Segmenting customers by participation
研究通过调查美国休闲餐厅顾客在服务过程中的参与行为，将顾客分为不同群体，并发现参与水平与感知服务结果相关，有助于服务商设计针对性策略。
Purpose This study aims to report the results of a survey of diners’ behavior during production and consumption of dining services with three objectives. The first objective is to create customer segments that represent distinct patterns of customer participation in hospitality service encounters. The second objective is to profile these identified customer segments in terms of demographics, attitudes and behaviors. The third objective is to evaluate the relationship between customer participation segments and service outcomes. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected through an online survey of American casual dining customers. The data were analyzed using principal components factor analysis, cluster analysis on the factor scores, discriminant analysis that validated the group differences among clusters and multivariate analysis of variance on the cluster variables to determine the source of differences between groups. Findings The evidence showed that restaurant customers can be segmented into meaningful groups according to their reported behaviors and that level of participation is related to perceived service outcomes. Practical implications The findings suggest that service providers can use customer participation segments to understand those customers’ service needs and wants. They can then design service strategies tailored to the needs of target customer groups. Originality/value This study is the first to identify distinct segments based on hospitality customers’ roles and behaviors in service delivery. This study makes a significant contribution to the hospitality marketing literature by advancing the trend to improve service quality through a non-traditional approach, that is, by building partnerships with customers.