Does customer experience always benefit service companies examining customers’ epistemic motivation and interaction with the beauty service contexts doctor of philosophy major business ad

Research aims Applied within the beauty service context in Vietnam, this research aims to validate the scale of customer experience as well as examining the mechanism and conditions that

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY

-

VU THI MAI CHI

DOES CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE ALWAYS BENEFIT SERVICE COMPANIES? EXAMINING CUSTOMERS’ EPISTEMIC MOTIVATION AND INTERACTION WITH

THE BEAUTY SERVICE CONTEXTS

THE DISSERTATION OF ECONOMIC DOCTOR

Ho Chi Minh city – 2022

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY

-

VU THI MAI CHI

DOES CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE ALWAYS BENEFIT SERVICE COMPANIES? EXAMINING CUSTOMERS’ EPISTEMIC MOTIVATION AND INTERACTION WITH

THE BEAUTY SERVICE CONTEXTS

Major: Business Administration

ID: 9340101

THE DISSERTATION OF ECONOMIC DOCTOR

Supervisor:

Assoc Prof TRAN HA MINH QUAN

Ho Chi Minh city – 2022

DECLARATION OF AUTHENTICITY

I would like to declare that, the thesis “Does customer experience always benefit service companies? Examining customers’ epistemic motivation and interaction with the beauty service contexts” is my own and conducted with the instruction and advice

of Assoc Prof Tran Ha Minh Quan Apart from the acknowledged references, there are not any materials previously published or written by another authors, or has not been previously submitted to any other educational and research programs or institutions I take full responsibility for the legality of the whole scientific research process of this dissertation

PhD Student

Vu Thi Mai Chi

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

First and foremost, I am sincerely acknowledging the managing boards of Industrial University of Ho Chi Minh City (IUH) and University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City (UEH) for offering me the chance of studying PhD and financially supporting

my study

I would like to thank the lecturers, researchers who have imparted their knowledge and experience in research so that I could fulfill all requirements for the degree of PhD

I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Assoc Prof TRAN

HA MINH QUAN makes me a better reader, a better thinker, and a better writer His constant guidance, invaluable suggestions, and deep research insights have immensely shaped this study This dissertation would never have been written without their kind and patient assistance

I would also like to express my sincere appreciation and gratitude to all my kindly colleagues and friends who had contributed to the completion of this study

Above all, the dissertation is dedicated to my beloved parents, my son, who have been encouraging me along the way

TABLE OF CONTENT

DECLARATION OF AUTHENTICITY

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS i

LIST OF TABLES v

LIST OF FIGURES vi

ABSTRACT vii

TÓM TẮT viii

CHAPTER 1 - RESEARCH OVERIEW 1

1.1 Research background and rationales of the research 1

1.2 Research gaps 5

1.3 Research aims 8

1.4 Research objectives and questions 8

1.5 Research context 9

1.5.1 Beauty service industry 10

1.5.2 Beauty service industry in Vietnam 13

1.5.3 Beauty salon service 16

1.5.4 Beauty salon service in Vietnam 17

1.6 Key terms 18

1.7 Research subject and scope 19

1.8 Structure of the research 19

CHAPTER 2 - LITERATURE REVIEW 21

2.1 Review of Customer experience (EX) 21

2.1.1 Conceptualization of Customer experience 21

2.1.2 Consequences of Customer experience 27

2.2 Review of Customer engagement behavior (EG) 33

2.2.1 Conceptualization of Customer engagement behavior 33

2.2.2 Antecedences of Customer engagement behavior 36

2.3 Theoretical background 39

2.3.1 Customer-Dominant Logic 39

2.3.2 Social Identity Theory 42

2.3.3 Need for Cognition 44

2.4 Proposal framework 45

2.5 Operationalization of the selected variables 47

2.5.1 Customer experience (EX) 47

2.5.2 Customer engagement behavior (EG) 50

2.5.3 Relationship between Customer experience (EX) and engagement behavior (EG) 52

2.5.4 Mediating role of Customer-firm identification (FI) and employee identification (EI) 53

2.5.5 Moderating role of Customer epistemic motivation (EM) 56

2.5.6 Controlled variables 59

CHAPTER 3 - RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 61

3.1 Research framework and hypotheses 61

3.2 Research design 64

3.3 Population and sampling 67

3.3.1 Sampling method 68

3.3.2 Sample size determination 69

3.4 Instrument development 69

3.5 Scales used in the research framework 71

3.5.1 Measurements of Customer experience 72

3.5.2 Measurements of Customer epistemic motivation 74

3.5.3 Measurements of Customer- Firm Identification 74

3.5.4 Measurements of Customer-employee identification 75

3.5.5 Measurements of Customer engagement behavior 75

3.6 Data collection process 77

3.7 Data analysis process 82

3.8 The results of Pilot study 89

3.8.1 The results of Qualitative pilot study 89

3.8.2 The results of Quantitative pilot study 95

CHAPTER 4 - DATA ANALYSIS 101

4.1 Descriptive analysis of Sample 101

4.2 Validation of Measures: Reliability and Validity 104

4.2.1 Reflective-reflective second-order construct 104

4.2.2 Reflective-formative second-order construct 108

4.2.3 Reliability and Validity of Measurement model 109

4.3 Assessment of Common method bias 113

4.4 Testing hypotheses by PLS-SEM application 113

4.4.1 Mediation analysis 115

4.4.2 Moderation analysis 116

CHAPTER 5 - DISCUSSION AND CONTRIBUTIONS 119

5.1 Findings of the research 119

5.2 Discussion of the findings 121

5.2.1 Characteristics of demographic 121

5.2.2 Scale validates of customer experience 121

5.2.3 Relationship of EX and EG – mediating and moderating role 122

5.3 Contributions of the research 124

5.3.1 Theoretical contributions 124

5.3.2 Practical contributions 125

5.4 Limitations and Future research suggestions 127

5.5 Conclusion 128

PUBLICATION 132

REFERENCES 133

APPENDIX I: ENGLISH QUESTIONNAIRE xi

APPENDIX II: VIETNAMESE QUESTIONNAIRE xvi

APPENDIX III: LIST OF BEAUTY SALONS xxi

APPENDIX IV: LIST OF EXPERTS OF IN-DEPT INTERVIEW xxv

APPENDIX V: DATA FROM QUANTITATIVE PILOT STUDY xxvi

APPENDIX VI: SCALE ASSESSMENT OF CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT BEHAVIOR xxxvii APENDIX VII SCALE ASSESSMENT OF CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE xlii APENDIX VIII PLS – SEM xliv

