Tracey S. Dagger

A Hierarchical Model of Health Service Quality: Scale Development and Investigation of an Integrated Model

This research developed and empirically validated a multidimensional hierarchical scale for measuring health service quality and investigated the scales ability to predict important service outcomes, namely, service satisfaction and behavioral intentions. Data were collected from a qualitative study and three different field studies of health care patients in two different health care contexts: oncology clinics and a general medical practice. Service quality was found to conform to the structure of the hierarchical model in all three samples. The research identified nine subdimensions driving four primary dimensions, which in turn were found to drive service quality perceptions. The primary dimensions were interpersonal quality, technical quality, environment quality, and administrative quality. The subdimensions were interaction, relationship, outcome, expertise, atmosphere, tangibles, timeliness, operation, and support. The findings also support the hypothesis that service quality has a significant impact on service satisfaction and behavioral intentions and that service quality mediates the relationship between the dimensions and intentions.

Health Care Customer Value Cocreation Practice Styles

This article explores in-depth what health care customers actually do when they cocreate value. Combining previously published research with data collected from depth interviews, field observation, and focus groups, the authors identify distinct styles of health care customer value cocreation practice. Importantly, the authors show how customers can contribute to their own value creation through their own (self) activities in managing their health care. Building on past work in service-dominant (S-D) logic, consumer culture theory and social practice theory, the authors identify “roles,” “activities,” and “interactions” that underlie customer cocreation of value in health care. The authors uncover five groupings of customer value cocreation practices yielding a typology of practice styles and link these to quality of life. The practice styles are “team management,” “insular controlling,” “partnering,” “pragmatic adapting,” and “passive compliance.” Two in particular, team management and partnering, should be encouraged by managers as they tend to be associated with higher quality of life. The authors provide a health care Customer Value Cocreation Practice Styles (CVCPS) typology. The usefulness of the typology is demonstrated by showing links to quality of life and its potential application to other health care settings.

Does experience matter?: Differences in relationship benefits, satisfaction, trust, commitment and loyalty for novice and experienced service users

Purpose – Although customer relationships transpire through a process of time, encounters and experience, few studies have examined the dynamics of service relationships. This paper aims to address this issue by examining the effect of experience on the association between relational benefits and relationship quality, and between relationship quality and loyalty.Design/methodology/approach – Using a national sample of 376 service consumers and nine service industries, the study examines whether the impact of relationship benefits on perceptions of satisfaction, trust and commitment, and ultimately customer loyalty, differs significantly between novice and experienced customer cohorts.Findings – The results indicate significant differences between novice and experienced cohorts. Specifically, the impact of confidence, social and special treatment benefits on perceptions of satisfaction, trust and commitment, and ultimately customer loyalty, differ significantly based on a customers level of relationship e...

Service quality attribute weights: How do novice and longer-term customers construct service quality perceptions

Service experiences often unfold over a series of consumption episodes, yet customer perceptions of these experiences are often treated as static events. This prevents a good understanding of the impact of consumption stage on service perceptions. Prior research reveals little about the variation in the salience of service quality attributes between novice and longer-term customers, especially in terms of contribution to overall service quality perceptions or about the effect of service quality and service satisfaction on behavioral intentions across consumption stages. This study examines these issues using cohort analysis within the context of ongoing health care services. Results indicate that the contribution of attributes to overall service quality differs across novice and longer-term customer cohorts, as does the interrelationship of service quality, satisfaction, and behavioral intentions. These findings have important implications for managing service processes, improving service provider performance, and enhancing customer service.

The complexity of relationship marketing for service customers

Purpose – There are a number of assumptions inherent in relationship marketing, including claims that a relationship should be developed with all customers in all situations. This paper seeks to show that marketers should not automatically use relationship marketing techniques for all products and for all customers.Design/methodology/approach – This paper reports the results of an empirical survey of 287 consumers for five service products in which consumers were asked to assess the strength of the relationship between themselves and their supplier.Findings – Relationship strength was found to vary significantly between service products and individual customers, and the impact of duration of the relationship and the frequency of purchase on relationship strength depends greatly on the nature of the service product. It was also demonstrated that some customers want a closer relationship with service providers than other customers, and this aspect significantly affects the strength of relationship perceived...

