Both practitioners and academics understand that consumer loyalty and satisfaction are linked inextricably. They also understand that this relation is asymmetric. Although loyal consumers are most typically satisfied, satisfaction does not universally translate into loyalty. To explain the satisfaction–loyalty conundrum, the author investigates what aspect of the consumer satisfaction response has implications for loyalty and what portion of the loyalty response is due to this satisfaction component. The analysis concludes that satisfaction is a necessary step in loyalty formation but becomes less significant as loyalty begins to set through other mechanisms. These mechanisms, omitted from consideration in current models, include the roles of personal determinism (“fortitude”) and social bonding at the institutional and personal level. When these additional factors are brought into account, ultimate loyalty emerges as a combination of perceived product superiority, personal fortitude, social bonding, and their synergistic effects. As each fails to be attained or is unattainable by individual firms that serve consumer markets, the potential for loyalty erodes. A disquieting conclusion from this analysis is that loyalty cannot be achieved or pursued as a reasonable goal by many providers because of the nature of the product category or consumer disinterest. For some firms, satisfaction is the only feasible goal for which they should strive; thus, satisfaction remains a worthy pursuit among the consumer marketing community. The disparity between the pursuit of satisfaction versus loyalty, as well as the fundamental content of the loyalty response, poses several investigative directions for the next wave of postconsumption research.

Many business practitioners have addressed the importance of delighting the customer as an extension of providing basic satisfaction. Yet the concept of customer delight has not been given a clear behavioral foundation, and the antecedents and consequences of customer delight, when manifest in specific service contexts, have not been empirically explored. This paper attempts to provide a first step toward establishing a behavioral basis for customer delight, empirically testing its hypothesised antecedents and consequences, and exploring the resulting implications. Based on data from two service fields, structural equation results support the proposition that unexpected high levels of satisfaction or performance initiate an arousal ⇒ pleasure (positive affect) ⇒ delight sequence. Mixed support is found for the hypothesis that delight is a combined result of pleasure and arousal. Satisfaction, acting in parallel with delight, was strongly related to pleasure and disconfirmation and had a clear effect on behavioral intention; the effect of delight on intention, however, appears to be moderated by the service context. Managerial implications include the consideration of whether delight is a reasonable and meaningful consumer expression in particular service contexts, the necessity of focusing on surprising levels of satisfaction or performance when attempting to produce delighting consumption experiences, and potentially separate strategies for inducing satisfaction and delight.

A deprivation model analog of the effect of first-level (attribute-specific) and second-level (product-related) need fulfillment on satisfaction with a pharmaceutical information publication was tested under actual usage conditions. A sample of 156 pharmacists participated in a three-phase study where information needs and current need fulfillment were measured in phase 1. Product usage over a one-month interval followed in phase 2. In the final phase of the study, attribute performance, first- and second-level need fulfillment, and satisfaction with the product were measured. Analysis suggested that first-level need fulfillment was positively related to attribute performance, negatively related to the degree to which the need was previously fulfilled, and unrelated to level of overall need. Product-level need fulfillment was a function of overall need. Product-level need fulfillment was a function of attribute-level fulfillment, and satisfaction was related to product-level fulfillment and attribute performance. A test for curvilinear trend in the fulfillment-satisfaction association was significant, suggesting that diminishing increments to satisfaction occur in the region of overfulfillment. Some improvement in the parameters occurred when this was incorporated in the model. Implications of the findings are discussed. (C) 1995 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

In a previous volume of this journal, the authors presented a behavior versus outcome sales control continuum based on methods of monitoring, directing, evaluating, and compensating the salesperson's efforts and results. They empirically test their propositions about how control system perceptions influence salespeople on a diverse sample of sales representatives. They find that the predicted effects of control philosophy on affective and motivational states are generally supported whereas the effects on sales strategies or performance outcomes are not. Organizational culture differences are also observed.

