A study on the dimensions of customer expectations and their relationship with cognitive dissonance

V K Hamza,K A Zakkariya

doi:10.4038/jm.v8i1.7547

Abstract

Cognitive Dissonance is a post-purchase phenomenon where the consumers are in fix with their recent decision. It is a situation that exists when consumers who have made recent purchases feel doubts about the wisdom of their decisions. Customer expectations can be explained as the ideas and feelings of a customer about the product or service and depends on what he or she needs from the product. The relation between customers’ expectations and its relative importance in generating Cognitive Dissonance to such customers have been studied by the authors and reported in this paper. The study is conducted among the students’ belonging to the age group of 19-25 years in a University from the state of Kerala, who bought a durable product very close to the time of study (in seven days). The dimensions of customers’ expectations has been classified as expectation on quality, expectation on after sales service, expectation on customer consideration, expectation on offers/promotions, and expectation of price. The study revealed that when expectation of price, expectation of offers/promotions and expectation on after sales service are high or very strong, then the chance for cognitive dissonance are also very high, and other two expectations such as expectation on quality and expectation on customer consideration have not been found as important in generating cognitive dissonance. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4038/jm.v8i1.7547 Journal of Management 2013 8(1): 1-13

Highlights

Background of the StudyReview of available literature in the area of consumer behavior highlights the significance of cognitive dissonance in customer satisfaction
Some studies had suggested that customers’ expectations are important in determining the level of cognitive dissonance and some of such studies are discussed below to highlight the need for conducting for the research to understand the influence of various dimensions of customers’ expectation on cognitive dissonance
That is if the customer having high expectation of after sales service with respect to the product purchased, there would be high Cognitive Dissonance (CDs) with such purchase

Summary

Introduction

Review of available literature in the area of consumer behavior highlights the significance of cognitive dissonance in customer satisfaction. Anderson (1973) suggested that any discrepancy or gap between consumers expectations and product/service performance will be reduced or assimilated by the consumers through adjusting his/her perception of the product/service to be more consistent (less dissonant) with his expectations. The corporate promotional mixes may forms unrealistic expectations for product or service which result in consumer dissatisfaction upon purchase and use of the product if it hasn’t reach the customer expectations. Studies show that if there are great differences between customer expectation and actual product performances, it may cause a less favorable evaluation of a product that leads to customer disparity (Anderson 1973, Buskirk & Rothe 1970)

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