MRKT 640 Week 6 DB Forum 6 Example

Discussion Board Forum 6: Thread and Two Replies

MRKT 640 Consumer Behavior, Discussion Board Forum 6 (thread and two replies)

Thread by [Student Name]

The prompt, the couple and the classmates' posts are composites standing in for the course's own forum; the textbook, Scripture and published studies are real; the requirements follow Liberty's public course guide for MRKT 640.

Thread

A couple in their thirties need a new mattress after years of back pain. They have narrowed their choice to two options: an online mattress delivered in a box, with a 100-night trial and free returns, and a hybrid mattress from a local furniture store, where they can lie on it before buying but returns carry a 15 percent restocking fee. Chapters 16 to 18 of Mothersbaugh and Hawkins (2016) cover exactly the stages this couple faces: evaluating alternatives, choosing an outlet, and living with the decision afterward.

Chapter 16 describes evaluative criteria, the features consumers use to compare options, and the decision rules that combine them. The couple's criteria are firmness, motion isolation, price and the ability to return the mattress. They begin with a conjunctive rule, eliminating any mattress that is too soft or costs more than $1,200, which cuts a list of fifteen to four. The conjunctive step is quick and protects them from spending time on options that could never work, which the textbook notes is how consumers often handle a long list. They then use a compensatory rule, letting strengths on one criterion offset weaknesses on another, so that a slightly firmer mattress with a better trial can beat a slightly cheaper one.

Chapter 17 explains that the choice of outlet can come before, after or alongside the choice of brand, and here it is bound up with the brand. The store offers information the couple cannot get online, the feel of the mattress, while the online seller offers information they cannot get in a store, the feel after weeks of sleep. Wood (2001) described remote purchases as two decisions separated in time: the decision to order and, after receipt, the decision to keep or return. Her experiments found that lenient return policies did not have to hurt retailers, because consumers who received a product came to feel they owned it, and ownership increased its value to them. A 100-night trial is a bet on that effect. The online seller expects that most couples who sleep on a mattress for a month will keep it.

Chapter 18 turns to what happens after purchase. Oliver (1980) proposed that satisfaction is a function of expectations and of disconfirmation, whether performance turns out better or worse than expected, and that satisfaction in turn shapes later attitudes and intentions; he tested the model with consumers and nonconsumers of a flu inoculation. For the couple, the online seller's advertising sets high expectations of pain-free sleep. If the first week brings stiffness while their bodies adjust, the disconfirmation could produce dissatisfaction even with a good mattress. A seller that tells customers to expect an adjustment period of two or three weeks sets expectations that the product can meet.

The textbook also notes that postpurchase dissonance is most likely when a purchase is important, costly and hard to reverse. The long trial reduces dissonance by making the decision reversible, which may be why the couple leans toward the online mattress. After comparing their criteria, they order it. The local store could compete on the same ground without matching the trial. It could waive the restocking fee for customers who return within thirty days, offer a comfort exchange for a different firmness, or follow up two weeks after delivery to ask how the couple is sleeping. Each step addresses the same postpurchase doubt that the online seller's trial addresses, and the store keeps its advantage of letting customers try the mattress first.

Proverbs describes a capable woman who considers a field and then buys it (English Standard Version Bible, 2001/2016, Proverbs 31:16). The order matters: consideration comes before purchase. A trial period does not replace careful consideration, but it lets consideration continue after the purchase, which is where the most useful information arrives.

Classmates: would a long trial make you more careful before buying or less?

Reply to Joel

Joel, your thread on the car dealership that ties salespeople's bonuses to customer satisfaction survey scores raised a good point from chapter 18: satisfaction matters because satisfied customers return. You noted that the dealer's scores are high but repeat purchases are falling, and you asked whether the surveys are measuring the right thing. I think research on satisfaction offers two answers.

First, the scores may be capturing the wrong moment. Anderson and Sullivan (1993), analyzing a national survey of 22,300 Swedish customers of many products and services, found that satisfaction was best explained by perceived quality and disconfirmation, the gap between quality and prior expectations, and that quality falling short of expectations hurt satisfaction and repurchase intentions more than quality exceeding expectations helped. A survey sent the day after purchase measures the showroom experience, not the car's quality over three years, and a disappointment in year two may matter more for repurchase than delight on delivery day.

Second, satisfaction and loyalty depend on more than the sale. Fornell et al. (1996), describing the American Customer Satisfaction Index, reported that satisfaction was driven more by perceived quality than by value or price, and that customization, how well an offering fits the individual customer's needs, mattered more than reliability. For a dealership, the service department may shape long-term satisfaction more than the sales floor, since the customer returns there many times. Oil changes, recalls and repairs give the dealer a dozen chances to show that it understands a particular customer's car and schedule, which is customization in a practical form that a survey on delivery day cannot capture.