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1.1 Classification of beauty services in Vietnam 14

Table 1.2 Services offered by beauty establishes 16

Table 2.1 Overview of some important definitions of EX 24

Table 2.2 Relevant literature on EX’s dimensions and consequences 31

Table 2.3 Overview of some important definitions of EG 34

Table 2.4 Relevant literature on EG’s dimensions and antecedences 37

Table 2.5 Value creation nature of Customer-Dominant Logic 41

Table 3.1 Research implementation progress 67

Table 3.2 Summary of demographic variables 70

Table 3.3 “Customer experience” scale 72

Table 3.4 “Customer epistemic motivation” scale 74

Table 3.5 “Customer- Firm Identification” scale 75

Table 3.6 “Customer-employee identification” scale 75

Table 3.7 “Customer engagement behavior” scale 76

Table 3.8 Summary of data collection procedure 78

Table 3.12 Data analysis techniques and purposes for Pilot test 87

Table 3.13 Synthesis of data analysis methods for the main research 88

Table 4.1 Discriptive analysis of Sample 101

Table 4.2 ANOVA for Customer experience 103

Table 4.3 Outer loadings of ‘Customer engagement behavior’ scale 105

Table 4.4 Convergent validity of ‘Customer engagement behavior’ scale 106

Table 4.5 HTMT value of ‘Customer engagement behavior’ scale 106

Table 4.6 HTMT confidence interval of ‘Customer engagement behavior’ 107

Table 4.7 Convergent testing results of ‘Customer experience’ scale 108

Table 4.8 Convergent validity of Constructs 110

Table 4.9 Correlations and Discriminant validity of Constructs 112

Table 4.10 Path analysis results 114

Table 4.11 The results of mediation analysis 116

Table 4.12 Summary of Hypotheses test results for Structural model 117

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1.1 Categorize services by customer interaction 11

Figure 1.2 Quality evaluations for goods and services 12

Figure 2.1 Customer experience framework 27

Figure 2.2 Conceptual model of Customer experience 28

Figure 2.3 Conceptual model of Customer engagement 35

Figure 2.5 Characteristics of the offering and actor focus 39

Figure 2.6 Customer-dominant logic of service and service management 40

Figure 2.7 Proposed framework 47

Figure 3.1 Research framework and hypotheses 62

Figure 3.2 Research procedure 66

Figure 4.1 Validity testing result of Customer engagement behavior 107

Figure 4.2 Validity testing result of Customer experience 109

Figure 4.3 Relationships in Path analysis model 118

ABSTRACT

The primary purpose of this study is to explain how and when customer experience benefits the company Built upon Customer-Dominant Logic, Social Identity theory and Need for Cognition, the study propose that customer experience leads to customer engagement behavior via two routes: customer-firm and customer-employee identification Furthermore, the study advances that customers’ epistemic motivation negatively moderates the mediated effect of customer experience on customer engagement behavior The methodologies used for the research is a combination of qualitative and quantitative technique A survey method was employed for the two studies by recruiting female consumers of beauty salons in Vietnam The results demonstrated that customer experience quality as a measurement for customer experience applies to the context of the study and provided empirical support for the hypotheses This research found that customer experience positively influences customer engagement behavior mediated by customer-firm and customer-employee identification Furthermore, this research revealed that customer epistemic motivation negatively moderates the mediated effect of customer experience on customer engagement behavior via customer-employee identification However, the moderating role of customer epistemic motivation is insignificant for the mediated relationship via customer-firm identification Finally, this research offers theoretical and practical contributions that are elaborated and further discussed

Keywords: Customer experience, Social identity theory, Customer-dominant logic theory, Need for cognition theory, customer engagement behavior, beauty service

TÓM TẮT

Mục đích chính của nghiên cứu là giải thích khi nào trải nghiệm khách hàng mang lại lợi ích cho công ty và cách nó mang lại Mô hình nghiên cứu được đề xuất từ ba thuyết đó là Thuyết sự thống trị khách hàng, bản sắc xã hội và nhu cầu nhận thức trong đó trải nghiệm khách hàng dẫn đến hành vi gắn kết khách hàng thông qua trung gian sự nhận diện khách hàng-nhân viên và sự nhận diện khách hàng-tổ chức Luận

án đã kết hợp cả hai phương pháp nghiên cứu định tính và định lượng Một cuộc khảo sát đã được thực hiện cho hai nghiên cứu (sơ bộ và chính thức) bằng cách phỏng vấn những khách hàng nữ của các thẩm mỹ viện tại Việt Nam Kết quả chứng minh rằng cấu trúc thang đo trải nghiệm khách hàng có thể áp dụng và hỗ trợ thực nghiệm trong bối cảnh dịch vụ thẩm mỹ tại Việt nam Kết quả nghiên cứu cũng cho thấy trải nghiệm khách hàng ảnh hưởng tích cực đến hành vi gắn kết khách hàng khi có vai trò trung gian của nhận diện khách hàng-nhân viên và nhận diện khách hàng-tổ chức Hơn nữa, nghiên cứu còn chỉ ra rằng động cơ nhận thức điều tiết tiêu cực tới mối quan hệ gián tiếp giữa trải nghiệm và hành vi gắn kết khách hàng thông qua trung gian nhận diện khách hàng-nhân viên Tuy nhiên, vai trò điều tiết của động cơ nhận thức khách hàng

là không đáng kể đối với mối quan hệ gián tiếp qua trung gian nhận diện khách

hàng-tổ chức Cuối cùng, kết quả nghiên cứu được thảo luận kỹ lưỡng để đưa ra một số đóng góp cả về lý thuyết và thực tiễn

Từ khóa: Trải nghiệm khách hàng, Thuyết nhận diện xã hội, Thuyết sự thống trị

khách hàng, Thuyết nhu cầu nhận thức, hành vi gắn kết khách hàng, dịch vụ thẩm

mỹ

CHAPTER 1 - RESEARCH OVERIEW

Chapter 1 is an overview of the research introduced with the main content: the research topic and a concise background following by a dilemma statement, research questions, research objectives, scope and limitations, research context and the significance and structure of the dissertation

