Multiple roles of consumption emotions in post‐purchase satisfaction with extended service transactions

Abstract

The focus of this paper is on the emotional experience of consumption and its impact on satisfaction in the context of extended service transactions. Drawing on a multi‐component perspective of emotions, we present a series of research propositions to specify how both retrospective global judgments of consumption emotions as well as their in‐process experience (i.e. their experience during the sequence of episodes composing the transaction) determine post‐purchase satisfaction in multiple ways. At the retrospective level, we propose that while the expected direct relationship between satisfaction and positive emotions will emerge, the equally expected inverse relationship between negative emotions and satisfaction will be found only for negative emotions attributed to the service provider. Negative emotions attributed to causes other than the provider (i.e. to the situation or to oneself) may be positively associated with satisfaction. At the in‐process level, we propose that the experience of distinct emotions at a certain stage of the service may influence the consumer’s expectations for and perceptions of the provider performance, and/or the expressions and behaviors of the consumer himself and those of the provider in the subsequent episode. Such in‐process effects of emotions will then determine their relationship with post‐purchase satisfaction. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.