ABSTRACT
Customer experience is initiated from the moment customers enquire about a product or service. It leads to information search and information evaluation to make an appropriate purchase decision and is followed by service encounter and post-purchase intentions. Each of these stages of experience creation could enable the service employees to offer personalized and customized services. Throughout a diner’s or a traveler’s experience different service companies could be involved, which might contribute to the diner’s or traveler’s total service experience or his or her dining or traveling experience. In addition, services offered by service employees are crucial in helping the tourism companies and services to gain a competitive advantage and sustain their business in the long-term. Therefore, service employees and customer experience are relevant and it is essential to understand them better for continuous service and business improvement. In this chapter we will cover (a) the importance of service employees in service delivery, (b) understanding customer experiences in tourism, (c) impacts of service employees toward customer experience and (d) strategies to manage service employees and customer experience. Relevant tourism examples will be given. A case study is included in this chapter.
