Essentials of Services Marketing
Fourth Edition
Chapter 02
Understanding Service
Consumers
Copyright © 2023 Pearson Education Limited
The three-stage model of service
consumption
Copyright © 2023 Pearson Education Limited
The three-stage model of service
consumption
Copyright © 2023 Pearson Education Limited
The three-stage model of service
consumption
• Need awareness
• Information search
• Evaluation of alternatives
– Multi-attribute model
– Service attributes
– Perceived risk
– Service expectations
• Purchase decision
Copyright © 2023 Pearson Education Limited
The three-stage model of service
consumption
Need Awareness
• A service purchase is triggered by an underlying need
(need arousal)
• Needs may be due to:
– People’s unconscious minds (e.g., aspirations)
– Physical conditions (e.g., chronic back pain)
– External sources (e.g., marketing activities)
• When a need is recognized, people are likely take action to
resolve it
Copyright © 2023 Pearson Education Limited
The three-stage model of service
consumption
Information Search
• When a need is recognized, people will search for
solutions.
• Several alternatives may come to mind, and these from the
evoked set
– Evoked set: set of possible services or brands that a
customer may consider in the decision process
• When there is an evoked set, the different alternatives
need to be evaluated before a final choice is made
Copyright © 2023 Pearson Education Limited
The Multi-attribute Model
• Modeling consumer choice—Susan Munro’s multi-attribute
model for choosing a dry cleaner.
Copyright © 2023 Pearson Education Limited
Service Attributes
• Search attributes help customers evaluate a product
before purchase
• Experience attributes cannot be evaluated before
purchase—must “experience” product to know it
• Vacations, sporting events, medical procedures
• Credence attributes are product characteristics that
customers find impossible to evaluate confidently even
after purchase and consumption
– Quality of repair and maintenance
work
Copyright © 2023 Pearson Education Limited
Perceived Risks
• Functional―unsatisfactory performance outcomes
• Financial―monetary loss, unexpected extra costs
• Temporal―wasted time, delays leading to problems
• Physical―personal injury, damage to possessions
• Psychological―fears and negative emotions
• Social―how others may think and react
• Sensory―unwanted impact on any of five senses
Copyright © 2023 Pearson Education Limited
Perceived Risks
How Do Consumers Handle Them?
• Seeking information from respected personal sources
• Using Internet to compare service offerings and search for
independent reviews and ratings
• Relying on a firm that has a good reputation
• Looking for guarantees and warranties
• Visiting service facilities or trying aspects of service before
purchasing
• Asking knowledgeable employees about competing
services
Copyright © 2023 Pearson Education Limited
Perceived Risks
Strategies for Firms to Manage Consumer Perceptions
of Risk
• Preview service through brochures, websites, videos
• Encourage visit to service facilities before purchase
• Free trial (for services with high experience attributes)
• Advertise (helps to visualize)
Copyright © 2023 Pearson Education Limited
Perceived Risks
Strategies for Firms to Manage Consumer Perceptions
of Risk
• Display credentials
• Use evidence management (e.g., furnishing, equipment
etc.)
• Give customers online
access to information
about order status
• Offer guarantees
Copyright © 2023 Pearson Education Limited
Service Expectations
• Customers evaluate service quality by comparing what
they expect against what they perceive
– Situational and personal factors also considered
• Expectations of good service vary from one business to
another, and differently positioned service providers in
same industry
• Expectations change over time
Copyright © 2023 Pearson Education Limited
Service Expectations
• Factors influencing customer expectations from the service
Copyright © 2023 Pearson Education Limited
Service Expectations
Components of Customer Expectations
• Desired Service Level:
– Wished-for level of service quality that customer
believes can and should be delivered
• Adequate Service Level:
– Minimum acceptable level of service
Copyright © 2023 Pearson Education Limited
Service Expectations
Components of Customer Expectations
• Predicted Service Level:
– Service level that customer believes firm will actually
deliver
• Zone of Tolerance:
– Range within which customers
are willing to accept variations
in service delivery
Copyright © 2023 Pearson Education Limited
Service Expectations
Purchase Decision
• When possible alternatives have been compared and
evaluated, the best option is selected
• Can be quite simple if perceived risks are low and
alternatives are clear
• Very often, trade-offs are involved. The more complex the
decision, the more trade-offs need to be made
• Price is often a key factor in the purchase decision
Copyright © 2023 Pearson Education Limited
Moments of truth
• The “moment of truth” is when the customer directly
interacts with the service firm.
