Richard L. Oliver’s research while affiliated with Vanderbilt University and other places

Critics have suggested that delighting the customer “raises the bar” of customer expectations, making it more difficult to satisfy the customer in the next purchase cycle and hurting the firm in the long run. The authors explore this issue by using a mathematical model of delight, based on assumptions gathered from the customer satisfaction literature. Although delighting the customer heightens repurchase expectations and makes satisfying the customer more difficult in the future, and the delighting firm is injured by raised customer expectations, the (nondelighting) competition is hurt worse through customer attrition to the delighting firm. If customers forget delighting incidents to some degree from occasion to occasion, the delighting firm suffers if it is in a position to take customers from the competition. If taking customers from the competition is difficult, the delighting firm actually benefits from customer forgetting, because the same delighting experience can be repeated again, with the same effect.

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.

Expectations of a novel restaurant dining experience were manipulated in a controlled field setting to test for the role and persistence of expectation and expectation-related effects within the expectancy disconfirmation and performance model. In an effort to ensure external validity, preconsumption expectations were manipulated via real-appearing reviews, actual service experience was recorded through protocol methods, and postconsumption perceptions were measured in the immediate postusage period. Results showed that the expectation manipulation and the expectations thereby created had an immediate but declining effect over the consumption period, that expectations acted as forward assimilation agents for performance, that retrospective expectations were partially influenced by performance observations in the manner of backward assimilation, that expectation-initiated performance comparisons (disconfirmation) and performance judgments were important satisfaction influences, and that the expectancy disconfirmation model is dimension-specific with regard to operation of its components. These findings shed insight into the operation of expectations, performance, and disconfirmation in service environments and illustrate some effects of consumption tracking.

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 float 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.

The topic of affect has been described as an important, but underexplored area of the social psychology of negotiation. In this paper we seek to advance thinking about affective processes in two-party negotiation through an integration and conceptual extension of existing research. We briefly review conceptualizations and operationalizations of affect, and highlight findings relevant to the social-cognitive underpinnings of negotiation. A dynamic model of affect in two-party negotiation analyzes the role of moods and emotions that bargainers bring to and evolve within the negotiation encounter. The model illustrates how affect states influence (and in some cases are influenced by) one's decision to negotiate, selection of an opponent, formulation of expectations and offers, choice of tactics used within bargaining, economic and social-cognitive outcomes, and proclivity to comply with settlement terms. We develop specific research propositions that describe these influences and discuss their implications for broader questions about the role of affect in bargaining.

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 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. © 1995 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Attempts to model consumer satisfaction/dissatisfaction (CS/D) responses rely on linear assumptions regarding the effect of various causes (e.g., attribute performance, expectancy discontinuation) on the consumer's reaction to a product or service. This assumption has been pervasive in the CS/D literature despite observations in the trade that consumers are sticky in their preferences or „dispreferences” for products. We present and operationalize a model which relaxes the linearity assumption and allows for lagged and threshold effects of performance increments on CS/D responses in product involvement. Our approach uses the cusp catastrophe model, which has been shown to be robust in a number of contexts, but has had only limited use in the marketing literature. We apply a catastrophe model to data on consumers' use of an appetite suppressant and show that, under high involvement conditions for this product, consumers do not shift preferences over a range of reported performance (e.g., weight loss). The catastrophe model is also shown to be superior to a linear (i.e., OLS) model of the same data.

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.

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.