had lodged a complaint with the sponsoring hotel company via e-mail. Our findings indicate that satisfaction with the problem handling and repurchase intentions are directly related to the time taken to respond. Moreover, technology enthusiasts were more demanding of an immediate response than their counterparts, who tend to be less responsive to advances in information technology. Implications to electronic complaint management systems are briefly discussed.

The Relationship of Work-Family Conflicts and Family-Work Conflict to Job Satisfaction

The issue of work-family conflict has been receiving increased attention in research. This research extends the literature by applying emerging work-family conflict theory in the hospitality industry. The research was done in seven hotels with a primarily Hispanic (91%) workforce. It was found that, expectedly, work-to-family conflict issues were related to lower job satisfaction. It was also found, quite unexpectedly, that family-to-work conflict issues were related to a higher job satisfaction. It is hypothesized that for this group— primarily lower-income Hispanics, work can be seen as a release from family conflict issues.

A Factor-Analytic Study of Communication Satisfaction in the Lodging Industry

Communication, job satisfaction, and customer satisfaction have been popular topics in hospitality and business research. The most widely used business communication satisfaction questionnaire, the Communication Satisfaction Questionnaire (CSQ), has not been used in the hospitality industry. This article presents a factor-analytic study of the CSQ in a lodging setting. After the factor analysis, the article will then discuss the findings of communication satisfaction as they compare to findings in other business-related studies.

The Final Opportunity: The Effectiveness of a Customer Relations Call Center in Recovering Hotel Guests

This exploratory study examined the impact of call centers on the processes of handling customer complaints. The main objective was to examine how this “final opportunity” might influence guest return intentions and perceptions of the hotel chain. The results of a phone survey suggest that positive customer responses to call center interactions might depend on the complaint responses and the perceived resolution of complaints. Full reimbursement and partial compensation had a significant positive impact on the intent to return and on chain image measures. Moreover, referral associations such as the chain studied here might need to pay careful attention to the way in which lack of ability to fix the problem is communicated to the customer. Finally, in the minds of customers, unresolved complaints are easily equated with a failure in service recovery. These double failures to reestablish the company’s reliability tend to have a negative impact on the company’s image and customer behaviors.

An Examination of Job Satisfaction of General Managers Based on Hotel Size and Service Type

ABSTRACT Because of the flatter organizational structure and decentralized hierarchical configuration of limited-service and extended-stay hotels, managerial job responsibilities may differ between these types of hotels and their full-service counterparts. As job responsibilities vary, so too might approaches to ensuring job satisfaction. This study examined how hotel size and service type affect the job satisfaction of general managers. After hypotheses testing and an analysis of the item correlations, it was concluded that neither hotel size nor service type significantly impacted general manager job satisfaction and gender, age, educational level, and longevity in the hospitality industry or as a hotel manager all had minimal impact on job satisfaction.

Introducing the Relativity To Traditional Importance-Performance Analysis

The ability to identify critical operating issues has been a challenge for service organizations. Many approaches have utilized the combination of importance and performance scores. These approaches typically involve a direct question on the importance of, and performance on, various service attributes. The results are then separated into various classifications. There has been some debate about whether consumers can accurately indicate what is important in their evaluation of a service organization. Research in this area suggests using correlation or regression to identify relative importance of attributes. This research introduces the concept of relative importance to the traditional importance-performance analysis. Importance- performance classifications using both methods are discussed.

The impact of timelines on complaint satisfaction in the context of call-centers.

ABSTRACT The main goal of this study was to investigate the role of timeliness of response in driving satisfaction with complaint handling following a service failure. In addition, we examined the relationship between satisfaction with compliant handling and company image. Results show that, in the context of call-centers, both timeliness and problem resolution are important determinants of satisfaction with complaint handling and that satisfaction with problem handling was lower when the respondent perceived the delays in resolution as unnecessary. Companies should be actively managing the timeliness component of problem resolution rather than relying on a “one size fits all” time of response. Results also indicate that timeliness expectations vary by complaint type (reservations, accommodations, billing, service) which allows the opportunity to better manage timeliness issues when resolving problems.

Determination of Significant Issues

Abstract Assuring quality depends on the quality of information obtained in measurement efforts. One assessment technique that has been used in a variety of applications is importance-performance analysis (IPA). The final analysis of any traditional IPA is based on a subjective placement of classification dividers. As such, any recommendation from the use of traditional importance-performance analysis is subject to this often overlooked limitation. This research utilizes new developments concerning the components of IPA to present a quantitative method to analyze importance-performance data. Hypothetical data is presented to illustrate the method and results are discussed.

An empirical application of quantitative derived importance-performance analysis (QDIPA) for employee satisfaction.

ABSTRACT Importance-performance analysis (IPA) is a common analytical tool that has been used in a variety of applications. The method has been criticized for a number of reasons. Suggested alternative methods utilize the concept of derived importance (Oliver, 1997; Mount, 1997) and a quantitative interpretation of the traditionally visual results (Mount, 2000). This study illustrates how a method using both of the suggested alternatives is utilized to analyze employee satisfaction issues in a hotel.

A field investigation of the mediating effects of perceived fairness on the relationship between perceived control and consumer satisfaction.

This article reports the results of a field test of the effects of fairness and control on consumer satisfaction. Employing data collected through customer satisfaction surveys at an internationally reputed brand of hotels, strong support was found for the mediating role of fairness in the relationship between perceptions of control and satisfaction. This finding theoretically extends and reinforces previous research conducted using experimental methodology. The results of this study emphasize the need to take into account both perceived fairness and perceived control in explaining consumer satisfaction. Managerial and theoretical implications are discussed.