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Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science
Published in: Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 5/2019

28-05-2019 | Original Empirical Research

Effects of dominance transitions on advice adherence in professional service conversations

Authors: Helen Si Wang, Chi Kin (Bennett) Yim

Published in: Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science | Issue 5/2019

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Abstract

For many professional services, advice adherence is a necessary condition for achieving service success for both customers and service providers. Despite their pivotal roles in value co-creation, typical conversational interactions often lead to low adherence. We propose that enabling a “dominance transition,” from provider dominance in the pre-advice stage to customer dominance in the post-advice stage, enhances advice adherence because it increases customers’ perceived common ground. Furthermore, providers’ consultation focus, customers’ prior knowledge, and customers’ perceived adherence effort moderate this process. Using mixed methods, including both empirical modeling and controlled and field experiments, we validate the proposed model in various contexts (healthcare, financial services, and fitness and wellness counseling). The findings establish several theoretical contributions and offer managerial implications for improving advice adherence by managing dominance transitions in conversational interactions more effectively through training service providers or even programming AI chatbots.
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Appendix
Available only for authorised users
Footnotes
1
Service research defines advice adherence as “the extent to which the customer has followed the advice of the service provider” (Seiders et al. 2015, p. 42) or “the propensity of a customer to follow an expert’s advice” (Camacho et al. 2014, p. 295). It is referred to as advice utilization in the advice-taking literature (Bonaccio and Dalal 2006).
 
2
Conversational dominance is an important interaction construct that refers to the phenomenon in which a speaker dominates the conversation partner, usually measured by speech turns (Coates 2015).
 
3
In the pre-solution stage, each party presents privileged information (e.g., initiating a statement, asking a question) and accepts the other’s presentation (e.g., acknowledging the other’s statement, providing relevant answers to the other’s question), until an initial solution emerges (Brennan and Clark 1996).
 
4
Customers’ conversational dominance in the pre-advice stage is possible but inefficient. Theoretically customer dominance in the pre-advice stage could inhibit providers from applying their expertise to develop advice or engage in complex, novel problem solving (Keltner et al. 2003). The advice generated in situations marked by customer dominance in the pre-advice stage thus would be highly biased toward customers’ view and also poorly developed. A dominance transition, from customer dominance in the pre-advice stage to provider dominance in the post-advice stage, could overcome customers’ bias, yet provider dominance in the post-advice stage also might lead to substantial redevelopment of this advice, leaving it highly biased toward providers’ view. To overcome providers’ bias at this stage, a second round of dominance transition, back to customers’ dominated deliberation, would be required. Therefore, a dominance transition, from customer dominance in the pre-advice stage to provider dominance in the post-advice stage, would be highly inefficient in the effort to develop common ground.
 
5
With our research focus on conversational interactions, we sampled all real-time, synchronous online chats using the website’s online chatting tool during the observation period. We did not sample any asynchronous doctor–patient email-like correspondence, because time lags would allow both patients and doctors to conduct further research to formulate their thoughts or answers, which are not representative of real-time conversations.
 
6
The two research assistants coded patients’ statements before starting the conversation in terms of (1) uncertainty or worry and seriousness of illness/problems and (2) emotional or social problems (Zimmermann et al. 2007). We thus distinguish low emotion intensity, with no explicit statement of uncertainty or emotional problems (31.2%), from high emotion intensity, which features such explicit statements (68.8%) (Cohen’s kappa = .91).
 
7
Specifically, in the greater dominance transition condition, the pre-advice stage consisted of 20 provider-controlled speech turns and 0 customer-controlled speech turns, and the post-advice stage consisted of 0 provider-controlled speech turns and 6 customer-controlled speech turns (dominance transition score = 26). In the lesser dominance transition condition, the pre-advice stage had of 16 provider-controlled speech turns and 4 customer-controlled speech turns, and the post-advice stage had of 4 provider-controlled speech turns and 2 customer-controlled speech turns (dominance transition score = 10). Other than the difference in the extent of the dominance transition, the conversations were identical in (1) total service time/length (total speech turns = 26), (2) stage lengths (total speech turns of 20 in the pre-advice stage and 6 in the post-advice stage), (3) overall customer participation (total customer-controlled speech turns = 6), and (4) overall provider control (total provider-controlled speech turns = 20).
 
8
The service quality measure covers reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy, and tangibles.
 
9
We performed three independent mediation analyses to rule out customers’ affective experience, cognitive effort, and perceived provider confidence as alternative mediators of the effect of a dominance transition on advice adherence (see Web Appendix E).
 
10
The three deliberation questions pertained to how (1) having a support group (e.g., friends or family members) fits with the recommended program, (2) setting a certain expected workout time frame assists in achieving the fitness goal of the recommended program, and (3) the customer’s daily nutrition habits fit with the recommended program.
 
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Metadata
Title
Effects of dominance transitions on advice adherence in professional service conversations
Authors
Helen Si Wang
Chi Kin (Bennett) Yim
Publication date
28-05-2019
Publisher
Springer US
Published in
Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science / Issue 5/2019
Print ISSN: 0092-0703
Electronic ISSN: 1552-7824
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-019-00664-8

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