The Effect Of Service Mode Transformation In Hospitality Industry On Brand Switching Of Loyal Customers

As a labor-intensive industry,the reception industry has the characteristics of high contact and immateriality: the reception service experience is often invisible,and this invisible service delivery process can only be completed through the highfrequency interpersonal interaction between customers and service staff.Therefore,in this process,the attitude and behavior of service staff are tangible clues for customers to form direct judgment on service quality,and even further affect customers’ overall cognition of the brand and the establishment of its emotional connection.Based on this,the interaction quality and relationship establishment between service personnel and customers in the process of service may be directly related to the formation and elimination of customer brand loyalty.For customers who have formed brand loyalty,the brand is irreplaceable for customers.As a result,in addition to continuing to choose this brand,these customers will not easily switch to competing brands in the face of other brands’ competitive means,such as promotion and providing differentiated products.Therefore,cultivating and maintaining customer loyalty is of great strategic significance for the brand to win the market competition.However,the rapid development of artificial intelligence technology makes AI equipment widely used in the reception industry,and even promotes the transformation of the reception industry from the artificial service mode to the unmanned service mode.AI service equipment gradually replaces human employees,interacts with customers and provides various services for customers.Although the application of AI service equipment has greatly reduced the labor cost of the hospitality industry brand,in the case of service personnel being squeezed out of the service scene,they used to accept the artificial service,and established the brand emotional association through good interpersonal interaction with the service personnel group,and then formed the brand loyal customers.It is likely to feel the break of emotional connection caused by the disappearance of interpersonal interaction in the unmanned service mode,so it is easier to switch to other brands in the next consumption choice.Therefore,it is of long-term significance to deeply explore the influence of the transformation of service mode on the transformation of customer brand in the reception industry,so as to connect with the future development of the unemployed.Based on this,this paper conducts three studies to test the customer brand conversion that may be brought about by the transformation of job-waiting service mode.In study 1,scenario experiment was used to preliminarily verify the influence of service mode change on customer brand conversion,that is,for loyal customers,customers’ brand conversion intention in unmanned service mode is significantly higher than that in manual service mode.Thus,it is indirectly proved that customers who have formed brand loyalty may face the problem of breaking the special emotional connection with the brand under the unmanned service mode.In Study 2,on the basis of study 1,stimulus materials and experimental scenarios were replaced to further examine the psychological mechanism of customer brand conversion caused by service mode conversion.The results show that perceived social relevance and brand emotional attachment play a continuous mediating role between service pattern and customers’ brand conversion intention.Finally,in study 3,the moderating effect of brand stereotype was investigated by changing the stimulus materials and experimental situation again,that is,the influence of service mode on brand conversion intention was moderated by brand stereotype.The unmanned service model(compared with the manual service model)brings stronger customer brand conversion intention only in the warm brand;There is no significant difference in customer brand conversion intention between the unmanned service mode and the manual service mode.At the same time,the mediating effect of perceived social relevance and brand emotional attachment will disappear.With the hospitality industry as the research background,this paper has completed the transformation of AI service research,from focusing on the positive advantages of AI service such as performance improvement and cost reduction to focusing on the negative effects of AI,and expanded the theoretical system of AI research in the field of hospitality industry.Secondly,this paper reveals the customer brand conversion problem that may be caused by the transformation from manual service mode to unmanned service mode in the reception industry and the psychological mechanism behind it,identifies the important differences between manual service mode and unmanned service mode based on the perspective of selfclassification theory and relationship,and provides an important theoretical reference for the future in-depth study of the negative impact of unmanned service mode.Finally,this paper discusses the customer’s brand conversion behavior in the unmanned service mode,which is different from the discussion of brand relationship in the traditional context,and effectively promotes the brand switching relationship research from interpersonal interaction paradigm to human-computer interaction paradigm.At the same time,this paper also provides marketing enlightenment for the scientific application of AI service equipment in the reception industry.First of all,while pursuing efficient AI services,hospitality brands also need to take into account customers’ needs for social connection,which is of great significance to maintain customer loyalty and market share.Secondly,hospitality brands with different brand stereotypes choose different degrees of unhumanization.Warm reception industry brands should appropriately reduce the degree of humanization in the service process,and increase the proportion of artificial services,for customers to provide emotional value,maintain loyal customers do not lose;Powerbased hospitality brands can appropriately improve the degree of humanization in the service process,but still need to retain a small part of manual services,so that customers can still perceive a certain social connection while meeting the efficiency requirements of customers.Finally,the perception of social connection is a magic weapon to maintain loyal customers.Therefore,hospitality brands can also adopt various ways to enhance the intensity of connection perceived by customers in the service.