Rhonda W. Mack

Believe it or not: Credibility of blogs in tourism

This study examines the use of blogs as a means of tourism marketing communication. Using a scenario-based approach, an online experiment was conducted to test whether consumers perceive corporate and personal blogs to be credible sources of information and to compare the perceived credibility of blogs to that of traditional word-of-mouth. The findings suggest that while consumers do not generally equate the overall credibility of blogs with that of traditional word-of-mouth, some consumers do appear to attribute similar levels of authoritativeness, a dimension of credibility, to them.

Perceptions, corrections and defections : implications for service recovery in the restaurant industry.

Focusing on service failures can assist organizations in improving service quality and improving long‐term customer retention. This study examined consumer perceptions of their personal service failures experienced in the restaurant industry. While the study found a large percentage of the respondents to be very “forgiving” with respect to returning to the restaurant where they had experienced a failure, the data also indicate that those less likely to return had, in fact, perceived the failure as major and had judged the method the restaurant used to recover the failure as not very good. Implications are for identifying failure points in the service delivery process and identifying methods to prevent, as well as recover, these failures to prevent negative customer perceptions and the ensuing customer loss and potential negative word of mouth.

An Alternative Approach in Service Quality: An e-Banking Case Study

Todays consumers are increasingly rigorous in choosing products in terms of their demands and preferences. To be competitive, businesses must design services that do not just satisfy customers, they must also delight them. The quality of a product or service is judged ultimately in terms of perceived customer satisfaction and delight. Previous service quality researchers have successfully used SERVQUAL and other scales to measure and improve service quality in a variety of industries. While these approaches have successfully conveyed the quality philosophies of America and Europe, other countries have approached quality differently. Japanese quality systems such as Kansei engineering (KE) and quality function deployment (QFD), for example, are increasingly popular and offer an alternative way to incorporate the customers voice in the development and improvement of service quality systems. While traditionally used in manufacturing sectors, these approaches can also be applied successfully in service sectors. This study uses data from the National Bank of Spain (NBS) to demonstrate the KE and QFD procedures and show how the customers voice can be designed into its e-banking system.

Building an activity‐based costing hospital model using quality function deployment and benchmarking

Purpose – To use quality function deployment (QFD)/benchmarking for building an optimal activity‐based costing (ABC) model using baseline information from five different Spanish hospitals.Design/methodology/approach – The customer satisfaction benchmarking process in QFD is discussed along with the benefits of hierarchical benchmarks in specifying areas of strategic competition and the logically ensuing product/service strategic decision‐making requirements. A case study is presented to illustrate the use of two methodological approaches: benchmarking and QFD to obtain the final product of the paper: an optimal ABC.Findings – The resulting outcome from the QFD/benchmarking analysis is an ABC model, which has the customer expectations and the requirements that hospitals are looking for.Research limitations/implications – Future research can benefit from this research by expanding the scope from hospitals to other types of industries in order to comparatively analyze the applicability of the proposed tools,...

The Influence of Message Framing on Hotel Guests’ Linen-Reuse Intentions

Hotels have attempted numerous approaches to encourage guests to participate in linen-reuse programs. One of the most promising methods is to use appropriate message framing. A study of 427 travelers to Charleston, South Carolina, examined the participants’ opinion of how they would respond to various message frames. A comparison of the messages that are framed as gains versus those framed as losses found that the guests generally responded to a message framed as avoiding a loss, in this case, one that said “don’t miss out.” However, the study also found that mentioning the destination city by name effectively trumped the loss framing. Particularly for first-time travelers, specifically mentioning Charleston in the message increased the respondents’ opinion that they would be likely to participate in a linen-reuse program. The destination name had less effect for returning travelers, who did, however, respond to the “don’t miss out” message.

The Impact of Denying a Direct-to-Consumer Advertised Drug Request on the Patient/Physician Relationship

Using a scenario-based approach, an experiment is conducted to test whether the decision a physician makes to deny a prescription request (when a patient has requested a drug he or she has seen in a direct-to-consumer [DTC] ad) significantly impacts patient outcomes such as patient satisfaction and compliance intentions. The results suggest physicians can expect patient response to the denial of such a request to vary by the patients gender in addition to the criticality of the condition being treated. The results also suggest, when treating less critical conditions, a physician can mitigate the negative effects of a denial with relatively little additional effort.

Financial Intermediation in an African Setting: Performance Differences Between Domestic and Multinational Banks in Ghana

ABSTRACT This paper analyzes whether multinational, domestic national and domestic rural banks are perceived differently by consumers in a developing economy-Ghana. The paper investigates the critical determinants of consumer perceived product and service quality for each type of institution in the Ghana banking industry. The evidence shows variation in bank quality in the sense that multinational banks are perceived more positively than both types of domestic banks on the dimensions of transactional and relational customer service, but they are viewed more negatively for benefits advertised in promotions and interest rate on savings accounts. Unexpectantly, multinational banks have a competitive advantage with respect to both technology and human relationship management. Their competitive advantage enables multinational banks to pay lower interest rates on deposits.

Don't be one more logo on the back of the T-shirt: Optimizing sponsorship recall

ABSTRACT This article examines participant recall of a total of 87 sponsorships of a local running event over a 5-year period. Participant unaided recall was measured with an online survey administered shortly after the events. The study then used management interviews, event observation, and sponsorship data to provide an in-depth analysis of recall. The results indicate that sponsor engagement with event participants is the key factor in optimizing recall. Sponsors maximizing leveraging opportunities received much higher level of recall than those that did not. Lower level sponsors received almost no unaided recall except in specialized cases.

An examination of the impact of product and service quality perceptions on customer loyalty in rural banks in Ghana: the importance of social networks for nascent entrepreneurs

This study focuses on a national sample of customers who used commercial bank products/services in Ghana. The results demonstrate that social and cultural influences are important determinants of marketing practices of banking institutions in Ghana. Although, societal leaders are critical of the customer service and process components of bank products/services, these leaders encourage individuals to remain within the commercial banking system. Consumers who rely on these same societal leaders for financial advice remain with commercial banks for a longer period of time than other individuals who rely on surrogate advisors. Thus, in commercial bank relationships within Ghana, strategies should be tailored around instilling trust as reflected by the opinions of informal/formal societal leaders and family members. The results overall provide critical insight into how formal financial institutions may adapt their marketing practices in Ghana and other emerging African nations for long-term sustainability/customer retention.