Interpersonal Relationship, Service Quality, Seller Expertise: How Important Are They to Adolescent Consumers?

Abstract

Drawing upon social capital theory and psychosocial development theory, this paper argues that a true buyer–seller relationship is a key determinant of favorable consumer behaviors for adolescent consumers of hairstylist services. Other important determinants include quality of the service delivery process (i.e., service quality as measured by the five SERVQUAL factors) and quality of the core service (in this case, the hairstylist's expertise). A survey of 350 adolescent consumers confirms these predictions. It shows that a true interpersonal relationship negatively moderates the positive effects of service quality on consumer satisfaction with, and overall assessment of the hairstylist. This negative moderating effect is labeled resource substitution benefit and the argument made that this is the fourth social capital benefit. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

The Importance of Relationship Officers in Banks’ Service Marketing

“…Anecdote suggests that customers owe their fidelity to RO as their involvement in resolution of service quality breaches usually reduces the pressure piled by disenchanted customers on the bank. This position is supported by research evidence that indicates that relationship quality negatively mediates service quality (Wan, et al, 2012). Service quality relates to the minimum core service provided by the service platform of the bank.…”

“…To strengthen relationship quality, RO invest time, energy, and resources in developing, horning and sustaining interpersonal relationships with the customers nesting on mutual disclosure, friendship, and common social identity (Wan, Luk, Fam, Wu & Chow, 2012). The assurance of a sound relationship quality with the customer feeds brand loyalty (Avery, Fournier & Wittenbraker, 2014; Crosby, 1990;Huang, 2013).…”

“…In a relationship, customers often develop personal closeness and bond with the RO, close only to family members (Athanasopoulou, 2009). Interpersonal interactions, information sharing, and common social identify, develop out of the relationship building process that elevates the otherwise business ties between the customers and RO to a level of personal friendship and bond (Wan, et al, 2012). The close relationship culminates into customer loyalty and superior returns for the bank.…”

Signaling effects and the role of culture: movies in international auxiliary channels

“…Although the optimal distinctiveness theory suggests that consumers sometimes search for uniqueness rather than assimilation in products to reflect one's multiple social identity (Brewer, 2003), such desire for uniqueness can be satisfied by available select criteria of movies such as genre and starring (Chan et al, 2012). More importantly, culture influences the value perceptions of products and daily routines of consumers (Soares et al, 2007), so closer cultural distance facilitates the interpersonal bonding and trust between consumers from different nations (Wan et al, 2012). Therefore, close distance increases the chance that marketing signals in the home country being followed and trusted by the consumers in host nations.…”

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

“…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] . Bove and Johnson(2001) examine the service literature for the use of constructs of relationship closeness, quality, and/or strength when the construct in question refers to a customer's relationship with service worker [11] .…”