1.1 Research background and rationales of the research

Competition in a global market has been increasingly challenging, including within the service sector (Gentile, Spiller, and Noci, 2007) Thus, service companies need to ensure their competitive advantages (Lovelock, Patterson, and Wirtz, 2015) Service researchers have suggested customer experience is now becoming vital competitive advantages a service company can pursue (Lemon and Verhoef, 2016; Gentile, Spiller and Noci, 2007; Pine and Gilmore, 1998) In the same vein, service companies have realized the importance of improving customer experience, such as

by putting customer experience as the top priority of the company as well as assigning executives to specifically handle customer experience management (Lemon and Verhoef, 2016; De Keyser, et al., 2020) There are multiple touchpoints pre-consuming, action, and post-consuming a service, and they are all equally important

At any touchpoint, a bad experience can derail an organization's efforts to offer an impressive customer experience (Rawson and Jones, 2013; De Keyser, et al., 2020; Siqueira, et al., 2020) Designing an effective customer experience means generating revenue for the business, preventing competitors from capturing the business' loyal customers, creating customer engagement and a distinctive culture for business (Thakur, 2016; Homburg, et al., 2017) According to a recent report from Acquia – Closing the Customer Experience Gap: Customer Experience Trends Report 2019 – globally, more than three-quarters (76%) of consumers switch to a brand competitor after just one bad experience (Brown, 2019) Your business will witness significant performance improvements across the top and bottom-line, if businesses focus effectively on the customer experience (Brown, 2019) Customer experience is conceptually defined as an internal and subjective response, including cognitive and affective responses, that customers have direct or indirect contact (Meyer and

Schwager, 2007; De Keyser, et al., 2020) Understanding customer experience helps executives design their services (Pullman and Gross, 2004; Teixeira, et al., 2012) In this competitive era, consumers desire more than just products or services, but they seek unique and memorable experiences and hence, understanding customer experience becomes critical to sustaining the company's competitive advantage (Stein and Ramaseshan, 2016; Pine and Gilmore, 1998)

Besides, previous studies have empirically demonstrated the effect of customer experience on several positive outcomes (Pine and Gilmore, 1998; Klaus and Maklan, 2012; Mascarenhas, Kesavan and Bernacchi, 2006; Pullman and Gross, 2004) Companies respond to customers and form markets by designing and offering unique experiences that give them with a competitive advantage and lead to favorable business outcomes (e.g., customer retention and profitability) (Bolton, et al., 2009; Verhoef, et al., 2009) Positive customer experience emotions are the link to positive outcomes (e.g., satisfaction and repurchase behavior) and negative emotions to negative consumption outcomes (e.g., dissatisfaction and avoidance behavior) (Holbrook and Batra, 1987; Russell, Weiss and Mendelsohn, 1989) Customer experience is expected to significantly influence business performance (Prahalad and Ramaswamy, 2004), particularly on marketing outcomes (Camarero, 2007) The creation of positive customer experiences is related to successful performance outcomes (Rose, et al., 2012) Thus, understanding customer experience is essential Today, modern marketing is much concerned with brand/ customer engagement (Kumar, 2019; Khan, et al., 2020; Pansari and Kumar, 2016; Meire, et al., 2019; Rather, 2020; Jessen, et al., 2020) Exploring the factors affecting customer engagement is important both academically and practically (Kumar, 2019; So, 2016) Previous studies have focused on debating the conceptual structure of customer engagement (Dwivedi, 2015; Hollebeek, 2011b; Hollebeek, 2014; So, 2016) The results of previous empirical studies are still limited, especially testing variables that play the role of antecedents of customer engagement (Dwivedi, 2015; France, et al., 2016; Hollebeek, 2014) The key question for the thesis: whether customer experience is the antecedence of customer engagement/ customer engagement is the

consequence of customer experience? How is the relationship? It is very necessary to focus on exploiting this relationship

In the process of creating and providing services, the customer is no longer an outsider; they often contribute in it as “partial employees” (Groth, 2005) In this changing role, the customer influences the firm's production efficiency and service quality and engages in active voluntary behaviors, such as customer citizenship behavior (Keh and Teo, 2001) Social identity theory is defined as "a part of an individual's self-conception rooted in his knowledge of membership of a social group along with the attached emotional meaning as a member (Tajfel, 1974) From this perspective, Dholakia, et al., (2004) argued that social identity is a defining motivation for consumers to recognize themselves as members of online communities, satisfy their fundamental social needs, and maintain positive social identity by engaging in social behaviors for the groups to which they belong to And Brewer, (1991) stated that people tend to define themselves by identifying with the groups they belong to and will struggle to improve the group’s status The higher the level of Customer company identification, the more likely it is that consumers will ponder themselves as part of the organization and show positive attitudes and behaviors to help the companies achieve their goals (Ran and Zhou, 2019) Therefore, the research bases on Social Identity Theory to propose the mediators for the relationship between customer experience and customer engagement

Kruglanski and Webster (1996) described that individuals have differences in their dispositional need for cognitive closure (NFC) Calogero, et al., (2009) conceptualized the NFC as an epistemic motive that is related to the reasons and behavior that people search for information in their social environments And the reasons and behavior differ in individuals according to their motivation for information processing and judgment (Webster and Kruglanski, 1994; Kossowska, 2002; Leone and Chirumbolo, 2008) People with high NFC have a dislike for ambiguity and therefore low epistemic motivation, these people can be characterized

as having a preference for quick decision-making, command and predictability, and are closed-minded In contrast, people with low NFC showed a higher tolerance to ambiguity and therefore a high epistemic motivation They prefer slow decision-

making, indecision, diversity, and openness (Kruglanski and Webster, 1996) Facial expressions play an essential role in interpersonal interactions, research on emotional infection has reported that emotional expressions can elicit affective reactions in others (Hatfield, et al., 1992) People frequently anticipate or predict the behavior of others and facial expressions are an important source of these predictions (Frith and Frith, 2007; Alguacil, et al., 2017) Van Kleef, et al., (2009) has recommended that people with low epistemic motivation directly base their behavior on their affective state that is suggested by the emotional expressions of others Hence, in the present study, the researcher explored the customers’ personal-characteristics, that is their motivation to process cues related to beauty services

Customer experience has become increasingly important for service businesses that see it as a force of sustainable competitive advantage, and for service designers, who ponder it fundamental to any service design project (Teixeira, et al., 2012) Experiential marketing is emerging as a new marketing strategy as something to satisfy consumers' emotional desires with a sensational and memorable feeling or experience even in the beauty services industry (Jeon, 2013)

