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The impact of IT-enabled customer service systems on service personalization, customer service perceptions, and hotel performance

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  • Piccoli, Gabriele
  • Lui, Tsz-Wai
  • Grün, Bettina

Abstract

Customer service is a critical element of a hotel's strategy and an important lever for differentiation of the hotel's offer. Over the last two decades, information systems have contributed to the transformation of customer interactions, enabling an unprecedented scale and scope of service personalization in the tourism industry. This paper reports the results of a mixed method study in a hotel that offers three contributions to the development and refinement of IT-enabled service personalization theory. It explores the role of signifiers in the design of customer service systems, showing that they significantly increase customer preference elicitation during the learning phase of the service personalization process. It then demonstrates that improved preference elicitation translates into higher customer service evaluations and value perceptions of the hotel. Finally, our study shows that IT-enabled service personalization creates financial benefits for the hotel via revenue share-shift from costly intermediated to direct distribution channels.

Suggested Citation

  • Piccoli, Gabriele & Lui, Tsz-Wai & Grün, Bettina, 2017. "The impact of IT-enabled customer service systems on service personalization, customer service perceptions, and hotel performance," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 349-362.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:touman:v:59:y:2017:i:c:p:349-362
    DOI: 10.1016/j.tourman.2016.08.015
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    1. Miluska Murillo-Zegarra & Carla Ruiz-Mafe & Silvia Sanz-Blas, 2020. "The Effects of Mobile Advertising Alerts and Perceived Value on Continuance Intention for Branded Mobile Apps," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(17), pages 1-20, August.
    2. Yang-Fei Tai & Yi-Chieh Wang & Ching-Ching Luo, 2021. "Technology- or human-related service innovation? Enhancing customer satisfaction, delight, and loyalty in the hospitality industry," Service Business, Springer;Pan-Pacific Business Association, vol. 15(4), pages 667-694, December.
    3. Javier M. Moguerza & Clara Martín-Duque & Juan José Fernández-Muñoz, 2022. "The importance of service quality as an instrument for client customization: a methodological and practical approach within the hotel sector," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 56(3), pages 1631-1642, June.
    4. Tomczyk, Arkadiusz T. & Buhalis, Dimitrios & Fan, Daisy X.F. & Williams, Nigel L., 2022. "Price-personalization: Customer typology based on hospitality business," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 147(C), pages 462-476.
    5. Verônica Feder Mayer & Glauber Eduardo de Oliveira Santos & Osiris Ricardo Bezerra Marques, 2022. "Option framing for upselling tourism services: Does cognitive availability prevent irrational choices?," Tourism Economics, , vol. 28(2), pages 476-494, March.
    6. Weaver, Adam, 2021. "Tourism, big data, and a crisis of analysis," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).

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