The duality of decisions and the case for impulsiveness metrics

Abstract

Customer metrics help firms manage their performance and predict financial outcomes. While many firms focus on customer satisfaction metrics for this purpose, dual-process theories in psychology and neuroscience show that customer decisions are based on two processes. This suggests that metrics which measure the impulsiveness of purchase decisions might effectively complement customer satisfaction metrics. In a series of experiments we demonstrate that satisfaction and impulsiveness metrics make distinct but strong predictions of consumer choices. Satisfaction and impulsiveness influence choice in different ways. While impulsiveness relates to choice directly, the satisfaction-choice path is mediated by loyalty intention. Moreover this relationship is moderated by product involvement such that impulsiveness metrics provide a better prediction for low-involvement than for high-involvement situations. Finally, a field study of 750 customers of 101 firms demonstrates these relationships at a firm level, indicating that satisfaction and impulsiveness metrics have equally strong but distinct relationships with shareholder value. Therefore firms may be able to benefit from complementing customer satisfaction metrics with customer impulsiveness metrics.