In recent years, the experiential marketing research has been actively carried out in the cultural industry, the fashion industry, the cultural content industry and design industry, etc., for the most part while the experiential marketing elements such as sense, feelings, thoughts, actions and relationships (Schmitt, 1999) While the experiential marketing research targeting cosmetics has been performed a great deal recently even in the beauty industry, the research targeting beauty salons are partial

in nature, on emotion or relation marketing The situation is that the experiential marketing research examined comprehensively is almost nonexistent (Jeon, 2013)

It can be said that the 4.0 era is an era of explosive development in all aspects

of life Therefore, the beauty demand of female consumers has also increased dramatically Many beauty establishments not only design customer experience in principle, but they also try to apply modern equipment, beauty methods combined with advanced technology to design customer experience With the very fast growth

of the beauty industry, more and more establishments are opened, making it increasingly difficult for customers to choose reliable addresses and meet their own

needs And choosing the right beauty facility is even more difficult Finding a beauty address already, but using the service is another matter Currently, beauty establishments are very invested in beauty products and equipment, but in terms of service convenience, most beauty establishments have not invested in customer experience In the current 4.0 era, connected solutions are always the first choice for customers, but convenience in connection is a problem in the design of service experience of beauty establishments (Isalon, 2011)

1.2 Research gaps

Despite the prevalent research on the customer experience within the service industry,

a closer look at the literature reveals a critical gap in this research First, the literature

on customer experience focuses on examining what makes customer experience (Alnawas and Hemsley-Brown, 2019; Quach, et al., 2020; Chylinski, et al., 2020) However, prior studies have suggested that it is important to examine the way customer experience products or services vary across contexts (e.g., industry or cultural context) (Verhoef, et al., 2009; Shobeiri, Mazaheri and Laroche, 2018; Hwang and Seo, 2016) For example, playfulness, aesthetics, and service excellence are more valued by the US customers than by Chinese counterparts (Shobeiri, Mazaheri and Laroche, 2018) Therefore, researchers continuously attempt to develop a global measure of customer experience that needs to be validated over different contexts, but these studies have focused on financial services (Rose, et al., 2012; Klaus, et al., 2013; Garg, et al., 2014; Fernandes, and Pinto, 2019) Additionally, Service-dominant Logic is introduced and positioned as provider-focused that includes core activities of service experience Customer-dominant Logic

is introduced and positioned as customer-focused that includes all related activities and other activities of service experience (Heinonen, et al., 2010) The author finds that the concepts of customer experience in the previous research only focused on investigating the core activities of customer experience, but did not examine other activities related to the service value-creating experience In other words, previous studies focused on investigating value co-creation but not consumer created value in the concept of customer experience (Rose, et al., 2012; Garg, et al., 2014; Keiningham, et al., 2017; Fernandes and Pinto, 2019; Kuo and Chen, 2015; Jeon,

2013; Sari and Wijaya, 2019; Karnowati and Astuti, 2020; Heo and Kim, 2016) Klaus and Maklan (2012) conceptualized and developed a measure for customer experience which involves four dimensions that represent a perceptual or higher-order perception such as, product experience, outcome focus, moments-of-truth, and peace-of-mind, despite its potential, it has not been widely tested empirically However, the author found only two studies that investigated this concept in different service contexts: in the mortgage and hotel industry (Klaus and Maklan, 2012; Lemon and Verhoef, 2016) Thus, the application of the “customer experience” conceptual structure of Klaus and Maklan (2012) for this research aims to examine its scales applicability in the context of beauty services in Vietnam and to propose managerial implications more detailed and comprehensive is needed

Second, amongst the existing research, little attention has been given to understand different aspects of the customer, and the service context that translates customer experience to positive outcomes for the companies (Teixeira, et al., 2012; Klaus and Maklan, 2012) These studies only examine customer experience as a factor affecting commitment, perception, and behavior (Khan, Garg and Rahman, 2015; Klaus and Maklan, 2012; Klaus, et al., 2013; Sharma and Chaubey, 2014; Garg, Rahman and Qureshi, 2014; Van Doornetal, 2010; Rose, et al., 2012; Keiningham, et al., 2017; Kumar, et al., 2019; Kuo and Chen, 2015; Sari and Wijaya, 2019; Karnowati and Astuti, 2020; Heo and Kim, 2016) Thus, this research is crucial to understand the mechanism and condition that translate customer experience into positive company outcomes As customer-engagement behavior represents various consumer actions that benefit the companies, the use of a multi-dimensional conceptual structure to examine the relationship between customer experience and customer engagement behavior is deemed necessary because the outcome is more inclusive (Roy, et al., 2020; Ng, et al., 2020)

Third, some previous studies had examined the effect on customer engagement behavior, but their research approaches through different theoretical background, not Social Identity Theory (Libaietal, 2010; Brodie, et al., 2011; Kumar, Peterson and Leone, 2010); Kumar, et al., 2013; Hollebeek, Glynn and Brodie, 2014; Bueno, et al., 2019) In other words, more studies are needed to understand how customer-

experience can result in customer-engagement behavior with a new approach Further, customer experience is not produced by the companies but is formed, it is important to understand what personal aspects of customers that influence their responses toward companies’ offerings and touch points (Heinonen and Strandvik, 2015; Heninonen, et al., 2010) Personal aspects of customers are extraverted personality, conscientiousness, and openness (Mann and Rawat, 2016) According to social identity theory, when customers value their interactions with the company and the service staff, they are more likely to identify with the company and the service staff, this identification can be demonstrated through their post-experience behavior (Mael and Ashforth, 1992; Hong and Yang, 2009) During the process of customers experiencing the service, meaning that they are contributing and co-producing to jointly create profits for the business, the customer motivation factor is indispensable This study also built upon Customer dominant logic and Need for cognition theory to focus an individual aspect that is related to individual cognitive framework, that is motivation (D'Andrade, 1992; Singer and Salovey, 1996) Particularly, this study focuses on customer epistemic motivation, individual’s motivation to develop a rich and accurate understanding of one’s current situation (Wang Ze, et al., 2017; Cote and Hideg, 2011)

In addition, beauty service is also defined as personal service shown by marketing literature in which customer experience plays an important role in co-producing service outcome (Konishi, 2016) Konishi (2016) classifies services into two groups: group one is that customers evaluate service quality based on the service's credibility such as medical, repair, legal services, .; group two is that customers evaluate service quality based on customer experience such as beauty care services, resorts, restaurants, and tourism., ., From this classification, it shows that beauty services belong to the second group It also confirms that customer experience is extremely important in beauty services The author has not found any research of beauty services that examine aspects of the mechanism and condition that translate customer experience into positive company outcomes in general and in Vietnam in particular Therefore, the research author has decided to choose beauty services in Vietnam to conduct the study