Service Quality, Trust, Commitment and Service Differentiation in Business Relationships

Purpose – While service quality, trust and commitment are frequently cited as critical to achieving important firm outcomes, the role of service differentiation in this framework is largely unknown. Yet, differentiation is important because a firms distinctiveness is linked to client‐perceived value, competitive advantage, and a target market focus. Thus, the purpose of this study is to examine the role of service differentiation in business‐to‐business relationships.Design/methodology/approach – Hypotheses were tested using a sample of business clients from a large European financial services firm. The senior primary contact in each client firm was contacted by phone/e‐mail to arrange for completion of the survey. Using the survey instrument, respondents provided information on their relationship with the provider organization.Findings – Results indicated that service quality had an impact on trust, differentiation and relationship outcomes. Trust was found to drive service differentiation. Differentiat...

How Often Versus How Long The Interplay of Contact Frequency and Relationship Duration in Customer-Reported Service Relationship Strength

This study investigates the effects of customer contact frequency and relationship duration on customer-reported relationship strength (CRRS). We embed our analysis of these two relationship-quantity variables within a larger model that considers the effects of relationship-quality variables—commitment, trust and satisfaction—on CRRS. We additionally control for customer demographics and service type. Using a fully national sample of 591 service consumers, we find that both contact frequency and relationship duration have a positive effect on CRRS, and that duration moderates the effect of frequency. Specifically, we observe a relationship-maturity effect: for shorter-duration relationships, contact frequency enhances CRRS, but for longer-duration relationships, contact frequency has no effect on CRRS. Furthermore, employing an iso-contact analysis, we find that for relationships with about the same number of total contacts, those with longer duration are perceived to be stronger, while those with greater contact frequency are not.

The impact of service contact type and demographic characteristics on service quality perceptions

Purpose – This study aims to develop and test a service‐based demographic framework for studying service quality perceptions. Specifically, the effect of level of service contact and key demographic variables of age, gender and income on service quality perceptions is examined.Design/methodology/approach – A total of 224 customers of high‐ and low‐contact passenger transport services were surveyed using a self‐administered questionnaire.Findings – The findings indicated that service quality perceptions differed according to the level of contact inherent to the service. Consumer age was also found to affect service quality perceptions; however, no differences in service quality perceptions on the basis of gender or income were found.Research implications/limitations – The results of the study enhance the understanding of service quality perceptions and provide useful insight for the management and delivery of service quality. Overall, the results suggest that managers in the train travel industry need to t...

Comparing the Relative Effectiveness of Advertising Channels: A Case Study of a Multimedia Blitz Campaign

In this study, the authors develop an inexpensive method to help firms assess the relative effectiveness of multiple advertising media. Specifically, they use a firms loyalty program database to capture media exposure, through an online media survey, for all the media in which the firm advertises. In turn, the exposure data are matched with the purchase history for these same respondents, thereby creating single-source data. The authors illustrate their method for a large retailer that undertook a short-term promotional sale by advertising in television, radio, newspaper, magazine, online display ad, sponsored search, social media, catalog, direct mail, and e-mail channels. In this case, seven of the ten media significantly influence purchase outcomes. Finally, the authors demonstrate how to use their advertising response model to determine the optimal budget allocation across each advertising media channel.

Generating positive word‐of‐mouth in the service experience

Purpose – This paper seeks to investigate the effects of relationship benefits on relationship quality and aspects of service quality, namely technical and functional quality, and the subsequent influence on word‐of‐mouth behavior.Design/methodology/approach – The paper reports results from a structural equation model that utilizes data from 591 consumers across a range of services.Findings – The findings highlight the important role of relationship benefits in driving customer perceptions of technical, functional and relationship quality. While confidence, social and special treatment benefits drive technical and functional quality, it is only confidence benefits that drive relationship quality. Furthermore, it is found that functional and relationship quality drive word‐of‐mouth behavior.Research limitations/implications – The findings of this study contribute to the literature by showing the differential impact that relationship benefits have on quality – technical, functional, and relationship – and s...