Technology-Based Service Encounter—A Study of the Use of E-Mail as a Booking Tool in Hotels

Abstract

Highlighted in this paper, is the extent to which a technological interface that enables customers to produce a service outcome, independent of direct service-employee involvement, is used by hotels of various categories in France. Extant literature has, to date, devoted more attention to the use of interpersonal buyer-seller interactions in the process of creating service outcomes. This paper aims to fill this void by contributing to existing knowledge on customer interactions with technologybased self-service delivery options. An exhaustive sample of 240 hotels located across 120 cities in France constituted the empirical setting. A one-way ANOVA that tested differences between means was used to assess the impact of hotel category (independent variable) on response time (dependent variable) among hotels in France. The findings show that there is significant dissimilarity in responsiveness across the hotel categories. A major implication of these findings for management is that the speed with which enquiries from current and potential customers are responded to is most likely a prelude to providing good quality technology-based buyer-seller interactions to create positive service outcomes using the Internet/e-mail. Major concepts in customer relationship management include the response speed of firms to questions and problems during the service encounter. The main contribution of this study is that it builds on existing literature on interpersonal and technological interfaces.

A Study of the Relationship between Social Cognitive Factors and Career Choice Satisfaction in the Technology Career Path: A Gendered Perspective

“…In recent times, technology has become increasingly ubiquitous and pervasive in our lives. Technology has infiltrated every aspect of our lives, changing how we work, learn and shop (Osarenkhoe, Bennani, Komunda, Byarugaba, & Okoe, 2014; Paiva, Morais, Costa, & Pinheiro, 2016). Against this background, technology is one of the fields projected to develop the most in the future (Syed & Chemers, 2011).…”