The bonus system may also distort the scores. If salespeople ask customers to give them top marks, the survey measures politeness under pressure rather than satisfaction. Mothersbaugh and Hawkins (2016) distinguish satisfied customers from committed ones, and the dealer's falling repeat purchases suggest that its customers may be satisfied on the day but not committed.

Proverbs observes that hope deferred makes the heart sick, while a desire fulfilled is a tree of life (English Standard Version Bible, 2001/2016, Proverbs 13:12). Satisfaction research says much the same in its own language: unmet expectations wound, and met ones nourish. A dealership that promises only what the car and the service department can deliver gives customers desires that can be fulfilled.

Would the dealer be willing to survey customers again at the first service visit and compare those scores with the delivery scores? The difference might show where repeat business is being lost. If the scores fall between delivery and service, the dealer would know that the problem lies in ownership rather than in the sale, and it could redirect part of the bonus pool toward the service advisers who shape that later experience.

Reply to Simone

Simone, your thread on the airline that lost a passenger's luggage on a honeymoon trip and then offered a $50 voucher made a strong case that poor complaint handling can turn one failure into a lost customer. You recommended larger compensation. I agree that the voucher was inadequate, but research suggests compensation is only one of three things customers judge.

Tax et al. (1998) studied how customers evaluate complaint experiences and found that most of the complaining customers they surveyed were dissatisfied with how their complaints had been handled. Using justice theory, they showed that customers weigh a complaint's handling three ways: what they get back, whether the process for deciding it seemed fair, and how courteously staff dealt with them along the way. Satisfaction with complaint handling directly affected trust and commitment, and prior positive experiences with a company protected it only slightly from the damage of poor handling. For the airline, a larger voucher addresses the outcome but not the procedure, such as a week of unanswered calls, or the treatment, such as an agent who seemed indifferent.

Smith et al. (1999), using restaurant and hotel scenarios, modeled satisfaction after failure and recovery and found that recovery efforts work through customers' perceptions of fairness and that customers respond best when the recovery fits the kind of loss they suffered. A lost bag on a honeymoon is a loss of time and of an experience, not only of property, so a quick personal apology and delivery of the bag to the hotel may matter more than money.

Mothersbaugh and Hawkins (2016) note that most dissatisfied customers never complain, which makes those who do valuable, since they give the company a chance to recover. Your passenger complained; the airline wasted the chance. A recovery plan built on the three justice dimensions would give the airline something specific to train: a fair outcome set by policy, a procedure with a response deadline, and agents taught to acknowledge the passenger's disappointment before discussing the voucher.

Zacchaeus, after meeting Jesus, promised to restore fourfold anything he had taken unjustly (English Standard Version Bible, 2001/2016, Luke 19:8). His response went beyond the minimum because he cared about the relationship and his own integrity, not only the debt. An airline that responds to a failure generously, quickly and personally shows something of the same spirit, and it is likely to keep the customer.

Did your sources show how long the passenger waited for a response? If the delay was long, would you place procedure ahead of compensation in your recommendation? I suspect that a prompt, personal call on the first day would have done more for that couple than a voucher of any size, and it would have cost the airline far less.

References

Anderson, E. W., & Sullivan, M. W. (1993). The antecedents and consequences of customer satisfaction for firms. Marketing Science, 12(2), 125-143. https://doi.org/10.1287/mksc.12.2.125

English Standard Version Bible. (2016). Crossway. (Original work published 2001)

Fornell, C., Johnson, M. D., Anderson, E. W., Cha, J., & Bryant, B. E. (1996). The American Customer Satisfaction Index: Nature, purpose, and findings. Journal of Marketing, 60(4), 7-18. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224299606000403

Mothersbaugh, D. L., & Hawkins, D. I. (2016). Consumer behavior: Building marketing strategy (13th ed.). McGraw-Hill Education.

Oliver, R. L. (1980). A cognitive model of the antecedents and consequences of satisfaction decisions. Journal of Marketing Research, 17(4), 460-469. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224378001700405

Smith, A. K., Bolton, R. N., & Wagner, J. (1999). A model of customer satisfaction with service encounters involving failure and recovery. Journal of Marketing Research, 36(3), 356-372. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224379903600305

Tax, S. S., Brown, S. W., & Chandrashekaran, M. (1998). Customer evaluations of service complaint experiences: Implications for relationship marketing. Journal of Marketing, 62(2), 60-76. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224299806200205

Wood, S. L. (2001). Remote purchase environments: The influence of return policy leniency on two-stage decision processes. Journal of Marketing Research, 38(2), 157-169. https://doi.org/10.1509/jmkr.38.2.157.18847