THE ROLE OF PERSONALIZATION IN-SERVICE ENCOUNTERS

Personalization-the social content of interaction between service or r etail employees and their customers-is advanced as an important mediat or of customer satisfaction and patronage behavior. The influence of t his service-enhancing factor is investigated within the nexus of SERVQ UAL, 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 influen ce is subsumed in other components of SERVQUAL. In contrast, for a bus iness delivering service in interactive encounters with customers, ''p ersonalization'' emerges as the most important determinant of perceive d service quality, and of customer satisfaction and other patronage in dicators.