The effects of anticipatory emotions on service satisfaction and behavioral intention

Purpose – This paper aims to contribute critical discussion about the role of expectations and anticipation in subsequent satisfaction by incorporating anticipated emotions into a model to measure satisfaction. Emotions have provided a foundation for many causative models in marketing, notably advertising, brand development and buyer behavior. However, models of customer satisfaction have been dominated by cognition rather than affect which has been under-researched in this context. Furthermore, a significant omission in the current literature is the impact of affective expectations. Design/methodology/approach – A series of hypotheses relating anticipated and experienced emotions to satisfaction and behavioral intention are tested in the context of a relatively high involvement, hedonistic service encounter in a longitudinal quantitative study involving 304 participants. Findings – The results indicate that the emotions expressed by respondents when thinking about the forthcoming event were significantly associated with post-experience emotions. Furthermore, it was observed that positive emotions had no effect on satisfaction, but there was a significant effect of negative emotions on (dis)satisfaction. Practical implications – The results indicate a complex relationship between emotions, satisfaction and behavioral intention. Implications for management during the pre-consumption phase are discussed, including the benefits to be gained from pre-consumption communication that seeks to engage with consumers by arousing an anticipatory affect. Originality/value – The paper makes a methodological contribution by using longitudinal data rather than retrospectively collected data of emotions, and uses an actual service encounter rather than a hypothetical scenario which has limited many previous studies of emotions.