Impact of Hotel Frontline Employee Attributes on Consumer Impression: A Conjoint Analysis
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Abstract
The importance of frontline employee service in hotels is considered crucial for creating a strong first impression on customers. This research aims to explore the service characteristics of frontline employees in hotels that influence customers' impressions using Conjoint Analysis. The Conjoint technique is effectively used to understand consumers' complex decision-making by simulating different products or services using combinations of key attributes and assessing them based on consumers' preferences. It is a good technique for eliciting the relative importance of attributes. The study investigates various attributes, including smiling, voice tone, outward appearance, service enthusiasm, and greetings. These variables were combined to create eight different scenarios using Orthogonal Design, which were presented in video clips. Respondents were asked to rate their impression of each scenario on a scale of 1 to 8. Therefore, the survey was conducted on an online platform to incorporate video clips into the questionnaires. The research applied a convenience sampling method to collect data from 400 respondents, with the majority being females aged between 21-30 years, single, and with monthly incomes ranging between 10,001-20,000 baht. The results of the analysis, ranked from highest to lowest influence, showed that the smiling of the front desk staff had the most significant impact on customer satisfaction. Following that were the greetings before and after service, voice tone, outward appearance, and service enthusiasm. However, these characteristics revealed slightly varying relative importance, indicating that each characteristic played a crucial role in creating an overall positive impression. This study has some limitations. For example, while Conjoint Analysis provides valuable insights into the relative importance of factors, it does not determine their absolute importance. This research contributes to previous studies in terms of research methodology and the independent variables considered.
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