1.3 Research aims

Applied within the beauty service context in Vietnam, this research aims to validate the scale of customer experience as well as examining the mechanism and conditions that link customer experience and customer engagement behavior Building upon Customer-Dominant Logic (Heinonen and Strandvik, 2015; Heninonen, et al., 2010), the Social Identity Theory within the consumer context (Lam, et al., 2010; He, Li and Harris, 2012), the Need for Cognition (Cacioppo, Petty, and Morris, 1983; Xiao, et al., 2021, Su, et al., 2021), this research proposes that customer experience leads to customer engagement behavior as mediated by customer-employee as well as customer-company identification and customer engagement behavior In addition, this relationship between customer experience and customer engagement behavior is moderated by customer epistemic motivation Below, this research elaborated the proposed research framework that can be divided into three main sections: (1) The mediating role of customer-employee identification

on the relationship between customer experience and customer engagement behavior, (2) the mediating role of customer-company identification on the relationship between customer experience and customer engagement behavior, (3) the conditional role of customer epistemic motivation on the indirect relationship between customer experience and customer engagement behavior Subsequently, the development of the formal hypotheses, methodology, results and general discussion will be presented and discussed

1.4 Research objectives and questions

Relating to the aim of the research showed in section (1.2), the following research questions/objectives are formulated with expected solutions

Objective 1: Determine whether customer engagement behavior is the outcome of

customer experience in the beauty service context The two corresponding research questions developed were:

1.1 Is customer engagement behavior the outcome of customer experience in the beauty service context?

1.2 How does customer experience effect customer engagement behavior in the beauty service context?

Objective 2: Examine the mediating roles of customer-firm and customer-employee

identification in the relationship between customer experience and customer engagement behavior of the beauty service context The two corresponding research questions developed were:

2.1 Are customer-firm and customer-employee identification the mediators in the relationship between customer experience and customer engagement behavior of the beauty service context?

2.2 How are the mediating roles of customer-firm and customer-employee identification in the relationship between customer experience and customer engagement behavior of the beauty service context?

Objective 3: Examine the moderating roles of customer epistemic motivation in the

indirect relationship between customer experience and customer engagement behavior of the beauty service context The two corresponding research questions developed were:

3.1 Does customer epistemic motivation play the moderating role in the

relationship between customer experience and customer engagement behavior of the beauty service context?

3.2 How is the moderating role of customer epistemic motivation in the

relationship between customer experience and customer engagement behavior of the beauty service context?

Objective 4: Identifying the demographic variables control customer engagement

behavior in the beauty service context The corresponding research question developed was:

4.1 Which demographic variables control customer engagement behavior in

the beauty service context?

1.5 Research context

The beauty service industry involves businesses that offer services to help people to attain their best appearance The fact that beauty services provide emotional as well as physical benefits add to their service value That is one of the reasons that the beauty industry is always growing sustainably, almost never falling back Even during the most recent economic recession, beauty businesses remained

stronger (Professional Beauty Association, 2020) According to a report of the Global Welness Institute (2018), the global healthcare industry grew 12.8% in the period 2015-2017, from 3.700 billion to a market of 4.200 billion USD In particular, the beauty industry is quite prominent with an increase of 8% per year, with a scale

of approximately $ 100 billion (Aesthenic Intelligent Company, 2020) Looking back at the beauty industry statistics comprehensively, investors are extremely excited because business results in recent years have only increased, not decreased The global beauty industry is worth more than 500 billion USD, the US market alone accounted for 93.5 billion in 2019; the global skin care market is worth nearly 135 billion USD; Growing rapidly and dynamically, new products and services appear

on the market every day Also, according to the growth statistics of the beauty industry, the number of employees in the services segment is expected to increase

by 10% for barbers, hairdressers, estheticians and nearly 22% for massage therapists

in 2024 Asia is the fastest growing beauty market after Europe Particularly in Vietnam, in recent years, cosmetic brands, beauty salons, and spas have sprung up and the sense of beauty has also increased, especially among the young and middle-aged people, who have an average income

1.5.1 Beauty service industry

The British Beauty Council and Britain Thinks have come together to come

up with the definition of the beauty service industry, which has gone through several iterations The final version reflects consensus based on the views of individuals represent different sectors of the beauty service industry, but the main structure of this definition is beauty services including holistic treatments, beauty treatments, and hair services (British Beauty Coucil, 2019) According to a survey of the beauty service market in some Asian countries such as Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, and Korea by Research Office and Legislative Council Secretariat

(2019), there are three main types of services, they are “beauty salons providing

conventional beauty services through hairdressing, perming and make-up; and

aesthetic salons which provide beautifying services for skincare and body care through manual techniques, cosmetics and equipment; cosmetic surgery offering

beauty services on enhancing appearance through surgical and medical techniques,

in which plastic surgery is defined as a surgical specialty dedicated to reconstruction of facial and body defects due to birth disorders, trauma, burns, and disease”

Schmenner (1986) divided the service industry into four patterns using the intensity of labor and customer interactions Labor intensity represents the ratio of labor waste to value added Customer interaction means the frequency of a service provider's contact with a customer during service use Figure 1.1 shows that beauty services are classified as labor-intensive services, with a workforce requiring high professional skills The role of the beautician and the participation of the customer is very important to the formation of the service, the interaction between the customer and the beautician determines the positive outcome of the beauty service Therefore, this dissertation has selected beauty services to examine deeply about the interaction

in customer experience

Figure 1.1 Categorize services by customer interaction

(Source: Konishi, 2016)

To evaluate the quality of goods and services, Konishi (2016) divided the goods and services into two categories, the one is easy to evaluate the quality and the other one is difficult The one that is easy to evaluate for quality is mostly tangible products/ goods, the other that is difficult to evaluate the quality is intangible products/ services Konishi (2016) has also specifically classified products and services for quality evaluation in three aspects: evaluating the quality of a tangible product through search qualities, experience quality, evaluating the quality of general services through credence qualities, evaluating the quality of personal services through experience qualities

Figure 1.2 Quality evaluations for goods and services

(Source: Konishi, 2016)

