Asia Marketing Journal

Korean Marketing Association (한국마케팅학회)
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The Impact of Servicescape on Customer Experience Quality through Employee-to-customer Interaction Quality and Peer-to-peer Interaction Quality in Hedonic Service Settings

  • Choi, Beomjoon (Department of Business Administration, California State University) ;
  • Kim, Hyun Sik (School of Business, Hallym University)
  • Received : 2015.04.22
  • Accepted : 2015.07.22
  • Published : 2015.07.31
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Abstract

This paper investigates how servicescape perception influences customer experience quality in hedonic service settings. In addition to the direct effect of servicescape quality on customer experience quality, the indirect effects of servicescape quality on customer experience quality via employee-to-customer interaction quality and peer-to-peer interaction quality are also investigated. We collected data through a self-administered survey. The proposed relationships were tested using structural equation modeling. The results show that servicescape quality influences customer experience quality both directly and indirectly through employee-to-customer interaction quality and peer-to-peer interaction quality, and customer experience quality influences customer loyalty. Additionally, we find that the indirect path via peer-to-peer interaction quality is significant only in a low-satisfaction customer group. The indirect effect of servicescape quality perception through peer-to-peer interaction quality is significant only in low-satisfaction customer groups. Therefore, if evaluations for this indirect effect fall below an acceptable level, it should be addressed first before improving on other attributes. However, after this point, further improvements offer few if any gains; therefore, service firms should allocate their resources to quality improvements to other factors. This study is the first to investigate the indirect effects of servicescape quality on customer experience quality via peer-to-peer interaction quality in hedonic service settings. Additionally, this study demonstrates that the significance of this indirect effect applies only to a low-satisfaction customer group.

Keywords

Acknowledgement

This research was supported by Hallym University Research Fund (HRF-201406-002).

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