부산대학교 도서관

Nowadays customers tend to pursue psychological needs such as pleasure desires, inner joys, and happiness rather than seeking functional desires when using products or services as the development of technology, economy and the income level increase. They pay much attention on that if the products or services can express his image and personality well, and if the products or services can improve his overall quality of life. Also, according to Professor Kotler's proposed Marketing 4.0, the goal of marketing should now include not only improving corporate profits but also improving social well-being and value, and improving the customers’quality of life. Therefore, in order to meet the customer's satisfaction and to bring continuous competitiveness to companies, it is effective to design marketing activities that include elements that can improve the customers’quality of life rather than focusing on only the functional characteristics of products and services. However, in spite of the increasing importance of customers’quality of life which becomes one of the important objectives of the company, the existing studies mostly pay attention to the corporate performance and pay insufficient attention to the customer's quality of life. Also, most companies are not aware that customers are pursuing the meaning life and well-being, and just seek their own profit rather than trying to improve the customers’overall quality of life. Many companies have been in trouble because they can not maintain the customers as long-term and ongoing customers. Therefore, this study intends to identify factors that not only can improve the achievement of the enterprise but also can improve the customers’quality of life, and propose an effective marketing strategy that can bring the core competitiveness to the enterprise. On the other hand, the roles of employees are very important when providing products and services through face-to-face contact such as service industry. Especially, verbal and nonverbal communication, which are the means of interaction between employees and customers, is an important factor influencing customer-business relationship building. Therefore, in order to improve the quality of interaction between employees and customers, it is important to maintain the quality of verbal and nonverbal communication performed by employees. The purpose of this study is to understand the employees’verbal and nonverbal communication which has been neglected in previous studies, and furthermore to investigate its effects to the customers’emotional response, trust and quality of life, and to analyze the moderating role of customer participation and negative expectancy disconfirmation in these relationships. To achieve the purpose of this study, 356 subjects who had visited the Chinese service firms were surveyed and the research model and hypothesis were verified using SPSS and AMOS statistical analysis. The results of the study are as follows. First, employees’s positive verbal and nonverbal communication in the service firms play a positive role on customers’positive emotions. Second, customers’ positive emotions have a positive effect on the customers’ quality of life as well as trust. Third, customer participation plays a positive moderating role between the employees’ positive verbal communication and customer's positive emotions, and it also plays a positive moderating role between the customers’positive emotions, customer trust, and quality of life. Finally, customers’negative expectancy disconfirmation plays a negative moderating role between customers' positive emotion and employees' positive verbal communication, and it also plays a negative moderating role between customers' positive emotion and quality of life. The results of this study suggest that managers and employees of service industry should consider how to induce customers’positive emotion through effective communication methods. In this process, they should strive to increase the level of customer participation and lower the level of negative expectancy disconfirmation to increase the effects between the employees’positive communication, customers’positive emotion, trust, and quality of life. In addition, it will be meaningful to suggest a marketing strategy that can improve not only the company’s profit but also customers’quality of life.