고객간 접점 품질(Customer-to-customer Contact Quality)에 대한 탐험적 연구

국문 초록 (Abstract)

서비스 접점에서 다른 고객들이 또 다른 고객의 서비스 품질지각 및 고객만족에 미치는 영향은 매우 크다. 하지만 고객들간의 태도와 행동을 직접 관리하는 것이 어렵다는 이유로 이 분야에 대한 깊이 있는 연구가 부족한 실정이다. 본 연구에서는 다른 고객의 영향을 서비스 품질의 구성요소로 가정하고, CIT(Critical Incidents Technique)를 사용하여 서비스 접점에서 서비스 품질 지각에 영향을 미치는 다른 고객과의 경험을 종합적으로 분석하고자 하였다. 본 연구를 통해 다른 고객들과의 경험에 대한 우수성 평가에서 서비스 기업간 차이를 나타내며 고객들은 이러한 차이를 지각한다는 것을 확인할 수 있었다. 본 연구에서는 이러한 고객들의 지각을 고객간 접점 품질(CCQ: Customer-to-Customer Contact Quality)이라고 명명하고, 서비스 이용시 다른 고객들과의 경험에 대한 지각된 우수성으로 규정하였다. CIT 분석결과, CCQ는 1차적 범주와 하위의 2차적 범주로 구성된 다층적 구조를 가진 개념이라는 점을 발견하였으며 서비스 업종에 따라 강조될 차원이 다를 수 있음을 확인하였다.

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Most of services are delivered in the setting where many customers are engaged together in the same place and/or at the same time. Such service-specific characteristics inevitably bring about a result that a customer`s satisfaction and overall quality perception with a certain service are influenced to some degree by other customers` presence itself and/or their attitudes and behaviors. Thus, managers and academicians have been interested in other customers` influence in service settings. However there have been only a few studies that have directly addressed the issue(Grove and Fisk 1997; Lehtinen and Lehtinen 1991). One of the central reasons for such scarcity in researches is a belief that inter-customer interactions are inclined to be out of marketer`s managerial reach (Martin and Clark 1996). But, some changes in the marketing environment recently happening awaken us not only to the necessity of management but also to the manageability of customer-to-customer contact points. Therefore, it is needless to say that there is urgent and growing needs for more researches about customer-to-customer contact that may give marketers plentiful managerial implications, for example, a development of effective management strategies with more proper marketing mix for the customer- to-customer interactive processes. This study aims to develop a managerial guideline through a thorough comprehension of other customer`s impact on the focal customer`s service experiences based on the framework of perceived service quality. First, we review existing literature regarding service encounter, inter-customer interaction, and service quality in the perspective of customer-to-customer contact quality. Second, we conducted CIT(Critical Incidents Technique) in order to find out the perception structure of customer-to-customer contact quality. Lastly, we consider the theoretical and managerial implications of the study and its limitations. On the premise that customer-to-customer contact points could be a manageable part like perceived service quality, we named it as CCQ(Customer-to-customer Contact Quality). We analyzed 687 critical incidents following the prototypical CIT procedure introduced in the previous literature. We found the multi-layered structure of CCQ with five primary categories and twelve subdimensions. Five dimensions at the first layer are as follows: UQ(Utility-Creative Quality), IQ(Informational Quality), AQ(Affiliational Quality), EQ(Ethical Quality) and SQ(Surroundings Quality). Each dimension has its own several subdimensions. UQ has two subdimensions, which are Intentional Utility-Creation and Unintentional Utility-Creation. We found three subdimensions for IQ such as Acquiring information before a visit, Acquiring information during a visit, and Acquiring information after a visit. We found three subdimensions for AQ, which are Chats, Good deeds, and Conforming behavior. EQ has two subdimensions such as Observance of service rules and Observance of social norms. Finally we found two subdimensions for SQ, which are Ideal person(s) and Complementary person(s). Results support the assumption that customer-to-customer contact points are manageable similarly to perceived service quality focusing customer-to-company contact points. Now service providers have guidelines for measuring and enhancing the perceived superiority of CCQ. The relative impact or importance of individual dimensions of CCQ may differ across the service types. Our research has implications for service quality study. First, past studies(e.g., Brady and Cronin 2001; Lehtinen and Lehtinen 1991) did not include other customers` influence as a variable of service quality measure because they had thought that the management of customer-to-customer contact points was almost beyond their control. But we provided the evidence that other customers` influence is a very important variable affecting customers` entire perception of the service quality and overall satisfaction.

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