Dan Jin

Date of Award

Spring 2021

Document Type

Open Access Dissertation

Department

School of Hotel, Restaurant and Tourism Management

First Advisor

Robin B. DiPietro

Abstract

Customer journey mapping is a marketing research tool that has increasingly captured marketers’ attention over the past decades by helping commercial businesses understand customers’ motivations and behaviors. Despite acknowledging the importance of customer experiences, previous literature has generally focused on the firm’s response (supply-side) to the customer. This often considers the service provider’s efforts in the production of goods and services using Goods-Dominant-Logic (GDL), and facilitation with the customer with Service-Dominant-Logic (SDL). However, supply-side logic has largely ignored the customer responses (demand-side) regarding the service operations that appear to be an important function in customer journey mapping. Customers’ demand-side logic determines how service firms can enhance customer experiences with Customer-Dominant-Logic (CDL), and shape unique experiences with Memory- Dominant-Logic (MDL). This insight can be utilized in uncovering how the customer experience could be improved so that the service can be enhanced. Although studies have discussed the importance of business logic and customers’ purchasing motivations behind visiting service businesses that adopt different business logic, it is still unclear how customer journey mapping might be applied to develop or refine the possibility of different business logic in terms of creating varied customer service outcomes.

The objective of this research is to investigate customer journey mapping that considers both the supply and demand side of business logic through the customer experience, specifically in service consumption and recovery stages. This research will

contribute to hospitality literature by empirically measuring customers’ affective (happiness, subjective well-being, customer-brand identification) and behavioral (positive referral, repatronage) outcomes, thus adding valuable insights into customer journey mapping. Guided by theories of cognitive dissonance theory, attribution theory, appraisal theory, role theory, expectancy-disconfirmation theory, and commitment-trust theory, a conceptual model was developed for testing variables that are helpful implications for identifying discrepancies that may exist between the perceptions of customers and those of service providers.

Overall, the results of this study indicate that the business ability of service organizations, particularly foodservice operations, should not be restricted by the type of business model or its pre-dominant service delivery methods. Along with this, the results indicate that customers’ value proposition and value formation can influence the overall customer service experience that can be formed in the customer journey mapping process. Further, results suggest that service providers' facilitation can yield a considerable range of emotional and physical inputs within their sphere to produce the facilitation depending on the corresponding business logic. Likewise, the voluntary customer role directly strengthens their service outcomes by supporting the ability of the service firm to deliver satisfactory service recovery. The study provides a discussion of improving the overall customer experience by mapping out the diverse customer journey through different service stages. Conclusions of the findings as they related to both theoretical and practical implications are discussed, along with future research opportunities.

Rights

© 2021, Dan Jin

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