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A SURVEY METHOD FOR IDENTIFYING KEY DRIVERS OF GUEST
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DELIGHT
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John C. Crotts
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Professor
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Department of Hospitality and Tourism Management
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School of Business and Economics
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College of Charleston
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66 George Street
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Charleston, SC 29424-001
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[email protected]
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Bing Pan
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Assistant Professor
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Department of Hospitality and Tourism Management
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School of Business and Economics
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College of Charleston
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Andrew E. Raschid
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Associate Professor
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Department of Dietetics, Fashion Merchandizing and Hospitality
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Western Illinois University
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Submitted exclusively for
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International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management
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A SURVEY METHOD FOR IDENTIFYING KEY DRIVERS OF GUEST
3
DELIGHT
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ABSTRACT
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Purpose- Key drivers of guest delight are attributes that have a surprise value and a
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direct relationship with customers’ repeat visit intent and thus a business’ overall success.
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It is an important strategic task to determine what those critical attributes are. The aim of
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this paper is to provide a method for identifying those key drivers that contribute to guest
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delight.
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Design/methodology/approach – The authors adopted two survey questions from
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Pritchard and Havitz (2006) to obtain liked and disliked service attributes, and two
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additional questions to identify the delighted and highly satisfied guests. Drawing from a
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sample of guests to a food and wine festival, this research purports a simple but
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inherently useful tool to identify key drivers of guest delight through four survey
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questions.
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Findings – The four questions could be an economic and useful way to discover the key
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drivers of guest delight. The questions and their further analysis method evoke personally
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meaningful responses from visitors, at both the micro and macro levels, that have
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practical implications for managers.
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Research limitations/implications – This paper used a survey of festival visitors to test
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the method. Further testing on other types of travel and service surveys need to be
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conducted.
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Originality/value – This research clearly adds new knowledge to the present body of
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hospitality and tourism literature by providing a simple and economic way to measure
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key drivers of visitor satisfaction; it also offers managerial implications for practitioners
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to improve their service quality.
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Keywords Satisfaction, delight, key drivers
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Paper type Research in Brief
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A SURVEY METHOD FOR IDENTIFYING KEY DRIVERS OF GUEST
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DELIGHT
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INTRODUCTION
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Visitor experiences are complex phenomena. They involve a diverse array of moments of
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truth, all influenced by the visitors’ unique expectations and evaluations. In today’s
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competitive business environment, the ability to meet and exceed customers’
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expectations is a key determinant of guest satisfaction. In turn, customer satisfaction has
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a direct and positive impact on the economic viability of any hospitality organization
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(Torres and Kline, 2006). Thus, all visitor service organizations should strive to meet and
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exceed visitor expectations in every aspect. However, recognizing that organizations
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have limited or finite resources, each organization needs to make sure that its primary
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focus and highest priorities are on the specific key drivers that pleased its most satisfied
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and delighted customers. In this paper, key drivers were defined as the most important
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elements in determining customer evaluation and behavior, such as customer satisfaction
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or repeated visitation intent.
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Customer delight, which goes beyond satisfaction, has recently drawn more attention in
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the service industry research field (Berman, 2005; Arnold, Reynolds, Ponder and Lueg,
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2005; Verma, 2003; Zemke, 2000; Schneider and Bowen, 1999; Oliver, Rust and Varki,
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1997). Different from satisfaction, guest delight is defined as positive emotional response
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to surprising product attributes or service encounters (Berman, 2005). It is more
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positively correlated with customer loyalty, positive word-of-mouth, and repeat purchase
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or visitation than guest satisfaction (Torres and Kline, 2006). Therefore, more hospitality
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firms are interested in creating not only satisfactory, but actually delightful, experiences
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(Torres and Kline, 2006). Key drivers of guest delight are attributes that will have a direct
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relationship with customers’ repeat visit intentions. Hence, one can under-perform on a
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particular function or service that is not a key driver and still be successful. Conversely, a
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destination or property cannot succeed if they perform poorly in the key driver areas. So
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it becomes a critical strategic task to first determine what the critical attributes of services
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are that have a direct and significant relationship to a destination’s overall success 3
1
(Gundersen, Heide and Olsson 1996; Ford and Heaton, 1999). The intent of this study is
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to provide a survey method approach to identify the key drivers of guest delights
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illustrated using a guest survey in an event setting. Through four questions, we contend
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the method proposed identifies the most important elements that delights customer and
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drives their repeat visitation.
