To Delight, or Not to Delight? This is the Question Service Firms Must Address

Abstract

Understanding the motivations underlying consumer behavior is imperative for the accurate management of consumer relationships. In a competitive environment, firms need to maintain a certain type of relationship with their consumers to ensure positive outcomes. However, there is ambiguity in the current services marketing literature regarding the value of providing customer delight. Will customers contribute more resources to those firms that delight them? By relying on equity theory as a theoretical framework, the research reported here attempts to address this question. Results indicate that consumers exhibit behaviors in a manner consistent with equity theory; that is, when consumers are overrewarded by service providers, they reward the service provider with increased loyalty, commitment, repatronage, and willingness to pay.