Dorothea Schaffner

Customer service experiences

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop and apply the sequential incident laddering technique as a novel approach for measuring customer service experiences. The proposed approach aims to correspond with the concepts theoretical foundation in the extant literature.Design/methodology/approach – The paper applies the sequential incident laddering technique to measure customer service experiences. The technique integrates two well‐established methods in service marketing: sequential incident and laddering techniques. The data collected from 41 customers in a hotel and restaurant experience context illustrate that the method corresponds with the key themes of the proposed experience concept and experience formation process.Findings – Applying the proposed technique reveals first, the customers cognitive and emotional responses to company stimuli. Second, the salient customer cognitions and emotions across several episodes of the service interaction process are identified. Third, the personal value...

How to communicate sustainable tourism products to customers: results from a choice experiment

This multiphase and empirical study explores the best communication style for reaching different international tourism markets and provides an understanding of how purchase decisions could be better influenced in travel brochures. A pre-test experiment evaluated the perceived emotionality and rationality of communication elements in a fictional travel brochure designed for a typical beach holiday but managed according to sustainability principles. In phase two, a choice experiment was conducted to test how Swiss, German, British and US travellers could be influenced by varying visual and textual communication elements in the fictional brochure (based on Mexico for US respondents and Menorca for all others). The choice experiment produced 3006 responses from an online survey in the four countries. Results confirm a general preference for emotionally laden communication styles for sustainable tourism products, while respondents were indifferent to the emotionality of standard product feature communications. Respondents did not show a preference for the inclusion of a graph explaining the products sustainability attributes.

Promoting biodiversity: do consumers prefer feelings, facts, advice or appeals?

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore consumers’ responses to emotional and normative communication in comparison with traditional informational campaigns promoting pro-environmental behavior in the context of biodiversity. By adopting the approach of likeability of the communication, the paper identifies which type of communication strategy is liked by consumers’ and which dimensions define likeability in the context of biodiversity. The goal is to improve the effectiveness of communication messages delivered by social marketers or public policy makers through a better understanding of consumers’ responses to different communication strategies. Design/methodology/approach – To investigate which communications strategies are perceived as likeable in the context of promoting biodiversity and to explore the dimensions that underlie likeability of the communication a qualitative study was conducted. First, the information design with the different communication strategies has been developed. Seco...

Do sustainability experienced travellers prefer a more rational communication of the sustainability of a tourism product

This study empirically examines, in four countries, which communication style (emotional or rational) is most appropriate for addressing sustainabilityexperienced travellers. There are only small differences compared to the average tourist. Rational communication elements, which explain the sustainability of the product, become more important for this specific customer group. However, most emotional communication elements are still more important in most countries, indicating that experienced tourists also process sustainability information in a heuristic way.

Psychological Antecedents of Smartphone Users’ Behaviour Along the Mobile Customer Journey

This paper analyses the effects of psychological antecedents of smartphone users’ behaviour along the mobile customer journey. Relevant psychological characteristics are derived from social cognitive theory, innovation diffusion theory, and empirical studies on mobile user behaviour. Based on a large-scale online survey of 1535 smartphone owners across all age brackets, this study finds that the psychological constructs smartphone self-efficacy, mobile-specific innovativeness, mobile users’ information privacy concerns, and personal attachment to smartphone significantly affect smartphone users’ behaviour along the mobile customer journey. However, the effect sizes of the individual antecedents vary by travel phase and specific behaviour in question. This has several implications for research and practice alike.

Gendersensitive Sprache in Unternehmenstexten

Zur Zeit laufen in Europa – wieder einmal – heftige Diskussionen uber Frauenquoten in Unternehmen. Wieso aber gibt es so wenig Frauen in den Chefsesseln? Genannt werden verschiedene Grunde, von biologischen Faktoren uber traditionelle Rollenbilder hin zur Koordination von Familienarbeit und Beruf. Aber auch die Sprache konnte eine Ursache sein: So ist der Chefsessel eben der Sessel des Chefs und nicht der Chefin. Die Sprache steht in Interaktion mit den genannten soziologischen, kulturellen, psychologischen aber auch wirtschaftlichen Grunden fur den Mangel an Frauen in hohen Positionen. Noch immer wird beispielsweise das Zielpublikum von Unternehmenstexten vorwiegend mit der mannlichen Form angesprochen. So werden in Geschaftsberichten „der Aktionar“ und „der Kunde“ adressiert, in Stellenanzeigen nach „Projektleitern“ und „Geschaftsfuhrern“ gesucht und in internen Rundschreiben das Wort an „den Mitarbeiter“ gerichtet.

Comparing Customer Experiences and Usage Intentions Regarding Peer-to-Peer Sharing Platforms with Conventional Online Booking Websites: The Role of Social, Hedonic, and Functional Values

The purpose of this paper is to better understand customer experiences and usage intentions regarding booking an accommodation through a peer-to-peer sharing platform as compared to customer experiences and usage intentions regarding conventional hotel booking platforms.

Zu viel Information, zu wenig Unterhaltung? – Wie man sein Zielpublikum dazu bringt, Marketingtexte für nachhaltige Produkte zu lesen

In verschiedenen Projekten zur verstandlichen Marketingkommunikation fur Stromprodukte aus erneuerbaren Energien kam zum Ausdruck, dass zwar ein grosses Interesse fur Umweltthemen vorhanden ist, dass die meisten Menschen aber extrem wenig Verarbeitungsmotivation fur Produktbroschuren mitbringen. Es besteht darum die Frage, wie diese Verarbeitungsmotivation mit der Verstandlichkeit von Texte zusammenhangt und wie sie mittels innovativer Kommunikationsstrategien (z.B. aus dem Bereich Storytelling und Gamification) gesteigert werden konnte.

Wahrnehmungswerte als Herausforderung für die Messung der Marketingproduktivität - Grenzen vorhandener Ansätze und Vorschlag eines Synthesemodells (2004)

Durch die wachsenden Marketingkosten wird der Druck auf Unternehmen, die Produktivitat ihrer Marketingausgaben zu messen, immer grosser. Hinzu kommt, dass die hohe Komplexitat der Wirkungszusammenhange eine valide Messung der Marketingproduktivitat erschwert. Der vorliegende Beitrag gibt einen Uberblick uber vorhandene Theorien und Modelle der Marketingproduktivitat und hebt die Beschrankungen der Modelle in der Wertmessung von Einflussgrossen des Kaufverhaltens hervor. Auf diesen Uberlegungen aufbauend, stellen die Autoren ein Synthesemodell vor, das finanzielle Wertgrossen fur Einflussfaktoren liefert und den geschaffenen Mehrwert von Marketingmassnahmen beziffert.

Planung der Produkteigenschaften

Produkteigenschaften sind zentral, da sie die Kaufentscheidung determinieren: Kunden erwerben jene Produkte, von denen sie sich eine Befriedigung ihrer Bedurfnisse versprechen. Die Nutzenevaluation der Individuen — d.h. die Abschatzung, ob und inwieweit ein Produkt die Bedurfnisse zu befriedigen vermag — erfolgt folgerichtig uber die Perzeption und Beurteilung dessen Eigenschaften (Herrmann und Huber 2000b).