Revealing the Actual Roles of Expectations in Consumer Satisfaction with Experience and Credence Goods

Abstract

The disconfirmation of expectations model continues to be the dominant model in the study of customer satisfaction notwithstanding its serious conceptual flaws and its weak empirical support. Competing models reveal the two roles that expectations actually play: as a major determinant of the perception of perceived performance of a good, for credence goods, and as the standard of comparison for the determination of satisfaction with information, for both experience ana credence goods. A model that uses desires as the standard for determining satisfaction with information, is shown to generate the most realistic predictions. Some implications for theory and empirical research on consumer satisfaction and complaining behavior are briefly discussed along with some implications for marketing management.