Satisfaction, Regret, and Status Quo Effects on the Formation of Consumer Loyalty

Abstract

Consumer loyalty continues to be an important marketing consideration. A model of consumer loyalty is proposed that furthers efforts to model satisfaction-based explanations of consumer loyalty formation within emerging goaldirected, attitude-based models of judgment and decision making. The results of an empirical study support the proposed model of the process of loyalty formation, yielding benefits that include (1) helping to reconcile loyalty explanations with models of judgment and decision making; (2) contributing to identifying the unique roles of anticipated regret, anticipated emotions generally, and satisfaction judgments in the process; (3) demonstrating the need to consider status quo effects as a moderator to loyalty formation; and (4) suggesting the possibility of status quo effects influencing the role of many other concepts in explanations of loyalty formation. The managerial and research implications of the reported study are explicated and discussed.