How do Service Encounters Impact on Relationship Benefits

Abstract

The literature has generally held that interpersonal-based service encounters strongly affect the relationship benefits, though technology-based service encounters are increasing importance. However, there has been no systematic comparison of the impact of two service encounters on relationship benefits. We test hypotheses about the respective effects of both service encounters on different relationship benefits in two services industries. The results provide support for the proposal model and indicate that there are higher special treatment benefits when the technology-based service encounter is higher. In addition, the interpersonal-based service encounter has significant positive effect on the confidence benefit. However, the technology-based service encounter leads to significant negative effect on the social benefit.

An integrative typology of relational benefits and costs in social media brand pages

“…Previous research has mainly focused on the relational benefits based on customer-brand relationships in traditional services (e.g. Chen and Hu, 2012;Wang and Hsu, 2012), and has almost neglected the prospect of relational benefits and costs derived from consumer-consumer and consumerbrand relationships in the SM context. Additionally, many businesses today fail to use SM brand pages effectively to accomplish marketing goals, mainly because they do not fully understand the mechanisms of consumers' participation in SM brand pages (Martins and Patricio, 2013), or are unable to successfully meet consumer benefit needs (Shang and Luo, 2016).…”

An Empirical Study on the Interpersonal Relationship between Customers and Staff in Professional Services in China

“…Under B2C, researchers pay more attention to the specific aspects of interpersonal relationship. Besides interpersonal relationship, they use commercial friendship, relationship component, individual relationship(tactics), and interpersonal-based service encounters to demonstrate its impact [8,9] . Wan et al (2012)developed a true interpersonal relationship scale, with mutual disclosure, friendship, and common social identity as the three components [10] .…”

An Investigation of Shared Value, Benefit, Commitment, Trust and Retention in the Banking Sector: A Student Perspective

“…Kim (2009) views relational benefit as reciprocal because in service provision, service providers gain by benefiting customers. Relational benefit can be in the form of special treatment, confidence benefit and social benefit (Wang & Hsu, 2012). In a special treatment benefit the service providers go out of their way to service customers, while in the confidence benefit situation, customers have trust in the service provider's ability to meet their expectations and the social benefits are realised because customers and service providers behave like friends as they have a lot in common (Wang & Hsu, 2012;Harrison et al, 2012).…”

“…Relational benefit can be in the form of special treatment, confidence benefit and social benefit (Wang & Hsu, 2012). In a special treatment benefit the service providers go out of their way to service customers, while in the confidence benefit situation, customers have trust in the service provider's ability to meet their expectations and the social benefits are realised because customers and service providers behave like friends as they have a lot in common (Wang & Hsu, 2012;Harrison et al, 2012). In a similar vein, Hur, Park and Kim (2010) categorised relational benefit into four groups which are functional benefit (practical benefit that relationship partners get), economic benefit (price incentives), experiential benefits (happiness that is derived from a relationship) and symbolic benefit (the enhancement of one's image as a result of a relationship with the service provider).…”

“…Therefore the activities of players in the banking sector should be directed towards enhancing long term relationships. To achieve this, banks need to ensure that their services benefit customers (Wang & Hsu, 2012), in order to enforce customer commitment to the relationship (Harrison, Beatty, Reynolds & Noble, 2012). This will ensure customer trust (Yang & Mossholder, 2010;Noor, 2012) and customer retention (Wang, 2008).…”