Title: Impact of Human Factor and Intent on

Perceived Benefits, Customer Satisfaction and

Loyalty in Service Delivery context

Author: N Barnabas, Associate Professor - Marketing Area, NMIMS

University- Bangalore Campus, Koramangala, Bangalore- 560034.

INTRODUCTION:
Services usually are performances delivered by customer interacting personnel or technology.
The ‘inseparability’ characteristic of services naturally results in the perceived quality of the
delivered service being dominant on how the service personnel performed the service delivery.
This paper focuses the interactive dimension of service encounters and evaluates the impact of
the ‘human dimensions’ of service delivery (namely Reliability, Assurance, Responsiveness, and
Empathy) on Perceived Benefit from the consumption of service and in-turn on Customer
Satisfaction and Loyalty.

The Perceived Benefits from consumption of service have been identified as Hedonic and
Utilitarian. The researcher also conceptualizes and tests that role of Intents (defined as Hedonic
Intent and Utilitarian Intent) in moderating the impact of the human dimensions on Perceived
Benefit.

METHODOLOGY
A survey questionnaire was prepared using various empirically tested and validated scales from
prior research. A single service context was chosen and consumers were asked to rate the 1)
Service dimensions, 2) Hedonic and Utilitarian benefits, 3) Hedonic and Utilitarian intent 4)
satisfaction and 5) Intention to visit the coffee shop again (loyalty).

The Hedonic and Utilitarian intent was measured by adapting measures developed by Voss,
Spangenberg & Grohmann (2003) in their research. The Human dimensions of service were
measured by adapting the SERVQUAL scale developed by Parasuraman, Zeithaml & Berry
(1988). Hedonic and Utilitarian benefits were measured, again adapting the same scale by Voss,
Spangenber & Grohmann (2003) for the specific context of the coffee shop in a semantic
differential form. Customer satisfaction and loyalty were measured using scale suggested in the
Handbook of Marketing Scales (1990).

DATA COLLECTION

A convenience sample of 110 respondents belonging to an MBA programme participated in the

survey. A short explanation before, of purpose, and debrief after, explaining the use of the
questionnaire data, was done at the time of administration.

DISCUSSION OF RESULTS

The impact of humanic factors is clearly higher on hedonic benefits than utilitarian benefits.
However, contrary to expectations, the impact of these factors on utilitarian benefits is positive,
albeit small. On closer analysis the main source of this effect is evidently the factor of
responsiveness. The effect of responsiveness may be more utilitarian than hedonic, despite being
a humanic factor since it involves mainly the aspect of prompt service, which may form an
important part of the functional evaluation of a service encounter. The primary component
affecting hedonic benefits appears to be that of assurance, this component deals with trust, safety
and courtesy in a service transaction, considerably hedonically-oriented characteristics.
Given that humanic factors considerably affect hedonic benefits, the moderating impact of
hedonic intent is an area of greater interest. The impact of this variable is clear in that the
variance explained by it (as a moderator with humanic factors) is far more than the variance
explained by the humanic factors alone for hedonic benefits and the hedonic moderator’s beta
coefficient is higher than that of humanic factors alone. However, utilitarian intent explains far
less of the variance in utilitarian benefits as a moderator to humanic factors than humanic factors
alone. Thus appears that humanic factors are more related to hedonic benefits than utilitarian
benefits and that intent works as a moderator in the experience of these benefits.
However, this moderating effect of intent seems to stop here. The effect of intent on satisfaction
(as a moderator with hedonic or utilitarian benefits) does not seem to exist. Both hedonic and
utilitarian benefits seem better at explaining customer satisfaction alone rather than in
combination with the respective intents. Hedonic benefits seem to have a far greater impact on
satisfaction than utilitarian benefits; this may be explained by an application of Herzberg’s two
factor theory. If one considers utilitarian benefits akin to hygiene factors, merely preventing
dissatisfaction by their presence but not provoking satisfaction and hedonic benefits akin to the
concept of motivator factors, which engender positive satisfaction, this finding seems intuitively
plausible.