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LITERATURE REVIEW
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There are two areas of research which have informed the design of our methodology: the
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research on customer satisfaction and delight, and studies on destination appraisal using
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critical incident analysis (Pritchard and Havitz, 2006). The following paragraphs will
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discuss relevant studies in these two areas.
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Customer Satisfaction and Delight
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Customer and guest satisfaction is a well-researched area in the consumer behavior and
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tourism field. In the tourism field, consumer satisfaction has been defined as “post
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consumption evaluative judgment concerning a specific product or service” (Gundersen,
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Heide and Olsson 1996, p. 74).
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The concept of customer delight moves beyond customer satisfaction. Customer delight
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is the customer’s positive emotional reaction when they receive a service or product that
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not only satisfies, but provides unexpected value (Berman, 2005). Figure 1 shows four
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different types of post purchase responses to a product or service on a continuum
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(Berman, 2005). Outrage and pain result when a customer encounters unanticipated poor
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service, and dissatisfaction occurs when the service could not meet the customer’s
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expectations. When customer’s expectations are met or exceeded, the customer will feel
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satisfied. Delight is the mixture of surprise and happiness when one exceeds customer
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expectations on key criteria; those criteria create memorable and emotional responses that
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drive overall satisfaction and repeat purchase intent (Berman, 2005). Past studies have
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shown that delight, although related to satisfaction, is constructively separate and more
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correlated with positive word-of-mouth, loyal customers, and profitable businesses
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(Torres and Kline, 2006). In general, customer delight has the most potential to influence 4
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future customer behavior (McNeilly and Barr, 2006; Finn, 2005; Berman, 2005; Oliver,
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1997).
3 4
_______________ Insert Figure 1 about Here __________________
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Service Appraisal using Critical Incident Analysis
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Destination marketers attempt to gain insights on visitors’ experiences through analyzing
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their likes and dislikes. However, how best to identify and measure the major elements
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of such a complex entity as a visitor’s experience and satisfaction are often debated.
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General questions have been used to assess visitors’ satisfaction levels - for example,
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questions like ‘I thoroughly enjoyed attending the festival’ and ‘Please rate your visit in
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terms of quality of food and beverages purchased’. However, these are only gross
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assessments of a guest experience, and do not take into account the importance of the
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detailed attributes of a destination. More advanced measurements of visitor satisfaction
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are the Importance-Performance Scale (Pritchard and Havitz, 2005) and service quality
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scales such as SERVQUAL (Berman, 2005). Importance-performance analysis and
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SERVQUAL capture each attribute’s importance but along pre-defined categories.
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However, those attributes need to be studied and constructed beforehand. Given the
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complexity and uniqueness of destinations, their general utility is in question (Pritchard
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and Havitz, 2006). This fixed attribute approach is limited in providing managerial
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implications for a unique destination or service business.
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On the other hand, the use of open-ended questions evokes more personally meaningful
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responses. However, this has proven to be an overly cumbersome method for producing
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results that might be inferred to the population at large. Each open-ended answer needs to
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be manually coded and validated. The idiosyncrasy of the answers may make the coding
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a daunting task.
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Methods for Identifying Key Drivers of Guest Delight
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In this paper we propose a simple but inherently useful tool to analyze not only a
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destination experience, but also the key drivers of customer delight during that 5
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experience (Crotts and Pan 2007). The task is to identify the requirements that may not
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be expected by the consumer but will boost their mood to a higher level (Tan and Pawita
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2001).
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Oliver, Rust and Varki (1997) measured customer delight on a 5 point Likert scale using
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one single question: How frequently do you feel delighted when visiting the park/concert?
