서비스 품질이 고객만족에 미치는 영향 : 고객 간 상호작용과 변화주도행위의 조절된 매개효과

Simultaneous production and consumption, one of the four main characteristics of services, imposes service marketers unique challenges including the management of interactions among customers sharing the service environment. The customer-to-customer interaction is known to influence a customer’s service experience either positively or negatively. Customer citizenship behavior, a customer’s functional behavior during the service production process, is known to enhance other customer’s satisfaction with the service. On the other hand, a customer’s dysfunctional or undesirable behavior in a service environment has been reported to exert negative influences upon service provider performance, overall service production process, and other customers’ experience sharing the servicesape. Regardless of such practical importance, there is a surprising paucity in the literature that empirically addresses the nature, facilitators and effects of customer-to-customer interactions. This study is an attempt to examine both the antecedent and consequence of customer-to-customer interactions. By adopting pertinent theories and research findings from marketing, organizational behavior, and psychology, the study proposes and empirically examines a research model which incorporates six hypotheses addressing the relationships among service quality, customer-to-customer interaction, customer’s taking charge behavior, and customer satisfaction. Such an endeavor is expected to not only clarify the antecedent and effects of customer-to-customer interactions but also the moderated mediating role of customer’s taking charge behavior. Data collection was carried out at a fitness center in which the service environment is shared by a number of the facility users. A questionnaire was designed by adopting and modifying research instruments reported in previous studies. The questionnaire was composed of six parts: service quality, customer-to-customer interactions, customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, taking charge behavior, and demographic questions. A survey research using the self-reported questionnaire was administered upon 240 fitness center users. Prior to hypothesis testing, preliminary analysis was performed to examine the psychometric properties of the scales used in the study. The measures of this study were found to have adequate psychometric properties for a theory testing as they have satisfactory level of internal consistency, composite reliability, convergent validity, and discriminant validity. Data analyses support all six hypotheses. First, service quality of a fitness center is found to have a positive influence upon customer satisfaction. Second, service quality is found to positively affect the amount of customer-to-customer interaction as well. Third, the customer-to-customer interaction among fitness center users is turned out to exert a positive influence upon customer satisfaction. Fourth, the amount of customer-to-customer interaction is found to mediate the relationship between the service quality and customer satisfaction. Fifth, customer’s taking charge behavior is found to moderate the relationship between the customer-to-customer interaction and customer satisfaction. Finally, the indirect effect of service quality upon customer satisfaction mediated by customer-to-customer interaction is found to be moderated by taking charge behavior. In summary, the study’s propositions and research model are all adequately supported by the data. This study underscores the customer-to-customer interaction as a factor of importance in the service environment and demonstrates the critical role of customer’s taking charge behavior for customer satisfaction. As such, a number of managerial implications and research agenda may be generated from the study. Implications for service practitioners and researchers are provided.