Purpose: The unprecedented dynamics of the COVID-19 pandemic has forced firms to re-envision the customer experience and find new ways to ensure positive service encounters. This context has underscored the reality that drivers of customer delight in a “traditional” context are not the same in a crisis context. While research has tended to identify hedonic need fulfillment as key to customer well-being and, ultimately, to invoking customer delight, the majority of studies were conducted in inherently positive contexts, which may limit generalizability to more challenging contexts. Through the combined lens of transformative service research (TSR) and psychological theory on hedonic and eudaimonic human needs, we evaluate the extent to which need fulfillment is the root of customer well-being and that meeting well-being needs ultimately promotes delight. We argue that in crisis contexts, the salience of needs shifts from hedonic to eudaimonic and the extent to which service experiences fulfill eudaimonic needs determines the experience and meaning of delight. Design/methodology/approach: Utilizing the critical incident technique, this research surveyed 240 respondents who were asked to explain in detail a time they experienced customer delight during the COVID-19 pandemic. We analyzed their responses according to whether these incidents reflected the salience of hedonic versus eudaimonic need fulfillment. Findings: The results support the notion that the salience of eudaimonic needs become more pronounced during times of crisis and that service providers are more likely to elicit perceptions of delight when they leverage meeting eudaimonic needs over the hedonic needs that are typically emphasized in traditional service encounters. Originality/value: We discuss the implications of these findings for integrating the TSR and customer delight literatures to better understand how service experiences that meet salient needs produce customer well-being and delight. Ultimately, we find customer delight can benefit well-being across individual, collective and societal levels.

中文翻译：

---

危机中的客户喜悦：通过变革性服务研究的视角了解喜悦

目的：COVID-19大流行的空前动态迫使公司重新考虑客户体验，并寻找新的方法来确保积极的服务相遇。这种情况已经强调了这样一个现实，即在“传统”情况下客户满意的驱动因素在危机情况下是不同的。虽然研究倾向于将享乐需求的满足确定为客户福祉的关键，并且最终是唤起客户愉悦的关键，但大多数研究是在固有积极的背景下进行的，这可能会将通用性限制在更具挑战性的背景下。通过结合变革性服务研究（TSR）和关于享乐和大人的人类需求的心理学理论的视角，我们评估需求的满足程度是客户福祉的根本，满足福祉的需求最终会带来愉悦。我们认为，在危机情况下，需求的显着性从享乐转变为情感需求，而服务体验满足情感需求的程度决定了愉悦的体验和含义。设计/方法/方法：利用关键事件技术，该研究调查了240位受访者，他们被要求详细说明在COVID-19大流行期间他们经历过客户喜悦的时间。我们根据这些事件是否反映了享乐与大众需求满足的显着性来分析他们的反应。发现：结果支持这样一种观念，即在危机时期，eudaimonic需求的重要性变得更加明显，并且服务提供商在满足传统eudaimonic需求而不是传统服务遭遇中通常强调的享乐需求时，更有可能引起愉悦感。独创性/价值：我们讨论了这些发现对于整合TSR和客户满意度文献的意义，以便更好地理解满足突出需求的服务体验如何产生客户满意度。最终，我们发现客户的喜悦可以使个人，集体和社会各阶层的人们受益。独创性/价值：我们讨论了这些发现对于整合TSR和客户满意度文献的意义，以便更好地理解满足突出需求的服务体验如何产生客户满意度。最终，我们发现客户的喜悦可以使个人，集体和社会各阶层的人们受益。独创性/价值：我们讨论了这些发现对整合TSR和客户满意度文献的意义，以更好地理解满足突出需求的服务体验如何产生客户满意度。最终，我们发现客户的喜悦可以使个人，集体和社会各阶层的人们受益。