A study in Turkey utilizing EEG found that individuals perceived service delivered by attractive flight attendants as better. The authors believe that airline clients might be more motivated to approach attractive flight attendants, which in turn, could improve their perceptions of service The paper was published in Marketing and Management of Innovations.
The aviation industry is generally considered a rapidly developing sector. Although it suffered significant setbacks during the COVID-19 pandemic, airline traffic recovered quickly. Competition in the airline industry is fierce, with options for differentiating from the competition generally being very limited. One factor that airlines may successfully use to make clients perceive them as different from their competitors is service quality.
Service quality is determined by many different factors, but the behavior and characteristics of service employees are probably among the most important. Multiple studies of airline service quality have noted that the physical attractiveness of service employees can significantly impact how their service quality is perceived.
Theory suggests that individuals automatically react to various nonverbal attributes, with physical attractiveness holding a prominent place among them. However, the relationship between attractiveness and perceived service quality is not straightforward. Physical attractiveness can have both positive and negative effects on how customers perceive service quality.
Study authors Şahap Akan and Ozlem Atalık aimed to better explore how attractiveness affects the perception of service quality. They also wanted to know how much neural responses, as registered by electroencephalography, agree with what study participants report in surveys. Additionally, they wanted to identify areas in the frontal cortex of the brain where activity changes in response to changing perceptions of service quality.
“Intangible concepts like attractiveness are difficult to measure using traditional methods like surveys. Therefore, newer approaches have been investigated to answer this question. An EEG method, a novel approach to marketing, was preferred,” explained Akan, an assistant professor of aviation management at Dicle University.
“In this context, it was examined what influence the attractiveness of the flight attendants has on customer behavior. On the other hand, since flight attendants are the visible faces of airlines, measuring the perception that flight attendant’s qualities evoke among passengers is expected to provide valuable results.”
The study included 37 individuals who had used airline services in Turkey in the last 12 months. All were residents of the Eskisehir region of Turkey. Eighteen were female, and their ages ranged from 19 to 47 years. All participants held at least a bachelor’s degree.
The study authors prepared a set of videos depicting various aspects of flight attendants’ services aligned with the SERVQUAL service quality system. The SERVQUAL system describes service quality through a set of five characteristics/dimensions that are critical to improving customers’ service experiences.
These dimensions are tangibles (quality of physical facilities, equipment, and appearance of personnel, emphasizing the importance of a visually appealing service environment and tools), reliability (the ability to perform the promised service dependably and accurately, ensuring services are delivered as promised and consistently over time), responsiveness (the willingness to help customers and provide prompt service, highlighting the importance of being quick and responsive to customer requests and problems), assurance (the knowledge, courtesy of employees, and their ability to convey trust and confidence, essential for fostering a sense of security and trust in the service provider), and empathy (the degree of caring and individual attention the service provider gives to its customers, showing the importance of treating customers with care).
The study authors produced videos of flight attendants delivering services aligned with each of these dimensions. For each SERVQUAL dimension, they produced four videos by combining whether the service delivery was good or bad and whether the flight attendant was attractive or not. This resulted in a total of 20 videos.
During the experiment, each study participant viewed each of the 20 videos in a random order while undergoing electroencephalography (EEG) recording of their brain activity. There was a 5-second pause between the videos. This lasted for 13 minutes, after which participants evaluated the service deliveries they observed through a survey.
Results showed that participants viewed services provided by attractive flight attendants as better than those provided by unattractive ones. They also rated well-delivered services as better than poorly delivered services. Analysis of brain activity recorded through EEG indicated that participants were more willing to approach attractive flight attendants than unattractive ones. The study authors believe this might indicate that individuals perceive the service quality of attractive flight attendants as better because they are more motivated to approach them and use their services.
“The average person should take away from the study that the attractiveness of flight attendants has a significant impact on customers’ perceptions of service quality,” Akan told PsyPost. “The study has valuable outcomes both in individual and customer contexts. When customers receive service from attractive flight attendants, their satisfaction increases. From an individual perspective, it can be said that individuals who possess attractive qualities tend to receive positive privileges in many areas. Since attractiveness is known to be an improvable quality, it is believed that individuals paying more attention to this area will enhance their quality of life.”
Surprisingly, the participants’ satisfaction with attractive flight attendants differed from EEG results, showing a discrepancy between their statements and frontal alpha asymmetry metrics.
“Although participants expressed higher satisfaction with the services they received from flight attendants they deemed attractive, the EEG results did not reflect this level of satisfaction,” Akan explained. “Similarly, the EEG results indicated higher levels of satisfaction for participants who claimed to be less satisfied with the services provided by less attractive flight attendants. Consequently, a discrepancy was observed between the participants’ statements and the frontal alpha asymmetry metrics.”
The study sheds light on the importance of attractiveness for the job of flight attendants. However, it also has limitations that need to be taken into account. Notably, the number of study participants was very small, and they all came from a single region of Turkey. Results on larger and culturally more diverse groups might not produce similar outcomes. Additionally, participants’ neural responses recorded through EEG and their survey responses did not always align.
“Since my field is aviation management, examining passenger behavior in this area is the focus of my studies,” Akan said. “Therefore, there are many topics that need to be addressed in passenger behavior. Utilizing different neuromarketing techniques in studies on these topics is crucial for obtaining more accurate and realistic results. In this regard, in my future studies, I aim to conduct valuable research by combining different neuromarketing techniques such as eye tracking and face coding.”
The paper, “The Impact of Flight Attendants’ Attractiveness on Perceived Service Quality: An EEG Perspective. Marketing and Management of Innovations,” was authored by Şahap Akan and Ozlem Atalık.