Abstract:
We advance a conceptual model that describes the mental mathematics
by which customers compute their level of service satisfaction, incorporating three
constructs: expected service consequences, perceived service consequences
and perceived service value. The model integrates prospect theory, mental
accounting and equity theory in order to enhance the theoretical understanding
of customer evaluation processes and judgments in service consumption
experiences. It conceptualises the relationship between particular combinations
of expected and perceived consequences and perceived value as a symmetric
and nonlinear, and suggests how the relationship between perceived value and
customer satisfaction is modelled taking a distributive justice reasoning. Our
work differs from existing frameworks in that we propose that (1) satisfaction
judgments are affected by customer perceptions of service value, (2) these value
perceptions increase with increases in initial expectations about service related
consequences, and therefore (3) satisfaction actually increases with increases in
these initial service related expectations.
