What do customers expect of travel agent–customer interactions? Measuring and improving customer experience in interactions with travel agents

The purpose of this study is to explore what customers expect of travel agent–customer interactions by developing a scale of customer service experience; further, a framework to demonstrate how to improve customer service experience derived from interactions with travel agents is proposed. The results indicate that the indirect effect of travel agent interpersonal competencies on word-of-mouth is not through cognitive customer service experience but rather through affective customer service experience. Also, the indirect effect of travel agent professional competencies on word-of-mouth is not through affective customer service experience but rather through cognitive customer service experience.