Beyond valence in customer dissatisfaction

Abstract

Dissatisfied customers may express their dissatisfaction behaviorally. These behavioral responses may impact the firms' profitability. How do we model the impact of emotions on satisfaction and subsequent customer behaviors? There are essentially two approaches: the valence-based approach and the specific emotions approach. The authors indicate theoretically and show empirically that it matters to distinguish these approaches in services research. Dissatisfaction and the specific emotions disappointment and regret were assessed and their influence on customers' behavioral responses (complaining, switching, word-of-mouth, and customer inertia) was examined, using a sample of over 900 customers. It was found that emotions have a direct impact on behavior, over and above the effects of dissatisfaction. Hence, the authors argue against incorporating emotions such as regret and disappointment into a general (dis)satisfaction measure (i.e., the valence-based approach), and in favor of a specific emotions approach to customer dissatisfaction. Implications for services marketing practice and theory are discussed.

Introduction

Service encounters can be a source of negative emotions. These emotions may occur, for example, when the delivery of a service does not match up to previously held expectations. But even when expectations are met, customers can experience negative affect. This could be the case when customers realize that the obtained delivery would have been better had they opted for an alternative service or service provider Inman et al., 1997, Taylor, 1997. Obviously, the positive and negative emotions experienced in these situations will influence the overall degree of satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the service Herrmann et al., 1999a, Herrmann et al., 1999b, Maute and Dubé, 1999, Stephens and Gwinner, 1998, Tsiros, 1998, Westbrook, 1980, Westbrook and Oliver, 1991, Zeelenberg and Pieters, 1999. Most likely, these specific emotions will also partly determine the subsequent behavior in relation to the service and service provider, such as the likelihood of complaining, the degree to which customers will switch or repurchase, and the extent of word-of-mouth (WOM) communication they will engage in. This assumed influence on customer behavior could occur via overall (dis)satisfaction, but might also stem directly from the specific emotions themselves. This brings us to the central question of this article, namely: How do we model the impact of specific emotions on satisfaction and subsequent customer behaviors? Based on the recent review of the literature on emotion and consumer behavior by Bagozzi et al. (2000), we argue that there are essentially two ways to model the interactions between emotions and satisfaction (and satisfaction-related behaviors), namely, the valence-based approach and the specific emotions approach. We indicate theoretically and show empirically that it matters to distinguish these approaches in services research.

The first approach to modeling the impact of emotions on satisfaction, the valence-based approach, entails a summation of the positivity and negativity of the different emotions that customers experience to arrive at an overall judgment of (dis)satisfaction. In the valence-based approach, negative emotions are expected to lead to more dissatisfaction, whereas positive emotions are expected to lead to more satisfaction. The net (weighted) valence of the affective experience then is the balance between positive and negative emotions. The behaviors that follow are then supposed to be fully driven by this overall positivity or negativity. The main advantage of the valence-based approach is its parsimony. It allows for combining all sorts of emotions and other constructs to be expressed in one single currency, namely, customer (dis)satisfaction. However, at the same time, the focus on mere valence has the disadvantage of ignoring all the specific elements that are present in the different emotions, which are not easily expressed by valence alone.

The alternative approach that we like to plea for in this article, the specific emotions approach, goes beyond mere valence and focuses on the idiosyncratic elements of specific emotions (e.g., DeSteno et al., 2000; Keltner and Lerner, 2000; Raghunathan and Pham, 1999, van der Pligt et al., 1998, Zeelenberg et al., 1998). Hence, it requires insight into the specific antecedents, phenomenology, and consequences of different emotions. According to this approach, different negative emotions may differentially impact (dis)satisfaction. For example, the negative emotion disappointment (stemming from outcomes that do not match up to previously held expectations) is expected to affect dissatisfaction very strongly, whereas it is not yet clear whether, for example, the negative emotion shame (experienced when one judges oneself to be a bad person) should have any influence on satisfaction. More importantly, as research in the field of emotion theory has shown, different specific emotions can have different behavioral tendencies (action tendencies or patterns of action readiness) and behavioral consequences (e.g., Frijda and Zeelenberg, 2001, Frijda et al., 1989, Roseman et al., 1994). These findings have important implications for services research. The interest of this field in customer satisfaction is mainly due to the effects it has on customer behaviors that are relevant for the firm. The specificity of the impact of emotions on behavioral responses implies that knowledge of dissatisfaction alone may not be very informative to predict and explain the specific behavior customers will engage in. A focus on emotion specific influences may offer improved insight.

The specific emotion approach leans heavily on the appraisal theory of emotions (see, for a contemporary review, Scherer et al., 2001; see also Bagozzi et al., 1999). One of the tenets of appraisal theory is that the cognitive appraisal of the situation is the ruling mechanism in both the elicitation and the differentiation of emotion. For that reason, most emotion theorists regard appraisals as a key component of emotional experience. In addition to their specific appraisal patterns, specific emotions also differ with respect to the accompanying phenomenologies (e.g., Frijda et al., 1989, Roseman et al., 1996). Consequently, specific emotions carry distinctive information about one's position in the world, and signal one's current status with respect to the relevant concerns and goals (Frijda, 1986). Thus, specific emotions are responses to specific situations (or better, appraisals of these), which makes it likely that specific emotions produce a whole repertoire of different specific behaviors aimed at restoring the disturbed relationship with the situation as signaled by the specific emotion. These behaviors may vary from fighting in the case of anger, via flighting in the case of fear, to inertia in the case of sadness. Thus, focussing on only customer dissatisfaction to measure the negative evaluation of a service, as in done in valence-based approaches, may be useful in capturing the possible differences in satisfaction produced by different emotions. But the valence approach is likely to produce insufficient information when one is interested in the specific behaviors customers are likely to engage in following this aversive experience. Will the customer complain, switch to another service provider, engage in negative WOM, or will the customer refrain from any action? Valence-based approaches predict that customers are more likely to engage in all of these behaviors as their evaluation of the service gets worse. However, the specific emotions approach, by acknowledging the idiosyncratic appraisals and phenomenologies of each emotion, may help us to better understand and predict the specific behaviors the customer engage in.

Summarizing, the impact of emotions on (dis)satisfaction and (dis)satisfaction-related behaviors can be modeled by summing up the overall positivity and negativity of the different emotional experiences, as in done in valence-based approaches. Alternatively, we propose that (dis)satisfaction and its related behaviors are better understood by using a specific emotion approach, in which different emotions, with the same valence, may have idiosyncratic effects.

Section 2 will conceptualize the specific emotions that are the focus of our research: disappointment and regret. Then, the impact of these two emotions on customer (dis)satisfaction and the related recent developments in the customer satisfaction/dissatisfaction literature are discussed. This is followed by a description of the conceptual model underlying the current research. As a guide for the remainder of this article, the conceptual model (adopted from Zeelenberg and Pieters, 1999) is depicted in Fig. 1.