The role of personalization in service encounters

Personalization-the social content of interaction between service or retail employees and their customers-is advanced as an important mediator of customer satisfaction and patronage behavior. The influence of this service-enhancing factor is investigated within the nexus of SERVQUAL, a comprehensive measure of service quality. Survey data from 233 adult consumers show that ''personalization'' significantly influences customer experience and evaluation of service. As hypothesized, for a business that performs service on a physical possession, this influence is subsumed in other components of SERVQUAL. In contrast, for a business delivering service in interactive encounters with customers, ''personalization'' emerges as the most important determinant of perceived service quality, and of customer satisfaction and other patronage indicators.