M ODEL OF CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

The customer experience model suggested in this dissertation is more thoroughly introduced in Article 1 of this dissertation (Rasila 2009). The model is a combination of several relationship marketing theories and it combines these models in a novel way. It is important to understand the model as it is the framework for the customer experience dimensions that are the main interest of this research. The model makes the quality assessment in two levels. The model and the levels are introduced next.

Level 1: Individual exchanges. The model by Rasila (2009) starts with the assessment of the service and product elements of the offering. Traditional service quality models included just the assessment of the service element. Validly, critics claim that this service-only approach is too limited as pure services with no tangible elements are rare (Rust &

Oliver 1994; Schneider & Boven 1995; Sureshchandar & al. 2002; Mangold & Babakus 1991; Cronin & Taylor 1992; Richard & Allaway 1993; McDougall & Levesque 2000). Thus, in this context both service and product elements (Grönroos 1982; 1990) of the offering are considered.

In the context of relationship marketing the product quality discussion is scarce. A great deal of product oriented quality literature is – in the terms of Garvin (1984) – manufacturing oriented and focuses on how to organise the business so that the production, delivery and the end products are as flawless as possible (see, for example, Spencer 1994; Samson &

Terziovski 1999). Examples of such models are those by Kano (see, for example, Tan &

Pawitra 2001), Akao (1990) and Duke and Mount (1996). This literature offers no insight into how quality perception develops in the minds of customers.

In this respect service quality literature has more to offer. The early service quality literature suggested that the service quality perception develops in a so called disconfirmation paradigm. This means that the customer has certain pre-decided expectations before service consumption. The customer then mentally compares the expectations of the service with the real experiences of it. If the outcome of this comparison is positive, the customer perceives the quality to be good and if the result is negative, the customer perceived quality is poor (Parasuraman & al. 1985; 1988).

This disconfirmation paradigm has been criticized strongly after it was introduced (Teas 1993; 1994; Cronin & Taylor 1992; Carman 1990; Woodruff & al. 1983; for a good summary of this criticism, see Buttle 1996). The most relevant criticism for this research includes the claim that service quality perception is based on experiences only, not on comparing the expectations with the experiences. Further, it has been suggested that even

if the expectations play an important role in the creation of quality perception, the term is too vague for theoretical use. (cf. Cronin & Taylor 1992; 1994; Teas 1993; 1994; Mehta &

Durvasula 1998; Zhou 2004.)

Rasila (2009) overcomes these problems by replacing the expectations with comparison standards. Comparison standard is any criterion that is used as a basis for the comparison, thus including the expectations as a possible comparison criterion, but also including other possible criteria such as the contract, goals, promises, cultural norms, corporate culture, values, hopes, best possible or ideal offering, competitive offerings or previous experiences (Iaccobucci & al. 1994; Järvelin 2001; Ojasalo 2001; Liljander &

Strandvik 1995; Boulding & al. 1993; Gardial & al. 1994; Woodruff & al. 1983; Cadotte &

al. 1987; Johnson & Fornell 1991).

Level 2: Relationship level. Assessing the service and product elements of the offering has typically been done in individual exchanges (in the episode level in terminology of Ojasalo 2001). In long-term business relationships the customer relationship itself affects the customer experience, and the history of the customer relationship affects the customer experience accordingly. The long term nature of the customer’s quality perception has been included in a model of relationship quality by Järvelin (2001).

After assessing the episode level service and product quality, it becomes possible to compare the episode level quality perception with the existing relationship quality perception, as suggested by Järvelin (2001). Järvelin suggests that this is a comparison of episode level experiences and prior experiences, but Rasila (2009) suggests that the prior experiences are not the only comparison criteria used in this relationship level quality assessment. The prior experiences are just one way to make relationship level quality assessment. The other possible criteria are suggested in chapter 2.4.

In the model by Järvelin (2001) the episode level quality perception does not affect the relationship quality in a linear way. If the quality of prior experiences equals the current experience, the quality perception remains unaltered. If the quality perceptions of the current experience and previous experiences deviate, the customer goes through adjusting processes. During adjusting processes, the customer goes through – with the service provider or by himself – a (mental) discussion of what happened and why.

If he finds a plausible explanation for the bad or good quality perception and the same is not bound to happen again, he might decide that he will not change his total relationship quality assessment. The same applies if the matter is not important to him. If, on the other

hand, he does not find an explanation, he assumes that the same is bound to happen again, the matter is important to him and/or is a significant matter, the relationship quality assessment will be altered (Järvelin 2001).

One important negative experience or many smaller negative experiences in the long run may lead to a situation where the customer decides whether he wants to stay in the relationship or not. If the outcome of the comparison (to stay or not to stay) is negative, the customer is bound to terminate the relationship. If it is positive, the service provider gets another chance (Järvelin 2001).

The model by Rasila (2009) makes yet another comparison. The customer compares his quality perception with the costs of the offering and the relationship related costs. Both monetary costs and non-monetary costs are relevant in this comparison (Grönroos 2003).

If the quality perception is higher than the costs, the customer is satisfied, and if not, the customer is dissatisfied (see above). The model of customer experience that is based on this discussion is presented in Figure 4.

Figure 4: The model of customer experience (Rasila 2009)

In this model the customer experience builds up from assessing the service, product and relationship related elements of customer perceived quality. The literature acknowledges several quality dimensions for each of these elements that the customers use in their quality evaluation. The rest of this chapter concentrates on these dimensions in order to

answer research question 3: “According to the theory, what dimensions do customers use when they assess these elements?”

The model has many additional and interesting elements that would be worth studying.

This dissertation concentrates on just the dimensional nature of the quality elements (service, product and relationship) and, thus, other interesting research topics that come up from the suggested model are left for further analysis. The scope of this study is illustrated in Figure 5.

Figure 5: The scope of the empirical study: the interest is in the elements in the white boxes