Looking at figure 1.2, Konishi (2016) classifies services into two groups: group one is that customers evaluate service quality based on the service's credibility such as medical, repair, legal services Group two is that customers evaluate service quality based on customer experience such as beauty care services, resorts, restaurants, tourism From this classification, it shows that beauty services belong to the second group The beauty service is one of the personal services and to evaluate the quality of beauty services is difficult We evaluate its quality based on a measurement of customer experience Customers experience touchpoints when

interacting with the brand, they identify themselves with beauticians and the firm and bring positive results for the business That is the reason why the dissertation has chosen beauty services as the subject for the examination

1.5.2 Beauty service industry in Vietnam

Many years ago, the beauty industry was not really popular and an official profession in Vietnam In recent years, the Vietnamese market has become a potential market for beauty service business investors with the explosion of a large number of beauty service business The rising consumer demand for skin and body care services has boomed with the growth of beauty industry, the number of beauty service businesses is increasing rapidly in big cities such as Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, Da Nang, Hai Phong and Binh Duong Beauticians/ practitioners with expert performance are always eager to welcome with high remuneration and never unemployed It is estimated that about 2,000 beauty service businesses established each year to meet the consumer demand in Vietnam and there are about 2 million employed persons working in this field The number of beauty service establishments

in Vietnam increased by 15-20% from the previous year Most of them are dealing with losing customers to competitors, and ineffective communication (VietNamNet Bridge, 2016)

As people gradually feel that beauty is indispensable in everyday life and the demand for beauty is increasing, the beauty service business models continue to develop at an unprecidented pace in Vietnam In recent years, Vietnam has become

a high potential market for beauty services due to the economic growth, the development of social life and the increasing demand for beauty of people of all ages.In almost every country and in cities, , towns across the provinces, it is easy to see the presence of beauty service establishments (beauty establishments) such as beauty salons, spas or even clinics However, the explosion of a series of beauty establishments makes the beauty service market gradually become challenging and difficult due to fierce competition Faced with that situation, in order to be able to survive and develop, beauty establishments are forced to look for their own business opportunities They do this on the basis of thoroughly understanding the market, customers, choosing for themselves the target market, and appropriate criteria for

designing the right customer experience values Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) is the largest market for beauty services in Vietnam The healthcare sector has a policy of developing tourism health, so many domestic and international tourists come to the city to use medical services, including beauty services Therefore, the number of aesthetic and beauty establishments is increasing to meet their beauty needs As of September 2019, the city has a total of 1,329 beauty service businesses (General Statistics Office of Vietnam, 2019) The strong development of beauty services has contributed significantly to Vietnam's GDP, helping to solve the problem of employment for thousands of labors

Table 1.1 Classification of beauty services in Vietnam Beauty care service Beauty surgery service Beauty salons Aesthetic salons Cosmetic surgery Plastic

surgery

Hairdressing salons Spa (Day spa, beauty

spa, clinic spa)

Cosmetic surgery clinics

Plastic surgery clinics Manicure salons Massage (Foot massage,

Physiotherapy massage, Stone massage)

Cosmetic dental clinic

Eyelashes salons

Cosmetic tattooing

(Source: Author’s survey)

In the beauty service industry in Vietnam, it is divided into 2 areas which are beauty care service and beauty surgery service: beauty care service is a type of beauty care operation that does not cause bleeding, does not make changes inside the human body This service is completely different from beauty surgery service Beauty surgery service is where a person chooses to have an operation, or invasive medical procedure, to change their physical appearance for cosmetic rather than medical reasons Decision No 27/2018/QD-TTg was promulgated July 6, 2018 by the Prime Minister on the two sections of beauty service in Vietnam It states that to meet the business conditions of beauty care services, according to the provisions of law,business owners need to choose one of two business models These are thebusiness registration in the form of individual business households; and they must

register to set up a company In order to decide which research subject is suitable for the research topic, the author has carried out qualitative research to better understand the concept of service experience in practice by participating and feeling experience from many different types of services (tourism, hotel, beauty service) After collecting data from the beauty service market, the author found that the beauty service market is divided into 2 sections, they are summarized in Table 1.1

Section 1: Beauty care services

Beauty salons: This is a service group in the field of hair cutting, hairdressing, hair

washing Corresponding to their fields, this group mainly includes the following services: haircutting, shampooing, drying, curling, dyeing, straightening, straightening, etc In addition, there are other services for both men and women, eyelashes, manicure, etc

Aesthetic salons: These are sauna services, massage and similar health promotion

services excluding sports activities More specifically, this group includes the following types of services: Sauna services, sunbathing services, massage services The services without the use of surgical methods, such as skincare salons, body care salons, etc

Section 2: Beauty surgery services

Cosmetic surgery clinics: These services provide clients with the option to have an

operation, or invasive medical procedure, to change their physical appearance for cosmetic rather than medical reasons Cosmetic surgery includes surgical and nonsurgical procedures (such as botox and dermal fillers) that enhance and reshape structures of the body to improve appearance and confidence

Plastic surgery clinics: These services involve a surgical specialty in the

reconstruction of facial and body tissue defects caused by illness, trauma, or birth disorders

The participation and level of interaction in each service section (beauty care service, beauty surgery service) is different The service experience process of section

2 is long, which makes it difficult to reach the survey subject It will take a long time

to reach a large sample size Thus, the author decided to focus on beauty salons to easily approach the respondents, and save time for the survey The results of the

interviews with experts also suggested the selection of this research subject Therefore, the research has selected beauty salons to conduct the research

1.5.3 Beauty salon service

The beginning of beauty salon services can be traced back to the hairstyling art The hairstyling service industry dates back to ancient Egypt, Rome, and Greece However, the profession of beauty services developed following the commercial lines

in the late nineteenth century Their popularity was assisted by the development of technological innovations that generated new demands for hairstyles Schools of cosmetology were first founded in America in the late 1890s to train students, primarily women, for the expanding and enlarging profession For many years, small sole proprietorships were standard in the industry As the purchasing power of working women increased rapidly during the 1970s and 1980s, the industry began to enlarge and the number of corporate-owned salons increased dramatically

In recent years, in addition to people’s health conditions, especially women, tend to take care of their physical appearance Therefore, in the face of the need to enhance the beauty of women, many beauty salons have started their business Using special experiences and techniques, they create significant opportunities for women's appearance, helping them feel more confident

Table 1.2 Services offered by beauty establishes

(Sourse: Khan and Tabassum, 2010)

