Service redundancy: Scale development and validation

Excellent service is essential to customer satisfaction and delight. Researchers have noted that customers consider certain services unnecessary or redundant. However, a scale for service redundancy has not been developed. The purpose of this study was to establish a service redundancy scale for the hospitality industry. Focus groups and content analysis were conducted to identify preliminary scale items. To purify the scale, two surveys were completed by 622 restaurant customers and 651 hotel customers. The scale comprised 3 dimensions (i.e., service behaviors, service regulations, and service environments) and 22 items. The results revealed that service redundancy affected hotel image, reduced perceived service quality, and prompted customer switching behavior. This scale can help researchers investigate the associations between service redundancy and various variables and serve as reference for hospitality managers during service implementation and human resource management.