ServiceFriday: I Buy What I Am – How Self-Esteem Impacts Consumer Purchase Behavior

In 2016, 5-time NBA champion and one of the greatest power forwards in NBA history Tim Duncan retired from the NBA after a stellar 19-year career. So it may be of a surprise to know that a fan tweeted a photo of Duncan waiting in line at an Old Navy store shortly after retiring. Despite having made tens of millions of dollars in his career, Duncan chose to shop at a budget retail outlet like many typical consumers. Why, one might ask, would a man of his fame and success choose Old Navy when he easily can afford any designer brand in the world?

Creating Technology Converts – Why Your Customers Make the Switch

Your company may have made a major investment in Self Service Technologies (SSTs), but how well do you understand why your customers have used the technology you have created for them – or, more importantly, why they haven’t? Most of the research related to SSTs, such as ATMs or receiving service support on-line, has focused on the features of the SST itself rather than on the attitudes of the users.

Choosing Self-Service Technologies: Ready? Set. Go!

More and more companies are choosing to provide self-service technology options for their customers. Self-check-outs at supermarkets, self-check-ins at airports and online investment trading have proliferated recently, but what makes some of these “do-it-yourself” alternatives attractive to customers? And why do customers resist trying others? An article forthcoming in the Journal of Marketing (April 2005) by CSL Faculty Fellow Matthew Meuter (California State University, Chico) and CSL Marketing Faculty, Mary Jo Bitner, Amy Ostrom, and Stephen Brown investigates these issues.

Service in A Time of Rapid Change: Diligent Listening – Understand Your Customers’ Challenge

In early April, just weeks after communities across the country shut down in an attempt to slow the spread of a frightening new virus, the consulting firm McKinsey polled U.S. consumers about their level of distress. According to the report, “64 percent of respondents have felt depressed, anxious, or both over the past several weeks, and 39 percent stated that they would be unable to pay their bills after one month of unemployment.” Abruptly, the needs and desires of customers changed. Consumers and companies alike were fearful of contagion and worried about their survival.

ServiceFriday: What’s Your Type? – Online Consumer Typologies and Their Shopping Behaviors

Black Friday shopping used to be a more chaotic and entertaining experience than it is nowadays and a large reason why things have changed has been the steady decrease in physical consumers showing up to stores. This is largely due to the soaring popularity of e-commerce which allows consumers to buy goods and services from online retailers over the internet. Despite the change from physical stores to online entities, consumers have been and will continue to be broken up into groups to better understand their shopping habits and behaviors.

ServiceFriday: Cold as Ice: When Cold Temperatures Increase Product Evaluation

The English language sure can be confusing, especially when it comes to the United States. Take the word “cold” for example. I don’t know of any other place where cold can be used to describe the temperature as well as be used as an adjective in multiple contexts. “That’s so cold” can mean you are being direct and without care for others’ emotions while it also can mean something is stylish and attractive.

ServiceFriday: Trending Up – The Differences Among Trendsetter Groups

The year is 2020 and being an Instagram model is now a profession. While it might seem that everyone is attempting to be an influencer or trendsetter in some capacity nowadays, not everyone can be. One’s identity in terms of which trendsetter group (i.e. trendsetters, early adopters, late adopters and reluctant adopters) they fall into can be of crucial importance for retailers to better comprehend. Specifically, the money attitudes and the phenomenon known as consumer tendency to regret (CTR) differentiate between the groups.

ServiceFriday: “That’s On Me.” – Consumer Reaction to Service Failures in Self-Service and Full-Service Settings

IKEA is a furniture retailer that has become world renowned for many reasons, including the frequency in which customers get lost in their stores which are known to be as expansive as the Palace of Versailles. One of the main reasons that IKEA has stood apart from other furniture outlets is that, by designing and selling ready-to-assemble furniture, they are a key player in the self-service industry. Self-service settings have begun to proliferate the modern world and with them a new plethora of challenges have been brought forth to the service research community.

ServiceFriday: Social Exclusion’s Impact on Consumer Behavior in Crowded Retail Environments

If it’s true that nobody likes to be left out, then this author really wishes tomorrow’s date, February 29, could talk because just imagine everything that that particular date has missed out on. Being excluded from every person’s calendar for 3 years straight does sound rough, but one form of exclusion that people experience, social exclusion, is a tough battle in its own right. While there is research that has examined socially excluded people’s behaviors and practices in service settings, there is still work to be done when exploring their behavior in other consumer settings.

ServiceFriday: Don’t Doubt Displays – How Display Formats Affect Consumer Evaluations

According to the Chinese zodiac, 2019 was the year of the pig. This is ironic seeing as how the U.S.’s 2019 can be seen as the year of the hard seltzer, a time when people everywhere pigged out on spiked seltzer water. Last year, seemingly every alcohol company on the market attempted to chase the newest craze spurned by hard seltzer heavyweight White Claw Hard Seltzer.