Contactless service in hospitality: bridging customer equity, experience, delight, satisfaction, and trust

Abstract

Purpose Draws from the equity theory and customer equity literature, this study aims to argue that the implementation of contactless service as an innovative service design in the hospitality industry can generate customers’ emotional attachment and cognitive evaluation of the brand. Design/methodology/approach This study uses partial least squares modeling and data from a large-scale survey of hotel guests who have experienced contactless service in mainland China. The authors performed an importance-performance map analysis to evaluate the significance of critical variables and constructs by including the performance dimension. Findings Customer equity is a three-dimensional higher-order construct that embraces value-, brand- and relationship equity. A pleasant experience of contactless service in hospitality encounters generates a positive effect on customer equity and delight. Additionally, increased customer equity improves satisfaction and trust. Practical implications This study provides practical evidence for hospitality practitioners to consider contactless service in creating memorable experiences, improve customer satisfaction, build trust and add value to hospitality brands. Originality/value The findings of this study add to the understanding of emerging contactless services, contribute to the development of the equity theory and current customer equity literature and advance the implementation of innovative service design in hospitality.

Key factors driving customers’ restaurant dining behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic

“…dining environment, communication and hygiene and contactless features). Consistent with the findings of this study, Hao and Chon (2021) argued that implementing contactless features in the hospitality industry during the pandemic helped build a trustful relationship between customers and companies. And finally, to develop a holistic conceptual framework, this study incorporated two COVID-19-focused measurement items, perceived risk and support of the restaurant, to identify their moderating roles in the relationships among the five proposed measurement items (i.e.…”

“…Given that people are more likely to avoid direct contact in a service environment, the importance of the contactless feature in restaurants is increasing. Even before COVID-19, technology-based IJCHM 34,2 contactless functions have been widely used in many aspects of the restaurant industry, including operational and strategic management (Hao and Chon, 2021). Cavusoglu (2019) found that mobile payment, online ordering, barcode scanners and take-out/delivery systems were much less used compared to traditional front-of-house technology, such as a point-of-sale system.…”

“…Contactless features are becoming essential for restaurants in the current situation and bring out benefits of convenience and safety concern to customers. According to the study of Hao and Chon (2021), they argued that contactless services in the hospitality industry provided customers with greater emotional and cognitive benefits, which, in turn, affected satisfaction and trust. Thus, the following proposition has been derived: P3.…”

A hotel stay for a respite from work? Examining recovery experience, rumination and well-being among hotel and bed-and-breakfast guests

“…This research also attempted to measure the stress-recovery dimension of lodging experience, although other dimensions are mostly related to servicescape or customer interaction (Hao and Chon, 2021;Pelet et al, 2021). This may explain why lodging recovery experiences explained simply 8% of the variance with guest satisfaction, which is considered a limitation of the study.…”

Consumers’ perceived effectiveness of COVID-19 mitigation strategies in restaurants: What went well and what could we do better?

“…Second, a latent, single factor was added to the proposed model to calculate the most shared variance (i.e., covariance) explained by this single factor. Based on Hao and Chon’s (2021) study, the most shared variance explained by one factor should be less than 50%. Results show that this specific value for the current study is 29.38%, indicating a low risk of CMB ( Hao and Chon, 2021 ).…”