How Are Guests Satisfied?

Abstract

Online reviews provide a wealth of information on how customers assess the different attributes of a service. Research shows that the performance of hotel service attributes is expected to have asymmetric effects on customer satisfaction. The purpose of this study is to analyze online reviews and determine whether different hotel service attributes have asymmetric or symmetric effects on hotel customer satisfaction and how these effects differ for different customer segments. Positive and negative comments on hotels are analyzed using the three-factor theory and penalty-reward contrast analysis. Results show that the most important service attributes for customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction (hybrids) are location/access and personnel quality. All other attributes are either frustrators (cleanliness, process quality, perceived value) or dissatisfiers (installation quality, room quality, food quality). However, when the sample is split into business (solo and groups) and leisure (solo, groups, families, couples) results differ by customer segment. Results show that there should be a customized approach to managing customer satisfaction based on online reviews where service attributes are prioritized differently according to their importance for the satisfaction of different customer segments.