Pub Date : 2025-03-12DOI: 10.1108/jsm-04-2024-0193
Courtney Geritz, Maria Raciti
Purpose This paper aims to better understand the relationships between consumer expectation-experience mismatches, the dissonance-induced service interaction vulnerability that arises from these mismatches, and the strategies consumers experiencing vulnerability autonomously enact to self-manage their satisfaction modes. Design/methodology/approach This paper qualitatively (n = 20) explores the role of gist representations, being the essence of services marketing information that is used to generate an abstract mental picture. Specifically, this research explores the influence of gist representations in creating pre-commencement expectations among consumers experiencing vulnerability. It exposes how unmet gist-informed expectations induce consumer service interaction vulnerability and trigger autonomous vulnerability responses to elicit Oliver’s (1989) various modes of satisfaction. Three research propositions are tested in a complex multi-touchpoint service ecosystem. Findings Data revealed that unmet expectations triggered a two-phased autonomous inaction-then-action response, with inaction resulting in either tolerance or regret satisfaction modes, followed by action, which results in either pleasure or relief satisfaction modes. Originality/value Growing research into service interaction vulnerability seeks to understand the role consumers experiencing vulnerability play in improving their experience within service ecosystems. These findings provide insights to strategically shape service ecosystem design to mitigate interaction vulnerability by applying a strengths-based lens that foregrounds consumers’ capacity for autonomous dissonance responses to self-manage service interaction vulnerability and self-improve their consumer satisfaction modes.
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