An attempt to extend current thinking on postpurchase response to include attribute satisfaction and dissatisfaction as separate determinants not fully reflected in either cognitive (i.e., expectancy disconfirmation) or affective paradigms is presented. In separate studies of automobile satisfaction and satisfaction with course instruction, respondents provided the nature of emotional experience, disconfirmation perceptions, and separate attribute satisfaction and dissatisfaction judgments. Analysis confirmed the disconfirmation effect and the effects of separate dimensions of positive and negative affect and also suggested a multidimensional structure to the affect dimensions. Additionally, attribute satisfaction and dissatisfaction were significantly related to positive and negative affect, respectively, and to overall satisfaction. It is suggested that all dimensions tested are needed for a full accounting of postpurchase responses in usage.

This article examines the underlying dimensionality of three aspects of the post-consumption experience-product evaluation, product-elicited affect, and product satisfaction. In addition, the article integrates these concepts through a suggested causal framework. Students evaluated either a high- or a low-involvement product in current use, reported affective responses evoked by it, and assessed their levels of product-derived satisfaction. Analysis shows that two primary dimensions of product evaluation-utilitarian and hedonic judgment-can be viewed as causally antecedent to two dimensions of affect-pleasantness and arousal-and to product satisfaction. Implications of the conceptual framework and empirical findings for the study of consumption events are discussed.

This study focuses on two complementary modes of elaborative processing in response to advertising: imagery and analysis. Imagery is characterized by nonverbal product-related thoughts, whereas analysis is more semantic and verbal in nature. Two stimulus determinants of ad-induced imaging and analyzing are investigated and related to the purchase consideration of an innovative product. Results show that the consumer's use of imagery is related to the perceived novelty of the advertising stimulus, whereas analyzing is related to less favorable of advertising content. Product-related affect and intention to buy, in turn, are related positively to imaging and negatively to analyzing. Implications for advertising management and research are discussed.

Emotions having the potential to be evoked in the consumption experience were related to attribute-specific and overall judgments of satisfaction/dissatisfaction in an effort to more fully understand the role of emotion in consumption. Results of a multidimensional scaling analysis of the attribute dimensionality of automobile purchases and a property-fitting of emotions and satisfaction measures revealed two attribute dimensions and meaningful interpretations for the position of satisfaction/dissatisfaction, enjoyment, interest, surprise, and general negative affect on this space. The attribute and emotion solution suggests a consumption-stage interpretation of the evocation of emotions in usage. Propositions consistent with this framework are offered for future work in the area.

Although both consumption emotion and satisfaction judgments occur in the post-purchase period, little is known about their correspondence. This article investigates the interrelationships between the two constructs by way of taxonomic and dimensional analyses to identify patterns of emotional response to product experiences. Five discriminable patterns of affective experience were uncovered, which were based on three independent affective dimensions of hostility, pleasant surprise, and interest. The results extend prior findings of a simple bidimensional affective-response space and reveal that satisfaction measures vary in their ability to represent the affective content of consumption experiences.

Automobile purchasers were surveyed about feelings toward their inputs to and outcomes from the sales transaction, as well as their perceptions of the inputs and outcomes of the salesperson. Structural equation modeling with maximum likelihood estimation shows two concepts advanced in the equity literature, fairness and preference (advantageous inequity), to be related differentially to input and outcome judgments. No necessary symmetry is observed between the weights attached to inputs and outcomes or between those attached to self and salesperson. When framed in a larger perspective involving satisfaction with the salesperson, the fairness dimension mediates the effect of inputs and outcomes on satisfaction whereas preference does not. The fairness influence is robust against the simultaneous inclusion of disconfirmation in the satisfaction equation. Satisfaction, in turn, is related strongly to the consumer's intention cognitions. The findings suggest that the retail sales transaction may differ in substantive ways from the subject-peer and worker-coworker comparisons in other disciplines and that models of interpersonal satisfaction in the sales transaction should include the mediating effect of the fairness dimension of equity. The managerial implications of these findings are discussed.

