Purpose - Most past studies related to this focused on the physical attractiveness of service employees, but this study emphasizes the social attractiveness and not just the physical attractiveness of employees. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to first categorize attractiveness as physical attractiveness and social attractiveness and to examine the impact of physical attractiveness on social attractiveness for service industry employees. Secondly, this study aimed at verifying the impact of physical attractiveness and social attractiveness on interpersonal trust. Third, it aimed at revealing the impact of interpersonal trust on customer satisfaction, as well as satisfaction on loyalty.
Research design, data, and methodology - Questionnaires were distributed to customers that used beauty salon services, among the various service industries, to verify the hypothesis of this study. Also, hypothesis was analyzed with the structural equation method using Amos 20.0. Results - When presenting the results on verifying the research hypothesis, it was found that physical attractiveness had a positive impact on social attractiveness. Second, while physical attractiveness did not have a positive impact on interpersonal trust, social attractiveness was found to have a positive impact on interpersonal trust. Such results show that in forming interpersonal trust, social attractiveness was more important than physical attractiveness for service industry employees. This result is in contrast with the results of past studies, but it is different in that previous studies suggested only physical attractiveness and did not present social attractiveness in the hypothesis. Third, it was found that interpersonal trust had a positive impact on satisfaction, while satisfaction did not have a positive impact on loyalty.
Conclusions - The biggest implication of this study is that it presented social attractiveness, which was rarely dealt with in past studies. Also, this study is significant in that it examined the relationship of physical attractiveness and social attractiveness. The results of this study show that in the service industry, the role of human elements such as service employees is important and that in addition to physical attractiveness, social attractiveness in the course of interaction such as communication with customers can also be an important strategic element.
Purpose - The study aims to provide the relationships between the social servicescape and customer’s emotion and voluntary behaviors were investigated in this study. The social servicescape was largely divided into service employee’s image and other customers (in customer’s similarity, physical appearance and suitable behavior). Firstly, the relationship between service employee’s image and customer’s positive emotion was investigated as a specific purpose of study. Secondly, this study attempted to understand the relationship between other customers (in customer’s similarity, physical appearance and suitable behavior) and customer’s positive emotion. Lastly, the relationship between customer’s positive emotion and customer’s voluntary behavior dimension (intention to cooperate, intention to participate in and loyalty) was examined.
Research design, data, & methodology – In order to prove the hypotheses in this study, the customers who have experienced family restaurants during the last two months were targeted for a survey. A total number of 300 survey papers were distributed and as a result, 248 papers could be used for analysis, except the papers with insincere answers. After the analysis of the reliability and validity of each major variable, the hypothesis was verified through the structure method by using Amos 20.0.
Results - First, the results of hypothesis testing on the relationship between social servicescape and customer’s positive emotion showed service employee image gives a positively meaningful impact on customer’s positive emotion. Secondly, the results on the relationship between other customers and customer’s positive emotion indicated that the customer’s similarity and physical appearance has a positively significant impact on customer’s emotion while customer’s suitable behavior has not a significantly positive impact on customer’s positive emotion Lastly, customer’s positive emotion was shown to have a significantly positive influence on customer’s voluntary behavior dimension, that is, intention to cooperate, intention to participate in and loyalty.
Conclusions - This study aims to focus on and emphasize the social servicescape and its importance, which is different from the previous studies that have been focused largely on physical servicescape. Such results in this study indicated the social servicescape (service employee’s image and other customers) as an important factor that affects customer’s positive emotion and voluntary behavior.