The Relationship Of Personnel Service, Consumption Emotion And Customer's Patronage Intention Of A Department Store

A department store is one of the important formats for retailing, whereas enhancing the customer's patronage intention is the important goal of a department store. Currently, the customer's consumption intention has been transforming from task-oriented to enjoyment-oriented. Customers are not only aiming at buying products when shopping, but also perusing emotional entertainment concurrently. In another word, the customer's patronage intention is influenced by his consumption emotions. Compared with viewing advertisements, purchasing and using products, customers devote more enthusiasm and get more contact with the service enterprises and their personnel in a process of service consumption. Therefore, customers are more emotional responsive in a service consumption. As department stores belong to a service-intensive format, through the contact with service personnel and service facilities, the customers can feel the services as provided by the department stores.Former studies on service always start from tangible services and intangible services. Since tangible services are much easier to imitate, the theory circle attached more importance to intangible services. However, studies on intangible services always take the same into consideration as a whole, whereas personnel service is not treated as a specific dimension for analysis. Athough the importance of personnel service is stressed in some studies on service quality and service remediation, there still exist an insufficiency. In the first place, personnel service is mixed up with other services for researching influences on consumption emotions, while analysis and tests on detailed elements of personnel service are missing. In the second place, these studies only verified the direct influence on consumption emotions by the behavior of service personnel and put more emphasis on the formality of personnel service, ignoring the important role of the"true moment". In addition, the conclusions of these studies always lack of systematicness and operability, which make commercial enterprises very difficult to put it into a real action.Besides, although former studies on patronage intention also make analysis from the angle of customer's feeling, the definition of"Satisfaction Degree"is more used. However, customers with high satisfaction degree do not always have high patronage intention, vice versa. What the customers feel when shopping in a deparment store cannot be simply identified by"Satisfied"or"Unsatisfied", or simply determin a customer's patronage intention by his jugement of the service.This paper, starting with the above questions, firstly developed a measurement scale for deparment store's personnel service on the basis of relative scales on service quality and service remediation and by Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA); Secondly this paper built a theoretical model of personnel service, consumption emotion and customer's patronage intention of a deparment store, on a theoretical foundation of the S-O-R Model, and put forward the assumption on the relationship between personnel service, consumption emotion and patronage intention, and carried out the proof-test on the assumption by Correlation and Regression, as well as by Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), and finally draw the conclusions as follows:1."Arousal", with a neutral characteristic among the consumption emotions, is independent of the emotions of"Happy"or"Unhappy". No matter what the customers feel, positive (Happy) or negative (Unhappy), the customers can always feel the"Arousal"emotion. As long as the customers feel enough"Arousal", their patronage intention can be intensified.2. Although customers can feel"Dominance"emotion when shopping in the department stores, the"Dominance"emotion doesn't have obvious influence on the customer's patronage intention.3."Assurance"in personnel service, i.e. friendly behavior and competent ability of the service personnel, is very important to the customers, which may make the customers feel either"Happy"or"Unhappy".4."Empathy"in personnel service, i.e. service personnel's sincere concern about customers and to know what they really want, is a double-edged sword, which can make customers feel either"Happy"or"Unhappy". The language, behavior and countenance of the service personnel all influent the customers'emotions, whereas to what extent the influence reaches, however, shall be well controlled.5."Reflection"in personnel service, i.e. service personnel's readiness to provide quickly-reacted and high-efficiency service, can bring"Happiness", but rarely"Unhappiness".6. The customers feel no big differences in respect of personnel service and consumption emotion in between a high-level department store and a general department store. In terms of the top grade image of a high-level department store, enhancing the grade of the commodities and luxury decorations are no doubt important, while enhancing personnel service is also the same, for the peronel service is inimitable and can constitute the core-competitiveness of a high-level department store.In theoretical aspect, this paper has the following contributions:1. Introduced the variable of"Consumption Emotion"and theoretically modeling of personnel service, consumption emotion and patronage intention of a department store, which supplies a gap for former insufficient explanations on personnel service and patronage intention.2. Developed the scale for measurement of personnel service of a department store, and sort personnel service into four dimentions ("Tangibility","Assurance","Empathy"and"Reflection"), which provides referential measurement tools for deeper research on the personnel service. 3. This paper is completed by means of spot investigation and experimental research, with the data collected in a real shopping and consumption environment, for an empirical research on the customer's consumption emotion. As the result shows, customer's"Dominance"emotion not only can be feeled in a positive mood, but also can be feeled in a negative mood. In practically aspect, this paper offers instructional guidiance for operation of both high-level and general department stores.Firstly, with regard to the personnel service, service personnel's"Tangibility"i.e. outer characteristics neither influent positive emotion nor negative emotion. Therefore, operator of a department store shall put more efforts on the soft services other than simply on the outer looks, and invoke more positive emotion from the customers by appropriately passing emotions to them, which is just the major difference for a high-level department store compared with a general department store.Secondly, inspiring customer's"Dominance"emotion will be an important goal for high-level deparment store's efforts. Although in empirical studies customer's"Dominance"emotion didn't have obvious influence on their patronage intention, in interviews the customers all expressed their longing for self-representation and self-domination. In order to keep the advantages in competition, high-level department stores need to build an atomshpere for customer's self-representation, in which the customer can feel more unique of a high-level department store.Finally, current customers still think a lot of"Arousal"emotion."Assurance"and"Empathy", in personnel service, being the source for inspiring customer's"Arousal"emotion, can be attached of emphasis by department stores for enhancing service level.