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(p. 332). However, their approach did little to identify what aspects of the consumer
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experience might have elicited delight versus normal satisfaction. From a managerial
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standpoint, a tool that identifies the aspects of a visitor experience that affect delight,
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satisfaction, and dissatisfaction outcomes is inherently more useful. In this paper, we did
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not measure delight levels directly; rather, the researchers first identified delighted
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customers, those who were highly satisfied and also had a higher degree of intent to re-
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visit (Oliver, Rust and Varki, 1997; Torres and Kline, 2006). Next, the researchers
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utilized four questions to capture the key drivers of customer delight for visiting a
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destination or event:
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1. What are three things you enjoyed most about your visit? a.___________
b. ___________
c. ___________
2. What are the three things you enjoyed least about your visit? a.___________
b. ___________
c. ___________
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3. I thoroughly enjoyed my visit:
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Strongly Agree
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4. The probability that I will visit again next year/two years/three years/ is:”
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0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Agree
Disagree
Strongly Disagree
No Opinion
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The first two simple, open-ended questions were adopted from Pritchard and Havitz
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(2005, 2006). They utilize the critical incident analysis method to reveal both the positive
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and negative attributes. The questions require very little space in survey instruments and
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generate personally meaningful responses (Pritchard and Havitz, 2006). In later analysis,
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classifying these comments while employing multiple researchers is a standard way of
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testing inter-judge reliability. Question 3 and Question 4 are used to identify the most 6
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delighted customers who have a strong revisit intention since high loyalty is more
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strongly correlated with a delight experience than satisfaction alone. Being able to
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connect a subject’s specific likes and dislikes with their general responses to overall
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visitor satisfaction and probability of repeat visitation allows one to capture what Ford
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and Heaton (1999) considered key drivers. Key drivers are identified by establishing a
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direct relationship between how customers rate a destination or firm’s performance on a
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specific service or function by their “overall satisfaction” and “intent to return”. Those
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specific services or functions are the key drivers for the destination or businesses.
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The researchers followed three steps during the analysis phase. First, those respondents
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expressing the highest satisfaction level and highest intent to return were identified
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through their answers to Question 3 and Question 4. Secondly, the researchers were
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assigned to the dual task of categorizing the content into both limited and unlimited
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numbers of categories and those categories were tabulated. This allowed for assessments
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at both the macro- and micro-environmental levels. Finally, the relationships between the
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positive comments and negative comments were graphically linked for visual
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effectiveness. The graphics often provide holistic insights on travelers’ experience and
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destination strengths and weaknesses. Those insights may not be reflected in the mere
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counts of positive and negative comments.
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METHOD
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This study demonstrates the above described technique on a visitor experience survey for
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the 2006 Charleston Food and Wine Festival. This was a three day, city-wide festival
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from March 2 to March 5, 2006 held in Charleston, South Carolina (Crotts and Pan,
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2006). The survey was conducted online during four days after the festival concluded in
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March, 2006. Virtually all 8,619 tickets were sold online, with each visitor being able to
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purchase multiple tickets for different events. In total, 644 unique email addresses were
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obtained, since,email addresses were required in order to complete an online sale. The
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survey focused mainly on festival visitors’ information source usage, demographics and
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spending patterns.
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RESULTS
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In total, 310 completed surveys were returned from the 644 solicitations sent out,
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yielding a response rate of 48 percent. Among all the respondents, 62.6 percent were
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females; 61.7 percent were married, and 61.3 percent were full-time employed. The
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median age was 43, and median household income was $100K to $149K.
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In the initial step, we identified 77 (24.8 percent of all respondents) who rated the overall
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experience as “excellent” and indicated the highest “intent to return” (100 percent) in
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Question 1 and Question 2. We used their responses for the following steps.
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In the second step, using a bottom-up approach, the researcher freely coded each
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comment with unlimited categories and aggregated them according to their similarities
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and dissimilarities (Crotts and Pan, 2007). A bottom-up approach could retain those
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detailed comments which might be missed from using preset categories (Crotts and Pan,
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2007). Afterward, the coding on the likes and dislikes of delighted customers was
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tabulated (Table 1). The likes should be considered key drivers since they are positively
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linked to overall visitor experience and intent to return. These are the elements that the
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festival must do an excellent job in to be successful. Among the 28 categories, the major
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ones were the diversity of the wines, and food tasting and the quality of the food samples,
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which together represented 39.2 percent of all positive comments given. Of equal
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importance to festival managers were areas of dislike which generated negative
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comments. The negatives were frequently categorized as crowded conditions, lack of
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seating, limited food samples, admission prices, and a dislike of purchasing tickets
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online. Of the 28 categories of dislikes, the top nine represented greater than three out of
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five (64.4 percent) of all dislikes. However, these negatives in this sub-sample had no
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relationship with repeat intent or overall satisfaction and delight with the festival, which
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suggests that they were important but not critical issues to address. Theoretically, all
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dislikes shared by guests are important and should be addressed. However, under-
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performance on these particular issues had no measurable impact on visitors overall
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satisfaction and delight. Therefore, these should not be considered a key driver.
