Consumer Expectations

10 Key excerpts on "Consumer Expectations"

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  eBook - ePub

  Consumer-Led Food Product Development

  • Hal MacFie(Author)
  • 2007(Publication Date)
  • Woodhead Publishing

    (Publisher)

  Ross and Olson, 1981 ). Thus, it was not unexpected that cognitive expectations about everyday objects and events would soon come to play an important explanatory role in consumer behavior.

  10.2.2 Expectations in consumer product behavior

  Early research in consumer behavior

  Beginning in the 1970s, researchers in the area of marketing and consumer behavior utilized cognitive expectations as an explanatory variable in the study of perceptions of service quality and consumer satisfaction . Business management researchers quantified the discrepancies between Consumer Expectations of business service and the actual service provided by businesses in order to predict the effects of these discrepancies on perceived service quality and customer satisfaction. One product of these efforts was the development of ‘gap’ models that focused on gaps between Consumer Expectations and actual service quality, e.g. the SERVQUAL model of quality service (

  Parasuraman et al. , 1985

  ). Still other researchers were motivated to understand the effects of persuasive communications on perceived satisfaction with products. The paradigm for the latter research was to manipulate expectations of product quality using persuasive information (either accurate or false) about brands, price, functionality, etc. and then to present the product for trial and evaluation in terms of perceived satisfaction. Using predictive models derived from earlier research in learning and motivational psychology, these researchers uncovered important effects on satisfaction that resulted when product quality did not meet expectations (for seminal research and reviews in this area, see Insko, 1967 ; Oliver, 1977a,b, 1980, 1993 ; Latour and Peat, 1979 ; Swan and Trawick, 1981 ; Oliver and DeSarbo, 1988 ; Anderson and Sullivan, 1993

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  The Reign of the Customer

  Customer-Centric Approaches to Improving Satisfaction

  • Claes Fornell, Forrest V. Morgeson III, G. Tomas M. Hult, David VanAmburg(Authors)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  prior expectations were not met (“negative disconfirmation”), met (“confirmed”), or exceeded (“positive disconfirmation”). As such, in trying to satisfy consumers, companies must understand their customer’s expectations, manage them carefully, attempt to realize them as often as possible, and even exceed them when possible (and profitable).

  Recently, some marketers and companies have set the more ambitious goal that they must “always exceed customers’ expectations ,” or outperform expectations every time a consumer makes a purchase or experiences their services. As the quote above from Virgin Group CEO Richard Branson illustrates, even some large, well-respected business leaders and best-in-class service -providing companies pursue this objective. And to be sure, a customer’s expectations can be exceeded, at least at times. An excellent, motivated, and creative customer service representative, a new and novel product with innovative features, or an unexpected price discount or reward for enduring customer loyalty are all means by which a customer might receive more from a firm than originally anticipated. There are limitless stories of companies going above-and-beyond to delight their customers or resolve their problems that have “gone viral” and become exemplars of exceptional customer service. And to be sure, these types of extraordinary experiences will almost always have a positive effect on the consumer’s future behaviors in a way valuable to the firm, such as their likelihood to repurchase, up- and cross-selling opportunities, propensity to speak positively about the company

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  CB

  • Barry Babin, Eric Harris, Barry Babin(Authors)
  • 2021(Publication Date)
  • Cengage Learning EMEA

    (Publisher)

  EXPECTATIONS Expectations are pre-consumption beliefs concerning what will occur during an exchange and/or consumption of a product. Consumer Expectations have two components: (1) the probability that something will occur and (2) an evaluation of that potential occurrence. Exhibit 14.4 reveals that expectations can also have a direct impact on satisfaction (by the dotted line), independent of their role in the disconfirmation process and that the process can differ across contexts, such as for online versus in- store shoppers. 13 For example, in very low involvement contexts, expectations drive satisfaction. In these cases, little effort is put into either expectation or performance appraisal, and satisfaction formation is largely shaped by Consumer Expectations alone. In other words, with low involvement, high expectations will be associated directly with increased satisfaction, and low expectations will be associated directly with increased dissatisfaction. Using terminology from earlier in the book, involvement serves to moderate the disconfirmation process. Very high involvement creates a similar moderating effect. When consumers are very involved with a situation and filled with anticipation, their ability to judge perfor- mance objectively can be impaired. Balance theory kicks in and consumers may adjust their reactions automatically as a way of protecting themselves from the realization that they may have made a poor choice. Consumers who are highly involved in a brand find it difficult to see flaws. Among technology brands, Apple likely has the largest following of loyal custom- ers. The flaws like uneven surfaces on the iPhone, an iTunes system that has grown overly complex, lack of a touch screen on MacBooks, etc. do not affect highly involved consumers because the prod- ucts are so greatly anticipated that men- tal adjustments are made to overcome problems, and satisfaction corresponds more to expectations.

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  Marketing of Consumer Financial Products

  Insights From Service Marketing

  • Ritu Srivastava(Author)
  • 2023(Publication Date)
  • Business Expert Press

    (Publisher)

  CHAPTER 3

  Managing Customer Expectations

  Chapter Overview

  Customer expectations are the building blocks of customer satisfaction. Chapter 3 discusses the role of customer expectations and how they are formed in detail for financial products. It then talks about how financial companies can play a role in setting realistic customer expectations. The chapter concludes by discussing ways to manage customer expectations with reference to financial products in detail. The role of physical settings and ambience is also explained through the concept of servicescapes.

