Emerald

This paper aims to describe the development and evaluation of a process model to transform brand strategy into service experiences during the front end of new service development (NSD). This is an important yet poorly understood transformation that occurs early in service development projects. The paper also aims to describe the theoretical basis for this transformation, and introduces a process model that has been developed to understand and assist with this. Further, it seeks to describe early evaluation results and reflections upon its use.

A research through design approach using participatory co‐design led to the development of the new process. The development was iterative and carried out together with three service providers. The process model was evaluated using a combination of qualitative methods, including interviews, observation and participatory observation.

This work underlines the importance of aligning the customer experience to the company brand and suggests how this can be achieved. A key element in this is the development of a service personality and consideration of service touch‐point behaviours through a combination of analytical work and experience prototyping. The suggested process model has received positive evaluation when used in commercial projects, in terms of brand congruence, project team cohesiveness and experiential result. The work advocates tighter integration between brand management and NSD, and has identified multiple issues regarding the content of a service brand strategy. These include the ways in which a brand department should communicate its brand strategy, and how it should be involved in NSD projects to ensure brand alignment.

The evaluation of the model has limitations, both in terms of number of cases and downstream/long term effects. This should therefore be considered an initial evaluation of the model, requiring further verification.

The paper describes a structured three‐stage experience‐centric process that improves brand alignment in projects. Further, the work shows that brand specifications for services should increasingly focus upon desired customer experiences, service touch‐points and touch‐point behaviours rather than the current focus upon visual identity.

This is the first paper to suggest a process that transforms a brand strategy into customer experiences during NSD. It also adds original insights into the transition from brand to concept, bridging branding, service design and NSD.

The aim of this study is to study the relationships among: two types of managerial practices (“reward” and “support”), two types of emotional satisfaction (“positive” and “negative”), and employee‐perceived service quality.

The study presents a conceptual model of the aforementioned relationships. It proposed hypotheses regarding these relationships and collected data with a survey study of 1,076 frontline employees in service organizations. An analysis of the testing of the hypotheses follows.

The study has found that managerial reward and managerial support are both directly related to positive and negative emotions and to employee‐perceived service quality. In particular, positive and negative emotions appear directly related to employee‐perceived service quality. Moreover, it was found that emotional satisfaction partially mediates the relationship between managerial (reward and support) practices and employee‐perceived service quality.

The study takes place within a broad context of frontline employees in service organizations.

The study has demonstrated the importance for managers to consider how their practices influence the service quality their employees provide to customers. In particular, managers should take account of employees' emotions, whether positive or negative, because of their role in explaining employee‐perceived service quality. Consequently, one general and key implication from this study is the importance of measuring employees' emotions. Measuring these mental states (described as stable tendencies of feelings) which arise from cognitive appraisals of managerial practices can be a good predictor for employee‐perceived service quality. The study shows that employees are not isolated “emotional islands” and, consequently, it is important for managers to understand how emotions and the quality of service delivery are linked.

The paper enhances knowledge of how emotions are linked to the quality of service delivery and the role of emotional satisfaction in service‐quality management.

The purpose of this paper is to provide insights into the relationship between quality and accessibility, as selective influencing parameters of new product acceptance for Greek, fast moving, and consumer products.

The data for this study come from a mail questionnaire sent to 680 executives operating in Greek enterprises, by using a combination of sampling criteria (advertising budget, turnover). Non‐parametric tests (Wilcoxon, Spearman, Kruskal‐Wallis and Pearson χ²) were used, together with descriptive measures to test the hypotheses.

The results indicate that quality (usage/support) is a more important factor than Accessibility (economic/physical) in the formation of a “new product acceptance function”. Furthermore, usage quality is more important than support quality, while economic accessibility is more important than physical accessibility.

The research limitations refer to the fact that the justification of the hypotheses in connection with the executive‐based approach followed has not been found to have any precedents. In addition, a multi, rather than single, source identification process was used for the new product acceptance factors.

For marketers, research of the conceptualization of the “acceptance function” acts as a basis for building a new products' marketing plan focused on the consumer, in a way which reflects the company characteristics, as well as the particular market conditions.

This paper is exploring new ground in that it isolates and examines the substitution between quality and accessibility as selective influencing parameters of acceptance for new fast moving consumer goods in Greece.