Guilt as an Antecedent to the Consumer Evaluation Process in the Services Context

Abstract

As consumers increase their usage of ongoing services, where both the customer and the service provider must interact and work together to create a complete service encouter, there will be times when customers fail to fulfill their duties and consumer guilt may arise. Little attention has been given to the role of guilt in customer evaluations. This paper explores the meaning of consumer guilt, offers an expanded disconfirmation paradigm with guilt incorporated into the evaluation process, and discusses implications for the recognition and use of consumer guilt in marketing strategies.