• It involves the skills, motivation and tools employed by the
firm to prove to the customer that they are the best choice
for them.
Copyright © 2023 Pearson Education Limited
High- versus low-contact services
• Service Encounters Range from High-contact to Low-
contact
Copyright © 2023 Pearson Education Limited
The Servuction System
Copyright © 2023 Pearson Education Limited
The Servuction System
• Visible front stage and invisible backstage
• Service Operations system
– Technical core where inputs are processed and service
elements created, usually backstage
– Includes facilities, equipment, and personnel
• Service Delivery System (front stage)
– Where “final assembly” of service elements takes place
and service is delivered to customers
– Includes customer interactions with operations and
other customers
Copyright © 2023 Pearson Education Limited
Theatrical Metaphor
• Good metaphor as service delivery is a series of events
that customers experience as a performance
• Service facilities
– Stage on which drama unfolds
– This may change from one act to another
• Personnel
– Front stage personnel are like members of a cast
– Backstage personnel are support production team
Copyright © 2023 Pearson Education Limited
Role, script, and perceived control
theories
• Roles
– Like actors, employees have roles to play and behave
in specific ways
• Scripts
– Specifies the sequences of behavior for customers and
employees
Copyright © 2023 Pearson Education Limited
Role, script, and perceived control
theories
• Behavioral control
– Allows the customer to change the service situation by
asking the firm to customize its typical offerings
• Decisional control
– The customer can choose between two or more
standardized options without changing either option
• Cognitive control
– Exercised when the customer understands why
something is happening and knows what will happen
next
Copyright © 2023 Pearson Education Limited
How customers evaluate services;
what determines their satisfaction
• Expectancy-disconfirmation model of satisfaction
Copyright © 2023 Pearson Education Limited
How customers evaluate services;
what determines their satisfaction
Customer Satisfaction Is Central to the Marketing
Concept
• Satisfaction defined as attitude-like judgment following a
service purchase or series of service interactions
• Customers have expectations prior to consumption,
observe service performance, compare it to expectations
• Satisfaction judgments are based on this comparison
– Positive disconfirmation if better than expected
– Confirmation if same as expected
– Negative disconfirmation if worse than expected
Copyright © 2023 Pearson Education Limited
Understand service quality
• Service quality is the high standard of performance that
consistently meets or exceeds customer expectations.
• Customer satisfaction and service quality are determined
by comparing customers’ expectations with their
performance perceptions.
– Satisfaction is an evaluation of a single consumption
experience
– Service quality refers to relatively stable attitudes and
beliefs about a firm
• Transaction quality and attribute satisfaction are also
transaction-specific and determine overall customer
satisfaction.
Copyright © 2023 Pearson Education Limited
Understand service quality
• 10 dimensions used by consumers in evaluating service
quality
Copyright © 2023 Pearson Education Limited
Understand service quality
• 10 dimensions used by consumers in evaluating service
quality
Copyright © 2023 Pearson Education Limited
Understand service quality
• 10 dimensions used by consumers in evaluating service
quality
Copyright © 2023 Pearson Education Limited
Customer Loyalty
• Loyalty is a customer’s willingness to continue patronizing
a firm over the long term
• Includes preference, liking, and future intentions
• Customer engagement involves loyalty behaviors:
– recommending a firm to friends and associates
– helping other customers
– providing feedback
– writing reviews
Copyright © 2023 Pearson Education Limited
Copyright
This work is protected by United States copyright laws and is
provided solely for the use of instructors in teaching their
courses and assessing student learning. Dissemination or
sale of any part of this work (including on the World Wide
Web) will destroy the integrity of the work and is not
permitted. The work and materials from it should never be
made available to students except by instructors using the
accompanying text in their classes. All recipients of this
work are expected to abide by these restrictions and to
honor the intended pedagogical purposes and the needs of
other instructors who rely on these materials.
Copyright © 2023 Pearson Education Limited
