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This paper aims to revisit the 1998 paper (“Why do customers switch […]”) published in this journal with the goal of documenting research progress since then and identifying gaps still present in the knowledge base on the relevant key issues.

The method is literature review, theoretical scrutiny and critical reflections on the findings of the research studies over the past two decades that deal with customer satisfaction, loyalty and switching behaviors, with particular emphasis on service businesses.

The core issue of why satisfaction may not explain loyalty has been examined by positing other co-predictors and moderators of loyalty such as relationship quality, price value, trust, image, etc. These predictors have been found significant, implying that satisfaction is not the only driver of customer loyalty. Additionally, other drivers of switching and staying behavior have been established such as attraction of the alternatives and switching costs, respectively. This paper points out, however, that the gains of the new research literature are attenuated due to assumption of linearity in the loyalty effects of satisfaction and due to a lack of separate analyses of customer segments who defy the satisfaction–loyalty logic.

The relevant literature is so vast that any account of it within the scope of this paper had to be by design delimited. The paper not only sampled the literature selectively but also summarized the principal findings of the selected papers over-simplistically. Interested readers must get a firsthand read of the reviewed literature.

The spotlight on the nonlinearity implies that practitioners should analyze customer data separately for customer segments that experience low, moderate and high satisfaction, and also separately for segments that show the expected positive satisfaction–loyalty relationship versus those who would defect despite being satisfied.

Against the backdrop where most academic as well as industry research had presumed a positive loyalty effect of satisfaction, the 1998 paper drew attention to segments of consumers who exhibited the contrarian loyalty behavior. The present paper shines a light on that topic with even sharper focus, highlighting six unaddressed issues that must frame future research.

Service businesses face a unique challenge: how to effectively communicate the necessarily intangible benefits of their service offering. Their attempts to tangibilize the service are often ill‐designed, making service benefits more rather than less obscure. This article presents a scheme that identifies the communication task at various stages of consumer decision making and then matches appropriate communication strategies. Rather than embracing misguided tangibilization, the recommended strategies handle the intangibility challenge without necessarily using any tangible props.

One of the most unexamined assumptions marketing firms have made in recent years is that satisfaction alone will guarantee customer loyalty. Our research questions this assumption. We explored the correspondence between customer satisfaction and loyalty, and found as many as half of the “satisfied” customers to be predisposed to switching service suppliers. This satisfaction‐loyalty gap reflects the fact that different components of service quality drive satisfaction versus loyalty. Satisfaction is driven more by “technical quality” (the quality of the work performed) than by “functional quality” (how the service work was delivered); however, once satisfaction is achieved, loyalty is driven more by functional than by technical quality. This is the pattern of influence for a “low contact” (where customers’ direct contact with service providers is absent or marginal) service. For a “high contact” service, the pattern of influence is exactly the reverse. Of significant importance to service managers, the paper explains the dynamics of loyalty versus satisfaction and derives their managerial implications.

Brand equity is very important to marketers of consumer goods and services. Brand equity facilitates in the effectiveness of brand extensions and brand introductions. This is because consumers who trust and display loyalty toward a brand are willing to try to adopt brand extensions. While there have been methods to measure the financial value of brand equity, measurement of customer‐based brand equity has been lacking. Presents a scale to measure customer‐based brand equity. The customer‐based brand equity scale is developed based on the five underlying dimensions of brand equity: performance, value, social image, trustworthiness and commitment. In empirical tests, brands that scored higher on the customer‐based brand equity scale generally had higher prices. Discusses the implications for managers.

The purpose of the paper is to identify the psychographics of comparison shoppers. How do comparison shoppers differ from their counterparts? This question has remained unaddressed in extant literature.

Two separate surveys of convenience samples of consumers were used to identify comparison shoppers and non-comparison shoppers and their profiles.

Comparisons shoppers enjoyed shopping more and were on a tight budget. They also saw themselves as smart shoppers compared to their counterparts. However, non-comparison shoppers did not lack in buying gratification, decision confidence or satisfaction with their choices. Both groups were also at par on achievement orientation, optimism, spirited living and happiness.

Findings of differences are important: comparison shoppers do not find the shopping task stressful, instead they enjoy shopping more. The findings of no difference are even more important: the act of engaging in comparison shopping did not, in and of itself, heighten (nor lessen) the decision confidence, consumption pleasure, optimism or happiness.

