The effect of beauty salon service quality on behavioral intention through perceived value

Purpose: As the untact culture has spread due to the recent COVID-19, the service industry as well as the beauty salon is shrinking. In order to overcome such a crisis in beauty salons, the lower dimension of beauty salon service quality is divided into servicescape, technical service, and employee service, and actions are taken with the ‘perceived value of the customer as a parameter. In this study, S- O-R(Stimulus-Organism-Response) theory was applied for customer-centered analysis, and gender and regularity were selected as moderator variables to add practical implications. Research design, data, and methodology: All constructs were measured using items developed and used in the previous study. A total of 261 questionnaires were collected online using NaverForm. The data were analyzed using factor analysis, correlation analysis, and measurement model analysis with SPSS 22.0 and AMOS 22.0. After testing the research model and hypothesis for the entire group, a multi-group analysis was conducted by dividing into male and female groups, regular customers, and non-regular customers. Results: First, this study showed that the service environment of beauty salon customers had a negative (-) effect on perceived utilitarian value, and the technical service and perceived hedonic value had a positive (+) effect on the customer s behavioral intention. Technical service and employee service had a positive (+) effect on perceived hedonic value, but perceived hedonic value did not affect customer s behavioral intention. Second, there is no statistically significant difference in each path between male and female groups. Third, there was a statistically significant difference between regular customers and non-regular customers, only the path that the servicescape influences the perceived hedonic value. Conclusion: According to the results of this study, technical service and utilitarian value should be considered in order to induce behavioral intention of customers, and technical service quality should be considered first. Also, operating a beauty salon requires a differentiated approach to the salon servicescape according to the ratio of non-regular and regular customers. The beauty salon servicescape generally showed negative practical value for non-regular customers, but positive for the Hedinic value for servicescape such as comfortable service and clean interior for regular customers.