Service Encounter Model Focused on Customer Benefits and Satisfaction: Reconsideration of Psychological Model

Firms have attempted to achieve higher levels of customer satisfaction by providing superior service, supposedly for customer benefit. However, does higher customer benefit always lead to higher customer satisfaction? The model developed by social psychologists suggests that a customer is likely to feel negative as well as positive affect toward a contact person (CP) via indebtedness and/or other mediating variables, but this model has remained untested empirically. In this study, we elaborated and empirically tested the model. The results of structural equation modeling show that higher customer benefit from superior service can increase indebtedness, which, in turn, can decrease customer satisfaction.