Given that comparison shoppers are just as optimists and achievement oriented, their self-esteem is likely just as high, and, as such, they would expect to be treated with respect. Thus, even low-service, value-priced stores need to make shopping hassle free, pleasant and respectful.

Comparison shopping has not been studied before as a focal construct. The present paper contributes by identifying important psychographic traits of comparison shoppers, both those that separate them from their counterparts and those that unite them.

The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that scholarship is all about challenging the prevailing wisdom by offering an alternative perspective or explanation. Hopefully, the author’s journey of more than 50 years will inspire others to be eclectic and become deep generalists.

It is an autobiographical evaluation of an accidental scholar. It emphasizes that an educator is more than a scientist or a priest or a public servant. It is all of them. Educators are in the business of making ordinary people extraordinary. They are diamond cutters who are entrusted by society with its rough diamonds to get their brilliance out and make them useful to themselves, the society and the community.

Over 50 years, marketing has evolved and adapted to the external environment, including technology revolution, changing demographics, global competition and geopolitics. This provides enormous opportunity for the next generation of scholars to establish their own identity in managerial marketing, consumer behavior or marketing analytics.

While publishing in the top journals is both necessary and desirable in the early stages of an academic career, it is also important to make an impact on practitioners by publishing professional books.

According to Peter Drucker, there are only two functions of business: innovation and marketing. While innovation is admired by everyone, marketing can also become a positive force for a better world.

Lessons learnt over time from different encounters and circumstances in research, teaching and service are important to document. In the end, according to the author, they are all academic entrepreneurs.

A high level of product involvement is typically assumed to accompany higher information search, a fewer number of acceptable alternatives, and a higher number of choice criteria than does low level of product involvement. Inferring the level of product involvement from these behavioral or evaluative characteristics is, however, potentially misleading. Two factors are identified as mediating the relationship between the high level of involvement and these characteristics: (1) product trial, and (2) the consumer learning stage. The results of the present study support this view. Even for high involving products, considerable variations exist in these characteristics, depending on product trialability and consumer learning stage. Several strategic marketing implications stemming from these results are offered.

OK, listen up. Here's how to win the 500‐meter freestyle swimming event at the next Olympics: Swim faster than your competitors do. Simple, absolutely true, but not easy advice to work with. You'll find the same sort of advice in the books in this issue's Stack.

This paper aims to trace the origins, development and future of the consumption experience as a concept in marketing and consumer research.

The author relies on subjective personal introspection to describe his involvement in the introduction and elaboration of the consumption-experience concept.

The author finds that the concept of the consumption experience has extended to many areas of marketing and consumer research, with widespread applicability in the creation of brand-related promotional messages.

The consumption experience is central to our understanding of consumers and deserves full exploration in the work of consumer researchers.

Working with Professor Elizabeth Hirschman, the author played a pioneering role in understanding the consumption experience and is happy to see that their contribution has encouraged others to pursue related themes.

By examining the behaviours of cynical consumers and the factors that give rise to them, the paper's aim is to highlight the potential impact of consumer cynicism on firms and to investigate the possibility of influencing the evolution of those behaviours over time.

A multi‐method approach uses five focus groups, a survey, and a longitudinal experiment to explore the behaviour of cynical consumers experiencing different patterns of goal/value (in)congruence with the actions of a firm.

Progressive development in the frequency and severity of cynical behaviours results from repeated incongruence between consumers' goals or values and firm actions. Value incongruence has a greater effect on the severity of cynical behaviours. Recency effects remove cynical behaviours when the underlying drivers of cynicism are reversed.

The results are based on consumers' behavioural intentions, requiring a degree of subjective interpretation to quantify the severity of consumer behaviours.

Because of the potentially severe nature of cynical consumer behaviours, the study helps managers to gain a better understanding of these behaviours, their source, and how to monitor their frequency, severity, and development over time.

Several facets of consumer cynicism are examined that have not been explored together previously, including drivers, cognitive/affective mechanisms, and the pattern of resulting behaviours. This approach provides managers with a tool to predict how consumers will react to a given situation and suggests actions to mitigate these reactions.