Method for analyzing sequential services using EEG: Micro-meso analysis of emotional changes in real flight service.

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience and Marketing
• Consumer Behavior Research
• Service Design and Management

Background:

• Traditional customer surveys often fail to capture transient emotional responses during sequential services.
• Physiological measurements offer a more objective way to assess customer emotions and delight.
• Understanding micro and meso-level emotional dynamics is crucial for optimizing the customer journey.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate a micro-meso analysis method for capturing emotional changes in sequential services using electroencephalograph (EEG) measurements.
• To identify specific service interactions and environmental factors that elicit high positive affect (customer delight).
• To compare the efficacy of EEG-based emotion detection with traditional questionnaire-based evaluations.

Main Methods:

• Development of a micro-meso analysis framework integrating electroencephalograph (EEG) data with service encounter and servicescape contexts.
• Utilized a single-channel EEG measurement over two hours during actual flight services to capture emotional arousal and valence.
• Analysis of temporal dynamics around periods of high positive affect, including interplay between joy and surprise.

Main Results:

• Successful emotion estimation across different flight phases using EEG, demonstrating the method's feasibility.
• Identified emotional peaks outside of direct service encounters and moments not captured by self-reports.
• Statistically significant findings indicated that specific interactions (refill requests, flight attendant initiated conversations) evoked high positive affect.

Conclusions:

• The proposed EEG-based method effectively captures nuanced emotional changes and identifies key drivers of customer delight in sequential services.
• This approach significantly enhances empirical marketing and design research by enabling the extraction of 'high positive affect'.
• The study highlights the value of integrating physiological data (EEG) with behavioral and customer service research for a holistic understanding of customer experience.