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1
__________________ Insert Table 1 about Here _____________________
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In the third step, an analysis on linked categories was conducted in order to reveal the
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connections between drivers of delight and the key dissatisfaction factors. The links
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between the likes and dislikes of those customers were calculated and analyzed based on
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the numbers of co-occurrence, such as the co-occurrence of comments on likes with other
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likes, likes with dislikes, and dislikes with dislikes. To illustrate the critical linkages, the
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thicker the line between concepts, the more prevalent the categories were co-linked
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among respondents. For example, 10 respondents made both positive comments of “wine
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variety/tastings” and “great food/samplings”. Thus, there is a thick line connecting “great
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food/sampling” with “wine variety/tastings” in Figure 2. The most frequently paired like
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with a dislike was a positive comment regarding “wine variety/tastings” with the
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complaint of “too crowded”, representing 5.2 percent of all positive/negative pairings of
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comments. Lastly, the complaints of “lack of seating” and “too crowded” were the two
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most frequently paired dislikes, representing 10.5 percent of all complaints. Figure 2
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represents a link analysis of likes and dislikes. There were also categories without
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linkages which represented isolated likes and dislikes.
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The key drivers of “wine variety/ tastings” and “great food sampling” were sufficient
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enough that the negative impressions of “lack of seating” and “too crowded”, although
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mentioned, did not prevent the respondents in our sub-sample from stating the intent to
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return. Thus, the latter two could be rated as lower priority in terms of improving the
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festival services for the event in future years. The link analysis provided a wealth of
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useful information not only for image creation but destination management as well. In
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general, the results on the key drivers showed that managers for the festival should focus
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on the key success factors of the event: great food and wine tasting. The complaints on
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the lack of seating and crowded conditions might be discounted. Those two negative
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factors were not strong enough to counter the key drivers of visitor satisfaction and
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delight, wine variety/ tastings and great food sampling.
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__________________ Insert Figure 2 about Here ________________________ 9
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DISCUSSIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH
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The survey-based method employing four simple questions illustrated the usefulness of
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those questions for identifying the delighted customers and their key drivers. The authors
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argue that this technique has numerous advantages over other, more fixed-attribute
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measures like Importance- Performance Analysis. The four questions require very little
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space on survey instruments, reveal both festival attendees’ likes and dislikes, and
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generate personally meaningful responses that can be analyzed at the micro and macro
10
levels. Additionally, they are validated by inter-judge reliability measures, and when
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linked to broader delight and intent to return measures, help identify key drivers.
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Researchers will find that the four questions can easily be adapted to their unique
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situations and are a practical tool not only for gauging guest delight, but also for
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identifying the key drivers of guests’ overall delight and repeat visit intent. As pointed
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out by Ford and Heaton (2001), service-industry businesses need to identify and
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successfully address those dimensions of guest experience which drive overall delight
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and repeat purchase intent in order to achieve economic viability. The four questions
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from this study, when used in a travel satisfaction survey or festival visitor survey, have
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the advantage of occupying very little space. The analysis of the four questions could
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reveal the essential key drivers for the overall success of the festival and/or businesses
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involved, and would help managers to focus on the important service attributes with their
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limited financial and human resources.
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In addition, we also looked at the other end of the spectrum, the unsatisfied visitors. Only
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six (2 percent) of the 310 respondents indicated an overall moderate to low satisfaction,
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along with an intent to revisit the following year at a possibility of 10 percent or less. For
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them, major dislikes included: charging young children to attend the festival, not enough
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food samples, crowded conditions, and high ticket prices. A unique driver of
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dissatisfaction was gleaned from this separate analysis: charging young children
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admission. In addition, it also challenges the previous assertion that limited food 10
1
samples, crowded conditions, and ticket prices are negatives that are not associated with
2
overall satisfaction and repeat intent. As with all consumer research, there are individual
3
thresholds that can be breached. Future researchers are encouraged to isolate both ends
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of the delight/repeat visit intention continuum to ascertain where those thresholds are and
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which market segments are uniquely affected. Researchers should be prepared to find
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those drivers of outrage and pain, with no relationship to those factors that lead to
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customer delight. In addition, the linkage analysis was based on the counting of numbers
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of co-occurrence, and no statistical testing was performed due to the small sample size.
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Future researchers might explore appropriate ways to test the significance through
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network analysis methods (Wasserman and Faust 1994).