The product-lines that beauty establishments provide are very diverse, including: Threading, Hair, Facials, Makups, Touch-ups, Personal care Details of these product-lines are listed in Table 1.2 with the reference of Khan and Tabassum, (2010) The dissertation has relied on the beauty service classification of Khan and Tabassum, (2010) to design scales in order to collect general information about the comsumer behavior of beauty services

1.5.4 Beauty salon service in Vietnam

In Vietnam, there are two business forms of providing beauty services from beauty salons: providing a single service such as hairdressing salons, manicure salons, eyelashes salons, cosmetic tatooing; or a combination service such as many beauty salons add spa services to create new attraction for customers, helping to increase business profits The beauty salon industry in Vietnam is largely unorganized, the two main categories of beauty salons in Vietnam has been identified

on quality of service, great spaces, well-equipped infrastructure, and more They provide value for service They adopt a complete professional approach while displaying services These beauty salons attract customers even though they are far away from residence There are two most popular business models applied to human resource management at beauty salons in Vietnam:

Traditional human resource management model: an owner who oversees the entire

beauty salon, holding all the roles such as owner, technician, janitor, cashier, arranger

of all service processes, and mentor to employees With this model, the salon owner recruits learners and employees who come to them without the need to work but want

to learn a profession This model has technical strengths, but there are management problems in customer service

Modern human resource management model: This business model applies scientific

knowledge of business administration to human resources by management through standardization, digitization, personnel structuring; targeted business, development vision and strategy Single beauty salons or beauty salon chains can apply this business model Currently, in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh, there are a number of businesses that have applied this model, they are some beauty salon-chains such as Hanoi: ViVi, Venus, Juno salon (Korea); Ho Chi Minh City: J-First Tokyo (Japan), Art Hair (Korea), Mano Mano (Japan), most of which are foreign businesses, and a few are domestic ones

Category II: Beauty services operating as small stores in conventional manner

Beauty salons in this category are the commercial establishments but has a small scale of operation, functioning is conservative and they restrict their operations

to local area from where they operate They offer limited and customized services as per the needs of the customers in the locality of their operations These beauty salons offer the limited range of services Some selected salons in upper-middle class localities offer specialized services on demand These salons take over the middle class and high middle class areas, the capital investments is less in comparison to the Category - I salons These beauty salons generally get customers from their locality

or through references from nearby areas

1.6 Key terms

Beauty industry

The beauty industry encompasses sales of cosmetics, perfume, and products for skin and hair care Beauty salons and spas are considered the service sector of the beauty industry (Grindstaff, 2020)

Beauty service

The section of beauty service deals with three main types of services – hairdressers, personal care and body artists (City Of Adelaide, 2020) According to the Research Office & Legislative Council Secretariat (2019), beauty services dominate 3 main

types of services, which are beauty salons, aesthetic salons, cosmetic surgery

Beauty salon

Beauty salons providing conventional beauty services through hairdressing, perming and make-up (Research Office & Legislative Council Secretariat, 2019)

1.7 Research subject and scope

This research focuses on the experience provided by beauty salons and discusses more on the relationship between customer experience and customer engagement This research will provide a beauty salon manager a better understanding of their customer behavior, especially the role of customer experience

in shaping customer engagement The research was conducted in the area of Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam, since Ho Chi Minh is one of the big cities with the highest growth rate of beauty salon industry in Vietnam The salons chosen as research samples are salons with premium prices which are targeted for upper middle class people and located in beauty service market Hence, a premium priced salon was chosen because such salon customers are expected to deliver more reliable and accurate opinion about experience and engagement 1,200 questionnaires then distributed to top twelve beauty salons in Ho Chi Minh city The targeted respondents were female consumers with vary level of experience, they were asked to complete the questionnaires regarding their experience toward the beauty salons

1.8 Structure of the research

Chapter 1 – Introduction

Introducing the research topic and a brief background following by problem statement, research question, research objectives, scope and limitations, the significance and structure of the thesis

Chapter 2 – Literature Review

Presenting the related literature concerning customer experience, customer engagement

Chapter 3 – Research Methodology

Providing detail instrument of research model, research process, measurements and questionnaire design, data collection method and data analysis method

Chapter 4 – Discussions and Findings

Analyze collected data and interpret into the findings of the research

Chapter 5 – Conclusion and Recommendations

Draw out conclusion and propose recommendations to enhance customer toward beauty salons in Ho Chi Minh City

CHAPTER 2 - LITERATURE REVIEW

The second chapter explores the background viewpoint of the related literature and theories in order to explore the research gaps and needs of the conceptual framework

It proposes the research hypotheses to adapt the above framed research questions and objectives in chapter 1

At first, Chapter 2 presents a review of the concept of customer experience, and the importance of customer experience in business operations It also presents the components of the customer experience in beauty service, and the consequences of customer experience in general service The next, to answer the research question 1.1

“Is customer engagement behavior the outcome of customer experience in the beauty service context?”, this chapter reviewed the concepts of customer engagement, antecedences of engaging the customer Third, this chapter shows the classification

of beauty service and the importance of customer experience in beauty service The fourth, the chapter reviews the two theories: Customer- Dominant Logic and Social Identity theory And finally, this chapter presents operationalization of the selected variables for measurement design in the next chapter

2.1 Review of Customer experience (EX)

2.1.1 Conceptualization of Customer experience

In the early days, Abbott (1955) and Alderson (1957) focused on emphasizing that

“what people really desire are not products but satisfying experiences” Furthering

this notion, some experiential theorists offered a broader view of human behavior, especially recognizing the importance of the emotional aspects of decision making and experience (such as Hirschman and Holbrook 1982; Holbrook and Hirschman 1982; Thompson, Locander and Pollio 1989) Experience is defined in many different contexts of consumption There are many definitions of experience that have been given that are general and do not reflect any particular component (Terblanche and Boshoff, 2001; Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004; Caru and Cova, 2007; Meyer and Schwager, 2007; Palmer, 2010; Helkkula, 2011; Nasution, et al., 2014) Such generic concepts can provide extended functionality for conceptualizing experiences in different contexts, however, the lack of specific components makes examining the concept of experience without the focuses and details Other definitions focus on

