Understanding the Customer Experiences from the Perspective of Guests and Hotel Managers: Empirical Findings from Luxury Hotels in Istanbul, Turkey

Customer experience has been acknowledged as an important factor affecting positive customer behaviors such as loyalty and recommendation. The hospitality industry is also considered to be among the experience-intensive services. This study aims to explore hospitality experiences from guests' and managers' perspectives through a qualitative study. A total of 33 luxury hotel guests and 14 hospitality managers in Istanbul, Turkey, were interviewed to determine factors affecting guest experiences. The content was then analyzed according to two major factorsphysical environment and social interactionsunder which eight major categories were grouped. The findings imply that ambiance, space/function/amenities, design, and signs/symbols/artifacts may be considered main themes under the physical environment factor, whereas under the social interactions factor, the guests' experiences can be grouped under interactions with staff (professionalism, attentiveness/customization, attitude) and interactions with other guests. The results offer valuable insights to managers regarding dimensions of guest experiences and possible misperceptions. The study also suggests various implications and directions for future research

An experimental approach for investigating consumers evaluation of pharmacist consultation services

The goal of this study was to investigate factors that influence consumers’ perceptions of service encounter satisfaction, overall service quality, and trust in the service provider for pharmacist consultation services. We used the Dynamic Process Model of Service Quality as the framework for investigating the formation of these evaluations. Consumers’ prior expectations of what should and will transpire during the service episode(s) and the performance level of the actual delivered service during the service encounter(s) were hypothesized to affect satisfaction, quality, and trust. Two experiments using a 2x2x2 fully-crossed factorial design were used for collecting and analyzing data. The results showed that normative (should) and predictive (will) expectations play differential roles in consumers’ evaluation of satisfaction, perception of quality, and trust in the service provider. Also, there appeared to be differential roles that a particular type of expectation will serve depending upon the level of service performance