TY - JOUR
T1 - Consumer Trade-Offs and the Evaluation of Services
AU - Ostrom, Amy
AU - Lacobucci, Dawn
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors are grateful for the positive feedback and helpful comments they received from attendees at the Frontiers in Services Conference 1993 and from the JMeditor and four anonymous reviewers. They thank the Marketing Department at Northwestern University and the National Science Foundation for research support.
Publisher Copyright:
© 1995 American Marketing Association.
PY - 1995/1
Y1 - 1995/1
N2 - The evaluation of services by consumers in terms of service attributes that should have an impact on judgments as well as the nature of the judgments themselves are investigated. A conjoint analysis is used to examine subjects’ utilities for service alternatives that differ in terms of price, level of quality, friendliness of the service personnel, and the degree of customization of the service. The impact on subjects’ utilities was studied in relation to several factors, including the type of service industry being evaluated (i.e., experience or credence services); the criticality of the service situation (i.e., high or low importance that the service be executed well); and the type of evaluative judgment asked of the respondent (i.e., ratings of subjects’ anticipated satisfaction, value, or likelihood of purchase). The results indicate that all service attributes are important to consumers and that their importance varies with the mediating factors. For example, consumers are price sensitive for less critical purchase situations, whereas quality is more important for credence services. The findings allow for a parsimonious theoretical explanation based on risk and the clarification of some constructs in the area of consumer evaluations.
AB - The evaluation of services by consumers in terms of service attributes that should have an impact on judgments as well as the nature of the judgments themselves are investigated. A conjoint analysis is used to examine subjects’ utilities for service alternatives that differ in terms of price, level of quality, friendliness of the service personnel, and the degree of customization of the service. The impact on subjects’ utilities was studied in relation to several factors, including the type of service industry being evaluated (i.e., experience or credence services); the criticality of the service situation (i.e., high or low importance that the service be executed well); and the type of evaluative judgment asked of the respondent (i.e., ratings of subjects’ anticipated satisfaction, value, or likelihood of purchase). The results indicate that all service attributes are important to consumers and that their importance varies with the mediating factors. For example, consumers are price sensitive for less critical purchase situations, whereas quality is more important for credence services. The findings allow for a parsimonious theoretical explanation based on risk and the clarification of some constructs in the area of consumer evaluations.
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U2 - 10.1177/002224299505900102
DO - 10.1177/002224299505900102
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84986116939
SN - 0022-2429
VL - 59
SP - 17
EP - 28
JO - Journal of Marketing
JF - Journal of Marketing
IS - 1
ER -