ABSTRACT
The Effects of Communication and Material Services in Beauty Services on Rapport and Customer Satisfaction
- Focused on Chinese Tourists as Service Users -
LI SIYU
Dept. of Beauty Arts
The Graduate School of
Seokyeong University
South Kore...
ABSTRACT
The Effects of Communication and Material Services in Beauty Services on Rapport and Customer Satisfaction
- Focused on Chinese Tourists as Service Users -
LI SIYU
Dept. of Beauty Arts
The Graduate School of
Seokyeong University
South Korea's beauty service industry has attracted significant attention as a globally competitive tourism offering. It serves as a crucial resource for South Korea's economic development and has become a key experience item for Chinese tourists. Meanwhile, the demands of Chinese tourists for such experiences have undergone a qualitative transformation.
Customer satisfaction is a core concept and key element in marketing, essential for enterprises to establish a foothold and achieve development in industry competition. It is necessary to analyze the factors influencing customer satisfaction from multiple perspectives and apply these insights to enhance satisfaction. In fact, various sectors have conducted extensive research in this area, but specialized studies focusing on Chinese tourists' beauty service experiences remain scarce.
Building on previous research findings, this study proposes a customer satisfaction model incorporating four influencing factors: verbal communication, non-verbal communication, tangible service, and rapport, along with six theoretical hypotheses. Following psychometric procedures, the research includes construct definition, development and design of measurement tools, exploratory factor analysis, reliability analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, descriptive statistical analysis, and hypothesis verification. Data analysis was conducted using tools such as SPSS and AMOS, with data collected through a questionnaire survey of 318 Chinese female tourist respondents.
The research results indicate the following:
The scale demonstrates high reliability and validity.
Verbal communication exerts a significant direct positive impact on customer satisfaction, while non-verbal communication and tangible service show no significant direct effects.
Rapport play a fully mediating role between non-verbal communication, Tangible service, and customer satisfaction, but no mediating role between verbal communication and customer satisfaction.
The direct effect of rapport on customer satisfaction is far stronger than that of other variables, making it the core direct driver of customer satisfaction.
The mediating effect of non-verbal communication on customer satisfaction through rapport accounts for 68.5% of the total mediating effect, serving as the core path of the mediating mechanism.
Physical functionality and body language directly and positively predict customer satisfaction; full-process service adaptability shows a negative effect; and appearance & space management, as well as value guarantee & rights protection, have no significant impact.
Body language has the largest indirect effect—even exceeding its direct effect—making it the core antecedent variable driving changes in rapport. This is followed by value guarantee & rights protection and physical functionality. Full-process service adaptability has a negative indirect effect, while appearance & space management shows no significant impact.
This study provides specific and actionable management implications for beauty service providers to improve customer satisfaction.
However, several limitations should be acknowledged. First, the study was conducted exclusively with female tourists. In contemporary society, however, men's interest in beauty has been steadily increasing, and the market for male consumers utilizing beauty services is gradually expanding. Therefore, future research could further explore this topic by including male tourists as the target population.
Keyword:Customer Satisfaction,Verbal Communication,Non-Verbal Communication,Tangible Service,Rapport, Psychometric Analysis,Structural Equation Modeling.