IMPLICATIONS

The implications for service providers are manifold. Given that satisfaction is a significant
indicator of loyalty, we will begin with the premise that satisfaction needs to be maximized.
The scope for managerial intervention in the humanic factors of services is vast and this can be
targeted specifically if the effect of such factors and their respective benefits and subsequent
impact on satisfaction is known.
The impact of utilitarian benefits on customer satisfaction is not considerable and certainly not as
high as that of hedonic benefits (hedonic benefits explain over nine times as much variance in
satisfaction as utilitarian benefits). Thus there are reasons to consider hedonic benefits
specifically, which are more significantly impacted by humanic factors of service delivery than
utilitarian benefits are (humanic factors explain more than twice as much of the variance in
hedonic benefits than they do in utilitarian benefits).
It would appear that assurance and responsiveness are the most important factors.
Responsiveness would involve training front-end contact personnel on areas such as speed of
delivery, accurately estimating and delivering on timelines, and communication of a sense of
promptness. Assurance would involve communicating trustworthiness, safety and courtesy.
However, since hedonic benefits seem to have a clear advantage over utilitarian benefits in
creating satisfaction a focus on assurance would optimize this.
The complexity in assessing customer intent in a service encounter poses some difficulty in
directly interpreting findings for managerial intervention. However a framework for all managers
and contact personnel from which to view the customer’s behavior and their evaluation as not
just a simple outcome of the quality of service delivery but as a interaction between a customer’s
needs (or intentions, attitudes and expectations) and the front-end contact personnel would help
employees tailor their behavior to better meet the needs of customers.
Some thumb rules can be used by managers to help them guide their front-end personnel in
assessing intent and customizing their service delivery accordingly, to maximize customer
satisfaction. Take, for example, a restaurant or coffee shop, much like the one used in this study.
This coffee shop may have an executive or professional clientele in the afternoons for lunch and
a crowd of mainly families and groups of friends in the evenings and for dinner. For the former a
more utilitarian intent could be inferred and thus a more responsive approach, based on speed
and operational efficiency of service, could be focused on in the afternoons. For the latter crowd
a more hedonic intent could be assumed and a more assurance-oriented, courteous style could be
employed in the evenings.

Thus a little managerial insight in combination with this framework could be used to optimize
the delivery capability of front end personnel.

LIMITATIONS & FUTURE RESEARCH

The limitations of this research are primarily rooted in the method of sampling and data
collection. The use of a convenience sample due to constraints of cost, time and feasibility may
have compromised internal validity of the data. The method of administration may also have
compromised external validity to some extent and biased results, data collection at the point of
service delivery, with the collection of intent measures pre-consumption and of evaluations of
the service encounter post-consumption may have yielded far more compelling data.
The instruments of measurement as well (i.e. the various adapted scales that were combined to
form the questionnaire) were not empirically developed for the specific purposes of this study.
Service quality measures were adapted to measure humanic factors.
Finally, although a single service context was used in measurement to enhance internal validity
and standardization, the data would have been far more generalizable across service contexts if
the sample had included measurements in different service organizations and across various
service categories. Further research in these contexts is needed to prove the applicability of these
hypotheses to services in general.
Research in this area has a multitude of possibilities, both in product and service research. More
in depth research of the impact of humanic factors of services using scales specifically developed
for the purpose a may help gain a deeper understanding of consumer evaluations. Scale
development of measuring hedonic and utilitarian attitudes, benefits and intent, in the service
context would provide opportunities for more studies with more valid data collection.
Additionally, the study of consumer intent as hedonic and utilitarian has ample scope for
improvement. The definition of intent as situational as Grappi (2004) suggested or more
personality-based as in the case of Guido’s (2006) research or Apter’s (1989) proposition of
dominance of motivational states within individuals in his Reversal Theory should be examined
more closely.