Patronage in continually delivered business service contexts

A conceptual model of customer evaluations of service provision in continually delivered business service contexts (CDBS) is presented and empirically tested in the third-party logistics (3PL) industry. The study demonstrates the importance of considering specific aspects of service provision, rather than relying solely upon global evaluations of service provision, when seeking to understand how customers evaluate and react to services. Assessments of service performance, economic outcomes, and social interaction quality are found to have differing influences on global evaluations of service provision. Importantly, the assessments are shown to also have differing effects on patronage intentions--an outcome often linked directly to more generalized evaluations of service provision. Implications for theory and practice are derived.