  Role of Customer Expectations in Marketing Financial Products

  To achieve customer satisfaction and delight companies today need to learn and manage customer expectations. In financial products since it is only the delivery that can be seen expectations related to that becomes important. Customer expectations in relation to service delivery are views about service delivery that a customer believes he or she would get and is a measure of service’s performance (Zeithaml and Bitner 2000). Therefore, customer expectations act as reference points and with the help of these points, customer assesses the perceptions of performance regarding service. Knowledge about customer expectations is vital for a financial marketer.

  Two Levels of Customer Expectations and Zones of Tolerance

  Through their exploratory research, Zeithaml and Bitner (2000) have quoted that expectations vary from customers to customers regarding service, the same is true in case of financial products also. The first level is called the “Desired Level.” This is the service level, customer expects to get or wish, and believes that this can be achieved. The following example illustrates this.

  Naresh is a company executive in his 30s. He is married with two kids. His work profile is very demanding as it is a client service function and he always seems to be pressed for time. He plans to buy an insurance policy but is not able to take out time for completing the procedures. He is looking for an insurance agent who could assist him in this and take care of all the formalities. Naresh is also ready to pay a price for this service. Through this example it becomes clear that even in a product like insurance there is a need for servicing where the client is ready to pay fees. However, there happened to be a conflict in Naresh’s wished for or desired level of expectation with reference to this expectation. The agents available in the market had been asking 15x the fees he was ready to pay as the right price; he was ready to go up to 2x. Thus “x” was the desired or wished-for level of fees, whereas adequate level of fees was “2x.”

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  Marketing In Creative Industries

  Value, Experience and Creativity

  • Gabriele Troilo(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Red Globe Press

    (Publisher)

  As we learned in the last chapter, consumer satisfaction (or dissatisfac-tion) derives from perceived versus expected value. Consequently, for an organization that offers creative products, recognizing which factors engender these two forms of value is the key to market alignment. The first question I’ll address in this chapter is: What is the source of the value that consumers expect to obtain when they’re about to purchase a certain creative product? Why do they expect what they do when they decide to buy a book or a trip, or tickets to a musical or a rugby match? The answer to this question is more complex than it may initially appear, especially if we rephrase it in a way that’s more salient for the decision makers in an organization’s marketing department: Why do different consumers expect to get different benefits? As we’ll see, expected value is the outcome of an intricate web of interacting factors that fall into two broad thematic areas: what consumers want (motiva-tions) and what they know (knowledge). When they go to buy a product, they expect to get a series of benefits depending on what prompts them to make that par-ticular purchase, and what they know about similar products available on the market. But underpinning their motivation and their knowledge are a number of variables. Some directly relate to consumers themselves and are depend-ent on the personal characteristics that make each of them unique. Others, instead, are independent of consumers. In other words, these variables are contingent on the actions of organizations operat-ing on the market, as well as the features of the macro-context in which they live and act, and the micro-context in which they make decisions. We need to consider all these factors to answer the ques-tion of why different consumers have different value expectations. Expected value emerges within consumer experi-ence, which is made up of several stages (outlined in the previous chapter).

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  Satisfaction: A Behavioral Perspective on the Consumer

  A Behavioral Perspective on the Consumer

  • Richard L. Oliver(Author)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 65, no. 2 (1996 February): 148–158.
• Zeithaml, Valarie A., Leonard L. Berry, and A. Parasuraman. “The Nature and Determinants of Customer Expectations of Service.” Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 21, no. 1 (Winter 1993): 1–12.
• Zhang, Ying, and Ayelet Fishbach. “The Role of Anticipated Emotions in the Endowment Effect.” Psychology & Marketing 15, no. 4 (2005): 316–324.
• Zhang, Ying, Ayelet Fishbach, and Ravi Dhar. “When Thinking Beats Doing: The Role of Optimistic Expectations in Goal-Based Choice.” Journal of Consumer Research 34, no. 3 (2007 December): 567–578.
• Zwick, Rami, Rik Pieters, and Hans Baumgartner. “On the Practical Significance of Hindsight Bias: The Case of the Expectancy-Disconfirmation Model of Consumer Satisfaction.” Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 64, no. 1 (1995 October): 103–117.
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Chapter 4 The Expectancy Disconfirmation Model of Satisfaction

DOI: 10.4324/9781315700892-5

The reader may have noticed continuing frequent references in the promotional media to products and services delivering “unexpected pleasure” or “unexpected taste” (True cigarettes); increasingly popular claims by firms that they will “meet your expectations” or “deliver more than you bargained for” (GMC Trucks); and imperatives such as “allow us to exceed your expectations” (Celebrity Cruises). In still other versions of this theme, Holiday Inns promises prospective guests that they would encounter “no surprises,” while other firms offer assurances that the consumer will encounter no “hidden charges.” And, of course, let us not forget the Target motto, “Expect More. Pay Less.” What do all these promises have in common? They guarantee that product or service performance will contrast favorably with the expectations that the consumer is likely to have had prior to purchase.

Note that in the first examples, those of unexpected pleasure and exceeding expectations, the consumer has been promised more positive performance than normally anticipated. In fact, at least one automaker has taken this promise to excess, literally. In an ad for a Toyota model, the bold copy read, “It is pure excess.” The ad goes on to claim that this car delivers the highest horsepower-toweight ratio in its class and can accelerate to sixty miles per hour in under five seconds. Whereas racing buffs might find this level of performance ordinary, the advertiser probably hoped that this same performance would be perceived as exceeding expectations for this type of car in the minds of sports car consumers.