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A final, but arguably most important, step would be to identify the key drivers of those
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visitors that expressed moderate satisfaction and repeat purchase intent. In this study
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they represented approximately three out of every four respondents. The purported
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method highlighted in this paper lacks ability to separate out key drivers and non-drivers
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(those negative service attributes which inhibit repeat visitation). However, the factors
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derived from the analysis are a good starting point in the design of a more quantitative
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survey method which would allow for both univariate and multivariate statistical
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techniques that could potentially tease out the unique effects of each factor.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
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The authors would like to give sincere thanks to the three anonymous reviewers for their
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detailed and constructive comments which helped improve the paper to a great degree.
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REFERENCES
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Arnold, M. J., Reynolds, K. E., Ponder, N. and Lueg, J. E. (2005), "Customer delight in a
4
retail context: Investigating delightful and terrible shopping experiences",
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Journal of Business Research, Vol. 58 No.8, pp. 1132-1145.
6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
Berman, B. (2005), "How to delight your customers", California Management Review, Vol. 48 No.1, pp. 129-+ (do you know the ending page?). Crotts, J. C. and Pan, B. (2006), “The economic contributions of 2006 Distinctively Charleston Food + Wine Festival”, Unpublished Report. Crotts, J, C. and Pan, B. (2007), “Destination appraisals”, Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. 34 No. 2, pp. 541-544. Finn, A. (2005), “Reassessing the foundation of customer delight”, Journal of Service Research, Vol. 8 No. 2, pp. 103-116. Ford, R. and Heaton, C. (2001), “Lessons from the hospitality industry that can serve anyone”, Organizational Dynamics, Vol. 30 No. 1, pp. 30-47. Ford, R. and Heaton, C. (1999), Managing the Guest Experience in Hospitality, Delmar/Thompson, Albany, NY. Gundersen, M. G., Heide, M. and Olsson, U. H. (1996), "Hotel guest satisfaction among
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business travelers: What are the important factors?", Cornell Hotel and
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Restaurant Administration Quarterly, Vol. 37 No. 2, pp. 72-81.
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McNeilly, K. and Barr, T. (2006), "I love my accountants: Understanding customer
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delight in the professional services arena", Journal of Services Marketing, Vol.
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20 No. 3, pp. 152-159.
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Oliver, R. L. (1997), Satisfaction: A Behavioral Perspective on the Consumer, McGraw -Hill, New York, NY.
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Oliver, R. L., Rust, R. T. and Varki, S. (1997), "Customer delight: Foundations, findings,
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and managerial insight", Journal of Retailing, Vo. 73 No. 3, pp. 311-336.
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Pritchard, M. and Havitz, M. (2006), “Destination appraisal: An analysis of critical
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Torres, E. N. and Kline, S. (2006), "From customer satisfaction to delight: A Model for
7
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Management, Vol. 18 No. 4, pp. 290-301.
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Verma, H. V.
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16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
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TABLES AND FIGURES Table 1. Counts of Top Comments on Likes and Dislikes (N=77)
Likes
Count Dislikes
Count
Wine diversity/tastings
40
Lack of seating
15
Great food/sampling
33
Too crowded
8
Culinary Village
12
Price/expensive/hidden charges
5
Variety of
12
Difficulty purchasing tickets on
5
cafes/restaurants/vendors
the website
Good organization/crowd control
11
Not enough food samples
4
Bubbles & Sweets event
10
Bathroom availability
3
Cooking seminars/demos
6
Chef demos too pricey/hard to
3
hear/learn Wine seminars
6
Lack of signage
3
Overall atmosphere
5
Parking limitations
3
Friday night gala
4
Beautiful city/friendly local
4
Total*
76
people Meeting chefs/winery-
4
merchants/owners Total*
186
5
*The totals include some minor categories of Likes and Dislikes that were not listed
6
here (those less than 4 in Likes and less than 3 in Dislikes).
7 8 9 10 11
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1 2 Figure 1: Guest Perception of a Service
Zone of Dissatisfaction
Zone of Outrage And Pain
Zone of Satisfaction
Zone of Delight
Guest or Customer Loyalty
Delight occurs as a result of memorable, positive reproducible events
F
3 4
D
C
B
A
Customer Rating of Service
Adapted from Berman (2005)
5
15
Delight
1
Figure 2. Network Relationship between Likes and Dislikes of the Festival
2 Good Organization
Food Sampling
Variety of Restaurants
Price
Dislikes
Wine
Likes
Wine Tasting Crowded
Bubble Sweet Event
Culinary Village
Lack of Seating
Not Enough Samples
Price
16
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