The Impact of Health-Care Service Guarantees on Consumer Decision-Making: An Experimental Investigation

Abstract

While examples of the successful use of service guarantees in health-care do exist, to-date, researchers have yet to examine this industry-specific application beyond a case study perspective. The results of this experiment begin to shed light on whether or not guarantees should be used, and if so, under what conditions are they appropriate. Respondents indicate that the thoughtful use of service guarantees can positively impact their perceptions of the health-care provider's reputation and, ultimately, their behavioral intentions towards the same provider. However, consideration must be given to the type of guarantee being offered and to whom the guarantee is targeted.

KEYWORDS:

• experimental design
• emergency room
• guarantee scope
• physical therapy
• hospital marketing
• service guarantees

Notes

Note. Superscript letters within the same row denote statistical significance at p < .05. Even though only the numbers in columns (1) and (4) were used for hypothesis testing, the data in columns (2) and (3) were also compared against those in column (1) to understand the source of differences between columns (1) and (4).