different components of experience (Holbrook and Hirschman,1982; Gentile, Spiller, and Noci, 2007; Grundey, 2008; Gentile, et al., 2007; Verhoefetal, 2009; Schmitt, 2011; Klaus and Maklan, 2012; De Keyser, et al., 2015) The concept of customer experience was first distinguished in the mid-1980s when the perception of consumption experience and hedonic consumption were discussed by Holbrook and Hirschman (1982) Initial studies address the manageable characteristics of single service encounters: in particular, how to minimize the impact of negative service experiences (Bitner, 1990) The hedonic nature of consumer experiences focusing on three aspects of consumption that are senses, emotions and fantasy (Holbrook and Hirschman, 1982) Schmitt (1999) with a multidimensional view identified five components in experience: sensory (sense), affective (feel), cognitive (think), physical (act), and social-identity (relate) experiences Brand experience consists of four separate, though related, dimensions: sensory, affective, intellectual, and behavioral (Schmitt, 2011) The construct of customer experience consists the customer’s cognitive, affective, emotional, social, and physical responses (Verhoef,

et al., 2009) “Customer experience as “comprised of the cognitive, emotional,

physical, sensorial, spiritual, and social elements that mark the customer’s direct or indirect interaction with (an)other market actor(s)”—in essence, the raw data contained in all direct or indirect interactions that then come together as an overall experience” (De Keyser, et al., 2015) Bustamante and Rubio (2017) found customer

experience to include customers’ internal responses to service stimuli (cognitive, emotional and physical responses) and social responses to other actors joined in the service encounter Customer experience is multi-dimensional consisting of spiritual, sensorial, physical, rational and emotional evaluations of the service touchpoints (Pekovic and Rolland, 2020; Kuppelweiser and Klaus, 2020)

Pine and Gilmore’s (1998) indorsed the idea of customer experience, which flashed penetrating interest in both research and practice The recent definitions of customer experience originate from a set of interactions between customer and product, or part of its organisation, which incites a response (Gentile, Spiller, and Noci, 2007) Verhoef and colleagues (2009) frazzled the importance of past experiences in establishing current ones Experiences are personal and exceptional,

they comprise customer’s perception and participation, engage customers emotionally, shared with others and remembered for a while (Walls, 2009) Pimpakorn and Patterson, (2010) states that customer experience is the result of their assessment of the cumulative contacts that customers have with service Taking the dynamic view in a more progressive way, Patrício and colleagues (2011) abandoned the outdated view of company- customer interactions, instead, they argue that interactions occur in a broader network of companies Klaus and Maklan (2012) defined customer experience is generated from both cognitive appraisal and affective response, although their research represented these in a sequential change, but it has not yet determined which sequences are most important both in the customers’ overall appraisal and in their resulting behavior, therefore, the literature exhorts managers to accept a massive growth in responsibility for customer outcomes Srivastava and Kaul (2014) claimed that personal interaction is very important in the customer experience building process, as it is at the heart of the customer-employee relationship

Customer experience has become a very commonly used phrase in recent years Customer Experience has emerged as a key marketing concept for creating a unique, enjoyable and memorable experience This is a concept that if understood simply, it is not new, but its evolution through each stage and up to now is still a new topic and attracts researchers, especially in service marketing Customer experience

is a strategic process that helps a company create comprehensive customer value, achieve differentiation and sustainable competitive advantage (Shaw and Ivens, 2002; Carbone and Haeckel, 1994; Pine and Gilmore, 1998; Gentile, et al., 2007; Verhoef, et al., 2009) Carbone and Haeckel, (1994) confirmed that traditional service value propositions are no longer relevant to reaching today's customer and creating differentiation, businesses should focus on designing customer experience which is

as important as creating products and services Customer value is not created by a single component, but by a combination of many components in the customer experience (Gronroos, 2006) The results of previous studies suggest the business management with customer experience is focused, businesses need to develop competencies in design and manage customer experience in order to provide

enjoyable experiential memories for customers There are variety definitions of customer experience in the literature, in this section, the author review some of the major accepted definitions that are relevant to service experiences in the Table 2.1 Table 2.1 shows that customer experience is a multidimensional concept, the main components in this concept are cognitive, affective, sensory, conative Most of these four-component conceptual structures are widely used, especially the conceptual structure of (Klaus and Maklan, 2012) is highly comprehensive and suitable for the investigation of service experience, but has not been popularized yet

Table 2.1 Overview of some important definitions of EX

(Grundey, 2008) “Subjective episode in the construction/transformation of the

individual, with however, an emphasis on the emotions and senses lived during the immersion at the expense of the cognitive dimension.”

(Meyer and

Schwager, 2007)

“The internal and subjective response that customers have of any direct or indirect contact with a company Direct contact generally occurs in the course of purchase, use and service, and

is usually initiated by the customer Indirect contact most often involves unplanned encounters with representatives of a company’s products, services, or brands and takes the form of word-of-mouth recommendations or criticisms, advertising, news reports and reviews”

(Gentile, et al.,

2007)

“The customer experience originates from a set of interactions between a customer and a product, a company, or part of its organization, which provoke a reaction This experience is strictly individual and implies the customer’s involvement at

(Palmer, 2010) “on the one hand, experience is a learned outcome that is

associated with predictable behaviors, whereas on the other it has come to be associated with processes whose novelty may result in unpredictable response by consumers”

(Helkkula,

2011)

“Three characterisations of the concept of service experience are identified in the literature review: phenomenological service experience, process-based service experience and outcome- based service experience”

(Schmitt, 2011) “Brand experience consists of four separate, though related,

dimensions: sensory, affective, intellectual, and behavioral”

(Klaus and

Maklan, 2012)

“Service experience is the customer’s assessment of all attributes

of their direct and indirect dealings with a service provider that explains their behavioral loyalty through repeat purchasing Its dimensions are product experience, outcome focus, moments-of- truth and peace-of-mind”

(Olsson, et al.,

2012)

“Service experience is multidimensional, consisting of a cognitive dimension related to service quality and two affective dimensions related to positive activation, such as enthusiasm or boredom, and positive deactivation, such as relaxation or stress”

Nasution, et al.,

(2014)

Customer experience as a journey that customers goes through where they accumulate awareness and response through every carrier contact with the service provider

(De Keyser, et

al., 2015)

“Customer experience as comprised of the cognitive, emotional, physical, sensorial, spiritual, and social elements that mark the customer’s direct or indirect interaction with (an)other market actor(s)”—in essence, the raw data contained in all direct or indirect interactions that then come together as an overall experience.”

(Bonaiuto, et al.,

2016)

“optimal experience… depicts the psychological mental state of

a person who is immersed in an activity with energized concentration, optimal enjoyment, full involvement, and intrinsic interests, and who is usually focused, motivated, positive, energized, and aligned with the task at hand”