Ability of Experience Design Elements to Elicit Emotions and Loyalty Behaviors

Abstract

Experience design, an approach to create emotional connection with guests or customers through careful planning of tangible and intangible service elements, has gained popularity in many hospitality and retail businesses. With ever-increasing competition, service providers seek to develop loyalty by aggressively designing, continuously innovating, and managing their customer experiences. This article explores the relationship between different service elements designed to create enhanced experience and customer loyalty. In addition, it looks at emotional responses as mediating factors between the physical and relational elements and loyalty behaviors. A model is proposed and tested with a VIP hospitality tent for an internationally renowned touring circus. Results of the study indicate that while a few design elements directly affect loyalty behavior, the relationship between most design elements and loyalty behavior is strongly mediated by eliciting certain types of emotional behavior. This connection has implications for the focus of service managers' efforts in different environments.

Understanding satisfying service encounters in retail banking - a dyadic perspective

“…Another important concept mentioned by both parties is the creation of rapport during the service encounter. The results from the employees' interviews corroborate previous research findings that rapport is an important antecedent for developing a relationship and can positively influence customer satisfaction, loyalty and word-of-mouth recommendation (Price and Arnould, 1999;Pullman and Gross, 2004). However, from the customers' point of view findings indicate that the establishment of rapport with employees is leading to the desired end states of feeling good and being happy.…”

“…The authors further argue that rapport includes feelings of care and friendliness and personal connections which can be created through psychological similarity or a genuine interest in the other party. Rapport is considered to be important for the development of relationships, and the creation of a successful relationship can positively influence customer satisfaction, loyalty and word-of mouth recommendation (Price and Arnould, 1999;Pullman and Gross, 2004).…”

“…It also shows that the relationship concept has not been considered as an important component from the customer point of view. Since relationships are positively related with customer satisfaction, loyalty and positive word-of-mouth (Price and Arnould, 1999;Pullman and Gross, 2004), employees need to foster relationship building with customers. However, employees have to consider that the creation of a relationship depends on both sides and implies the customer's willingness to open up and to share information.…”

A Visitor Experience Scale: Historic Sites and Museums

“…To exemplify how geographical consciousness affects tourist experience, Li (2000) conducted a phenomenological study of leisure tourism experience and found that geographical consciousness functions as a spatial and temporal link between tourists and destinations, and this link often leads to a process of knowledge acquiring and personal development during the tourists' visit to a destination. Pullman and Gross (2004) examined the causal relationship between design elements (food and beverage, layout and seating) and participants' emotion during a VIP circus event. They further demonstrate how the service elements can contribute to experience enhancement and customer loyalty.…”

Service interaction design: A Hawk-Dove game based approach to managing customer expectations for oligopoly service providers

“…Service providers can increase customer loyalty and thus profits by developing their capacity for experiential design (Pullman and Gross 2004). Interactions involved in service delivery are designed to create functional, purposeful, compelling, and memorable customer experiences (Meyer and Schwager 2007).…”