Satisfaction in Determining Customer Loyalty in the Restaurant Industry The Roles of the Physical Environment, Price Perception, and Customer
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han2009
Price Perception
Many studies in marketing suggest that the variability in product/service performance across different consumption experiences increases customer uncertainty. This uncertainty leads to decreased reliance on prior expectations of the product/service. In this situation, from the customer’s point of view, price is often used as a cue in their expectations of the product/service performance (Dodds, Monroe, & Grewal, 1991; Mattila & O’Neill, 2003). Furthermore, cus- tomers tend to use price as a cue in evaluating their experiences with a product/ service and in shaping their attitude toward a provider (Bolton & Lemon, 1999; Varki & Colgate, 2001). The role of the price in influencing customer behaviors would be more salient to the restaurant industry because customer experiences will not be identical; high human involvement while delivering services ensures differences in experience. This variability in restaurant services may foster the use of price as a cue of expectation, evaluation, and decision making. Zeithaml (1988) defined price as “what is given up or sacrificed to obtain a product” (p. 10). Price is distinguished as objective price and perceived price (Jacoby & Olson, 1977). While objective price is the actual price of a product/ service, perceived price indicates the price as encoded by the customer (Jacoby & Olson, 1977). It is important to note that the objective price of a product/ service becomes meaningful to the customer after the customer’s subjective interpretation (Oh, 2000). A firm in a particular type of restaurant industry offers a wide variety of products/services, and the prices of these products vary widely. The complexity of such a pricing environment makes it inappropriate to use the objective price of a product in determining the role of price (Chen, Gupta, & Rom, 1994). Customers do not know/remember the actual price of a specific product/service, but they encode the price in ways that are meaningful to them (Zeithaml, 1983). Customer price perception rather than actual price, therefore, was used in this study. Download 301.62 Kb. Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: |
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