A Longitudinal Study of the Stability of Consumer Expectations of Services

Abstract

The importance of service quality to the profitability and survival of service firms been highlighted by several researchers. However little attention has been given to the process of measuring prior consumer expectation on which service quality measurement is based. This issue was addressed in this article by means of a longitudinal study that examines the stability of consumer expectations and their ensuring effect on the measurement of service quality. The study indicated that prior consumer expectations of service measured after a service encounter will be affected by the type of experience. Through cognitive dissonance tension reduction methods, consumers tend to shift their prior expectations to ensure their overall evaluation of the experience is justified. Consumers who had a negative experience will shift their prior expectations of individual attributes higher and consumers who had a positive experience will shift their prior expectations lower. The impacts of these shifts and their effects on the measurement of service quality are the discussed.