Quality in bank service encounters: Assessing the equivalence of customers’ and front-line employees’ perceptions

Purpose: The paper discusses the need to evaluate perception-based quality in service encounters. It sets out to diagnose potential mismatches in how customers and front-line employees perceive quality in high involvement service settings, based on the premise that any initiatives towards quality enhancement in service encounters is advisable only when employees and customers evaluate quality utilizing common perceptual structures. Design/methodology/approach: The study utilizes invariance analysis. The survey involved 165 bank branches and 1522 respondents (463 front-line employees and 1059 customers) and operationalized the same set of questions for both groups of participants. Multisample Confirmatory Factor Analysis tested a series of measurement models. Findings: Results revealed equivalence for tangibles, responsiveness, and assurance but also mismatches between customers and front-line employees perceptions of reliability and empathy. Practical implications: Findings add to current knowledge of how both groups of participants evaluate quality in service encounters and are discussed with reference to managerial consequences for perception-based quality mismatches. Originality/value: So far only a few studies have simultaneously examined front-line employees’ and customers’ perceptions of service quality in service encounters. Unlike previous research designs, this study addresses the critical aspect of potential mismatches in how customers and employees perceive service quality, and presents a methodological procedure to detect them

Sensory marketing and branding: exploring the power of the senses: a review.

Διπλωματική εργασία--Πανεπιστήμιο Μακεδονίας, Θεσσαλονίκη, 2013.The marketplace of today has undergone a significant change, where from selling and promoting products and services market has gone to selling and enticing consumers through experiences. Consumers are spending more time making decisions about what to consume and the number of products to choose from, has increased tremendously, making it harder and more-time consuming to decide what products to buy. The human senses have been identified as important factors in consumer behavior, where they have been acknowledged as powerful cues influencing our emotions, perception and purchase behavior. The main purpose of this review is to explore the potential of sensory marketing and its effects on consumers and branding. Furthermore, to highlight the power of human senses and how they are stimulated by marketing aspects and using real and successful examples, to provide deeper insights in sensory marketing and brand. In order to meet the purpose of the current review, the author employed a qualitative content analysis methodology. The review unfolded first by searching top-ranking journals in the area of marketing, and second by searching sciences books for successful examples of sensory marketing practices. The significance of the human senses, relating to seeing, hearing, smelling, touching and tasting was justified through a critical review of literature and the incorporation of several applications. In building the argument, given that individuals perceive and experience goods and services as brands, image contribute to brands’ success and competitive power by providing the opportunity to create and deliver meaningful, powerful, and memorable experiences