When does mood matter? An examination of two types of hospitality service encounters

Despite the growing interest in mood in consumer research literature, little empirical research has been conducted on the effects of post-consumption mood states on customer evaluations of hospitality services. This study was designed to close this gap by contrasting the impacts of post-encounter mood on evaluations of two opposing types of service encounters: (a) brief, routine type encounters (e.g., hotel check-outs) and (b) extended encounters with multiple contacts with the same employee (e.g., fine-dining). The results of this field study suggest that the mood bias might be limited to customer evaluations following brief customer-employee interactions. In a hotel check-out setting, post-consumption mood was a significant predictor of satisfaction, service quality, and repurchase intention. Conversely, post-consumption mood failed to influence customers overall evaluations in a fine-dining context.