Similarity over difference: How congruency in customer characteristics drives service experiences
Introduction
In 2019, the French restaurant Mirazur was awarded the title of the No.1 in the World's 50 Best Restaurants. Imagine you have an upcoming reservation at Mirazur and are excited to be celebrating a special occasion. When the time comes, you enter the restaurant and immediately experience highly personalized service, notice the architecturally designed space, and feel your senses aroused by the gourmet menu. During your dining experience, you notice other diners that are similar to you in terms of how they look, act, and express themselves. However, what if this was not the case? Imagine if the other diners looked, acted, or expressed themselves in a way that was noticeably different from you. How would you feel? And how would this impact your overall dining experience?
Service production, delivery, and consumption exists in an ecosystem of multiple actors – primarily customers, employees, and service providers – all of whom interact and influence the service experience (Alexander, Jaakkola, & Hollebeek, 2018; Dessart, Veloutsou, & Morgan-Thomas, 2015; Fehrer, Woratschek, Germelmann, & Brodie, 2018). The actors in these service encounters have interdependent roles and therefore interact in multiple co-existing processes (Vargo & Lusch, 2016). Within service ecosystems, customers have a critical role to play within the physical environment, including service processes, frontline employees, other customers, and possibly even technology (Patrício, Fisk, Falcão e Cunha, & Constantine, 2011). Despite their level of importance, little is known about how customers interact with such elements within a service encounter (Dessart et al., 2015; Rosenbaum & Massiah, 2011). Even less is known about the interactions between customers, or customer-to-customer (C2C) interactions. Specifically, how focal customers interact with fellow customers in service settings (Brocato, Voorhees, & Baker, 2012; Line, Hanks, & Kim, 2015; Tombs & McColl-Kennedy, 2003), despite such experiences typically occurring in the presence of other customers (Argo, Dahl, & Manchanda, 2005; Nicholls, 2005, Nicholls, 2010).
Given the shared nature of many service encounters, the characteristics of customers can be easily observed and compared by the provider and other customers. For example, well-managed customer characteristics can improve a focal customer's comfort (Lovelock, 1983). More specifically, the appearance (Kim & Lee, 2012; Thakor, Suri, & Saleh, 2008), emotions (Tombs & McColl-Kennedy, 2013), and behaviors (e.g. Grove & Fisk, 1997; Martin, 1996) of fellow customers can significantly impact a focal customer's service experience and responses (Uhrich & Benkenstein, 2012). However, empirical research on the effect of fellow customer characteristics on the focal customer's service experience is scarce (Brocato et al., 2012; Line et al., 2015), including examining isolated or limited characteristics (Choi & Mattila, 2016; Line et al., 2015; Tombs & McColl-Kennedy, 2013).
As such, many managers remain unaware of the specific customer characteristics that impact a customer's service experience, including how any negative effects can be managed and ultimately mitigated. As such, this study investigated how focal customers respond to a service encounter based on how similar or different they perceive fellow customer characteristics to be. More specifically, the effect of congruency in fellow customer appearance, behavior, and emotion on focal customer outcomes has been examined across two studies. This research builds on prior knowledge about the influence of fellow customers on focal customer outcomes (e.g. Grove & Fisk, 1997; Martin & Pranter, 1989; Moore, Moore, & Capella, 2005; Nicholls, 2010), shedding new light on congruency in customer characteristics, as well as the roles of status enhancement and consumption involvement.
The aim of this research is threefold. First, to examine the effects of congruency in fellow customer characteristics on focal customer outcomes; second, to examine the effects of congruency in relation to three separate characteristics (being fellow customer appearance, behavior and emotion) on focal customer outcomes; and third, to examine the moderating effects of consumption involvement and status enhancement on the relationship between congruency in customer characteristics and focal customer outcomes. The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. First, a review of relevant literature is presented. Next, the two studies are discussed, including the development of conceptual models to test the hypotheses. It concludes with a general discussion of this study's findings, as well as implications for theory and management, as well as limitations and thoughts for future research.
Section snippets
Conceptual development
It has long been acknowledged that customers are a salient component of the service environment (Cottrell, Wack, Sekerak, & Rittle, 1968; Kusluvan, Kusluvan, Ilhan, & Buyruk, 2010) and thereby impact on environmental quality (Baker, 1986; Tombs & McColl-Kennedy, 2003). Research within the social servicescape has drawn specific attention to the role of customers in shared service settings, including the effect they have on each other (Rosenbaum & Massiah, 2011; Tombs & McColl-Kennedy, 2003).
Study one
This study tested how congruency (versus incongruency) in customer characteristics (in terms of appearance, behavior, and emotion) impacts focal customer outcomes. It investigated these effects across two service settings that differed based on the level of consumption involvement: 1) high involvement (fine dining); and 2) low involvement (fast food). The food service sector was chosen as a relevant category where consumers can experience high or low involvement consumption settings. As such,
Study two
This study extends study one, by investigating the moderating effect of the focal customer's level of status enhancement. Specifically, it hypothesized that status enhancement moderates the relationship between congruency in customer characteristics and focal customer outcomes. As satisfaction has been known to vary based on mood and emotion (Holbrook & Gardner, 2000; Knowles, Grove, & Pickett, 1999), items were included to measure mood states using eight items representing pleasure and arousal
Discussion and conclusion
Given the shared and participatory nature of many service settings, the characteristics of customers can easily be observed and compared by the provider as well as customers. This research provides an important step towards helping service providers understand the effects of fellow customer characteristics on the focal customer's service experience and subsequent responses. Results from this research have shown that congruency in customer characteristics is an important part of the service
Acknowledgments
This research spanned several years and was initially conducted as part of a research student project by the first author at Monash University. Subsequent work and development of this manuscript was conducted by all three authors at Swinburne University of Technology. The authors thank staff from Monash University, in particular Professor Tracey Danaher, for assistance in the early stages of this research project. The research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the
July Nguyen is a Research Fellow at Swinburne Business School's Customer Experience & Insight (CXI) Research Group. July has comprehensive experience in researching, developing, and visually designing strategies aimed to improve human experiences across retail, entertainment, property, and food services.
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July Nguyen is a Research Fellow at Swinburne Business School's Customer Experience & Insight (CXI) Research Group. July has comprehensive experience in researching, developing, and visually designing strategies aimed to improve human experiences across retail, entertainment, property, and food services.
Carla Ferraro is a Senior Lecturer (Marketing) at Swinburne Business School and Retail and Consumer Behaviour Lead of the Customer Experience & Insight (CXI) Research Group. Carla's research has received a number of prestigious awards and is published in leading marketing journals.
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