THE EFFECTS OF CHOICE VARIETY AND SPECIFICATION TYPE ON CUSTOMIZATION PROCESS SATISFACTION

Factors that would affect customization process satisfaction were rarely examined to date. In this study, I investigated the effects of choice variety and specification type on consumers responses (process satisfaction, perceived control, regret, and frustration) to the customization process in a foodservice context. I also examined consumers characteristics such as expertise, maximizing tendency, variety seeking tendency, and locus of control to determine if these characteristics moderate the hypothesized effects. To that end, a 2 choice variety (expected vs. extensive) x 2 specification type (user vs. joint) scenario-based experiment was designed. The experiment was conducted using real customers at two restaurants in a northeast college town.The study results did not show significant main or interaction effects of choice variety and specification type on customization process satisfaction. However, the study showed that consumers expertise could interact with choice variety to influence process satisfaction to a small degree. Specifically, under the extensive choice variety situation, consumers with greater expertise will be more satisfied than those who have less expertise. Besides, this study found marginally significant effects of extensive choice variety on consumers regret and frustration. Alternative analyses using consumers perceptions of choice variety and specification type generated findings that are more consistent with the hypothesized relationships. Potential explanations of the insignificant results, managerial implications, limitations of the study, and suggested future research were discussed.