Journal of Service Research

This study examines the influence of intellectual capital on performance in customer service firms pursuing different strategic orientations (e.g., low-cost leader, differentiation). Grounding these arguments in the resource-based view and using 538 hotels in the lodging industry, this article employs an economic-based production model to empirically explore the performance effects of investing in three different types of intellectual capital: systems capital (operational knowledge), customer capital (brand and marketing knowledge), and human capital (knowledge from both service and professional employees). In addition, the authors account for key controls, including the physical asset, cost of living, customer demand, market segment, and company affiliation. Results reveal that for firms pursuing a differentiation strategy only, investments in both service employees and professional employees enhance performance. However, investments in systems capital and customer capital enhance performance for all the firms studied. The authors discuss the implications of this study for research in the services arena.

This article introduces the Service Experience Blueprint (SEB), a multidisciplinary method for designing multi-interface service experiences, and illustrates its application with two case examples of the redesign of the service experiences of a multichannel bank. The SEB method starts by studying the customer service experience to understand customer experience requirements for different service activities and how these requirements can be satisfied through alternative service interfaces. Based on this analysis, the multi-interface service is designed to allocate service activities to the interfaces best suited to provide the desired experience, defining channel specialization and integration. Finally, with the SEB method each service interface is designed to best leverage its unique capabilities and guide customers to other service interfaces whenever that interface better enhances the overall customer experience. By incorporating the contributions of service management, interaction design, and software engineering, the SEB method is a multidisciplinary tool and terminology for service design.

This article examines whether restaurant reservations should be locked to specific tables at the time the reservation is made or whether the reservations should be pooled and assigned to tables in real time. In two motivating studies, the authors find that there is a lack of consensus in the restaurant industry on handling reservations. Contrary to what might be expected based on research that shows the benefits of resource pooling in other contexts, a survey of 425 restaurants indicated that more than 80% lock reservations to tables. In two simulation studies, the authors determine that pooling reservations enables a 15-minute reduction in table turn times more than 15% of the time, which consequently increases service efficiency and enables a restaurant to serve more customers during peak periods. Pooling had the most consistent advantage with higher customer service levels, larger restaurants, customers who arrive late, and larger variation in customer arrival time.

This research examines the factors driving consumer dis(satisfaction) in the online service environment. Using a critical incident technique and content analysis, the authors identify the critical drivers reported by consumers to produce particularly satisfactory or dissatisfactory online service encounters. Using 616 surveys and 1,183 observations, the authors first classify and then compare reported drivers across outcomes (dissatisfaction vs. satisfaction) and three industry groups (hard goods, soft goods, and services). Classifications are also compared with several important service-quality scales and other literature on the topic in order to compare the findings and to develop an overall framework. The results address how satisfiers and dissatisfiers vary both overall and across industry classifications, providing an assessment of the differences between the factors producing online success versus those preventing failure. The authors conclude with implications for online retailers and directions for future research.

The “service-dominant logic” focuses on the firm and the customer cocreating value, as defined by the customer. Achieving this orientation requires firms to understand which components of the service concept are most important to different subsets of customers. However, research on the relative importance to customers of core and peripheral service components has produced mixed results. Using data from the U.S. airline industry, the fact that the relative influence on customer satisfaction of core (e.g., operational performance) and peripheral (e.g., service interactions and physical setting) service components is moderated by customer characteristics is demonstrated. Consistent with Vargo and Lusch's premises that “the customer is always a co-creator of value” and that value is “uniquely and phenomenologically determined by the beneficiary,” the conclusion that a parsimonious model of customer satisfaction demands consideration of both the service concept and customer characteristics is reached.

Researchers have argued that consumers frequently view marketing efforts as intrusive and that they fail to exhibit either trust or commitment. However, studies have found that some customers develop strong emotional relationships with firms, often independently of firm-driven relationship-building efforts. These confusing findings indicate that there is a need for additional research to explore the dynamics underlying service firm—customer relationships. The aim of this study is to elucidate customers' conception and manifestation of their relationships with service firms. Therefore, the objectives are to uncover the extent to which various types of customers exhibit relational links with service firms and to generate insights into the manner in which such identification is manifested. After a review of recent studies into relationship marketing, the authors present and explain the research design and method. Then, the authors present the findings that emerged during the focus groups and in-depth interviews with soccer supporters.