Prior work on the equity and disconfirmation determinants of transaction satisfaction was extended to product satisfaction. Based on perceptions of inputs and outcomes of buyer, dealer, and salesperson, two subtractive versions of the equity formula—absolute equity difference and equity advantage—were tested with fairness and preference as mediating variables. Both variables were related only to the equity advantage formula, and disconfirmation and fairness were shown to be distinct components of post-transaction dispositions. Moreover, product satisfaction was shown to be a function of product disconfirmation, complaining, and satisfaction with the dealer. The latter apparently mediates both fairness and salesperson satisfaction.

Journal Article Deception by Implication: An Experimental Investigation Get access Raymond R. Burke, Raymond R. Burke Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic PubMed Google Scholar Wayne S. DeSarbo, Wayne S. DeSarbo Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic PubMed Google Scholar Richard L. Oliver, Richard L. Oliver Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic PubMed Google Scholar Thomas S. Robertson Thomas S. Robertson Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic PubMed Google Scholar Journal of Consumer Research, Volume 14, Issue 4, March 1988, Pages 483–494, https://doi.org/10.1086/209130 Published: 01 March 1988 Article history Received: 01 June 1986 Revision received: 01 May 1987 Published: 01 March 1988

The effects of five determinants of satisfaction are tested as well as individual differences in satisfaction formation. Manipulations of attribution, expectancy, performance, disconfirmation, and equity are written into stock market trading scenarios in a full factorial design. Results show that all main effects and four ordinal two-way interactions are significant. Then, an individual-level analysis is performed on the repeated measures data. Three clusters of subjects sharing similar response tendencies (disconfirmation, performance, and equity) are identified and related to investment attitudes, outcome attitudes, and demographics. No consistent relationships are discovered, suggesting that the response differences reflect deeper behavioral tendencies. Implications of this approach for satisfaction paradigms, satisfaction theory, and individual satisfaction response orientations are presented.

Forms of control systems used in salesforce evaluation and based on the monitoring of outcomes or of behaviors are described, contrasted, and evaluated in terms of emerging theories in economics, organization theory, and cognitive psychology. Generally, the principles of behavior control as opposed to outcome control are found to be consistent with these theoretical perspectives with exceptions as noted, though studies of descriptive trends suggest that outcome control remains useful as a sales management philosophy. The authors conclude with a set of propositions intended to stimulate research on the managerial and behavioral consequences of the two control philosophies.

This article presents the development of a new sto chastic multidimensional scaling (MDS) method, which operates on paired comparisons data and renders a spatial representation of subjects and stimuli. Subjects are represented as vectors and stimuli as points in a T- dimensional space, where the scalar products, or pro jections of the stimulus points onto the subject vec tors, provide respective information as to the utility (or whatever latent construct is under investigation) of the stimuli to the subjects. The psychometric literature concerning related MDS methods that also operate on paired comparisons data is reviewed, and a technical description of the new method is provided. A small monte carlo analysis performed on synthetic data with the new method is also presented. To illustrate the versatility of the model, an application measuring con sumer satisfaction and investigating the impact of hy pothesized determinants, using one of the optional re parameterized models, is described. Future areas of further research are identified.

The results of a two‐phase panel study were used to investigate the relationships among satisfaction with complaint resolution, reports of public and private complaining, and hypothesized antecedents of complaint behavior. Path analysis of a theoretical model of complaint behavior suggested that the degree of public complaining was positively related to satisfaction with the eventual outcome of the problem while the extent of private complaining had a significant negative relationship. Analysis of the antecedents showed that only monetary cost associated with the problem was positively related to both public and private complaints, underscoring the difficulty of predicting complaining from personal characteristics.

Recent works on satisfaction theory have shown that disconfirmation plays a major role in the determination of satisfaction levels. Less, however, is known about the mental process used by consumers to form disconfirmation cognitions. This study operationalized and tested the role of two types of disconfirmation, inferential and overall (perceived), on the satisfaction of appetite suppressant users after first trial and repeat usage situations. Results showed that overall perceptions mediated the relationship between inferred disconfirmation and satisfaction in both time frames, as hypothesized.