MKTG2023 Chap.3 Service Consumers and the Customer Journey
Service Consumers and the Customer Journey
Three stages of one purchase
Week 2 organises service consumer behaviour into prepurchase, the service encounter and post-encounter. Prepurchase begins with need arousal and a search that is mostly an attempt to reduce perceived risk, because a service cannot be inspected before it is bought.
Customers weigh search, experience and credence attributes, and only determinant attributes decide the choice.
Inside the encounter and after it
Encounters are moments of truth. The servuction system separates what the customer sees from what stays backstage, and theatre, role and script theory explain why both sides follow expected parts. Perceived control explains why information makes waiting tolerable.
After the encounter, satisfaction is judged against expectations, quality is measured on five SERVQUAL dimensions, and loyalty follows, often disproportionately from delighted customers.
The journey view
Lemon and Verhoef extend the frame to the whole customer journey and its touchpoints, sorted by who owns them: the brand, partners, the customer, or social and external sources.
The question the week leaves is where a brand’s promise cracks along that journey.
What this chapter covers
- 01
Need arousal and the six perceived risks
- 02
Search, experience and credence attributes
- 03
Evoked, consideration and inept sets
- 04
The servuction system and service as theatre
- 05
Expectancy-disconfirmation and SERVQUAL
- 06
Customer experience and the four touchpoint types
Worked example · free
Trace a first visit to a new dentist through the three stages
- 1Prepurchase: the need is triggered by a toothache, and the student faces performance, financial and psychological risk.
- 1Because the quality of the check-up is a credence attribute, the student relies on friends’ recommendations and online reviews.
- 1Encounter: the reception, the chair and the dentist’s explanations are the visible part of the servuction system.
- 1Perceived control rises when the dentist explains each step before doing it.
- 1Post-encounter: the student compares the visit with expectations; a shorter wait than expected gives positive disconfirmation.
- 1Satisfaction then feeds loyalty and word of mouth, which re-enters the prepurchase stage of the student’s friends.
Key terms
- Perceived Risk
- Customer’s sense of what could go wrong before buying a service, grouped as performance, financial, social, psychological, sensory and time risk.
- Servuction System
- Eiglier and Langeard’s model separating the visible part of service delivery, including other customers, from the invisible operations behind it.
- Moment of Truth
- Service encounter in which the customer directly experiences the quality of the service and forms a judgement about it.
- SERVQUAL Dimensions
- Reliability, assurance, tangibles, empathy and responsiveness, the five dimensions on which service quality is assessed.
- Partner-Owned Touchpoint
- Point of contact co-created with partners such as agencies or distributors, which the brand influences but does not fully control.
- Expectancy-Disconfirmation
- Theory that satisfaction depends on how performance compares with expectations, with positive disconfirmation producing delight.
Service Consumers and the Customer Journey FAQ
Why do service customers rely so much on reviews and word of mouth?
Because many service qualities cannot be inspected before purchase. Experience attributes are only known during or after use, and credence attributes may never be judged with confidence, so customers reduce perceived risk by borrowing other people’s experience. The more credence a service carries, the heavier that reliance becomes.
Is service quality the same as customer satisfaction?
No. The lecture treats quality as an antecedent of satisfaction. Quality is assessed on the five SERVQUAL dimensions, while satisfaction is the customer’s verdict on performance against expectations, both for one transaction and over a relationship. Loyalty, the commitment to return and recommend, is a third and separate outcome.
What are the four kinds of touchpoint in the customer journey?
Brand-owned touchpoints are controlled by the firm, such as advertising, websites and staff. Partner-owned ones are shared with agencies or distributors. Customer-owned ones are the customer’s own actions, such as how they use the service. Social or external touchpoints are reviews, peers and other customers, which the firm can influence but not control.
How do the three-stage model and the customer journey relate?
They cover the same span with different emphasis. Prepurchase maps onto prepurchase, the service encounter onto purchase, and post-encounter onto postpurchase. Lemon and Verhoef widen the view from single encounters to every touchpoint across channels, and stress that the journey loops back when a satisfied customer considers buying again.
Assessment move
Pick one service you bought recently and fill a three-column table for prepurchase, encounter and post-encounter. Under each, list the touchpoints you met and label who owned them. Then mark the touchpoint where your expectations were most clearly confirmed or disconfirmed, and name the theory that explains your reaction there.
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