Executive Summary
Managers often use market research to learn what consumers want and how they evaluate the services and products they consume. The assumption is that (1) consumers’ inputs are generally accurate and (2) consumer participation in market research does not (negatively) affect their subsequent service satisfaction. Building on prior findings, the current research demonstrates that both assumptions may often be wrong. Consumers who know that they will evaluate a service later evaluate it more negatively. Thus, consumers who expect to provide their evaluations are not representative of other consumers’ evaluations. As a result, relying on the inputs of study participants may lead to incorrect conclusions. Importantly, the effect of study participation on the perception of marketers reflects true rather than “made-up” perceptions; it requires supporting evidence (gathered while experiencing the service) and is eliminated if “cognitive load” interferes in the production of that evidence
This negative effect on evaluations is not limited to the aftermath of the service encounter, but as this research shows (based on field studies conducted in Israel, Korea, and the United States), it persists over time. For example, consumers who expected to evaluate a supermarket before entering the store continued to evaluate it more negatively several days after the service encounter. Furthermore, it is difficult to eliminate or even diminish the negative effects of expecting to evaluate on evaluations. The authors employ different “debiasing” approaches. For example, they asked consumers explicitly about their expectations regarding the effect of asking them to evaluate on their subsequent evaluations. Yet, even those consumers who believed that this task makes their evaluations more negative still offered more negative evaluations of the store’s service (compared with shoppers who did not know in advance about their upcoming service evaluation task).
These findings raise new questions regarding the value of consumer research and the conditions under which its net value is positive. A great deal of prior research has shown that consumers’ inputs regarding their wants and evaluations are often inaccurate and, in some cases, even misleading. In addition, as this research illustrates, recruiting consumers to participate in studies may trigger a process in which their subsequent evaluations and satisfaction are lower, and brand loyalty may be damaged. The authors discuss the broader implications of this research for understanding the impact of participation in market research on consumers’ perceived experiences and the information content of their inputs.
Biography
Chezy Ofir is Academic Director of Davidson Research Center in the School of Business Administration at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Professor Ofir’s research focuses on consumer behavior, behavioral decision making, and pricing. His research appears in journals such as Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing Research, Psychometrika, Management Science, British Journal of Mathematical and Statistical Psychology, Journal of Forecasting, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Multivariate Behavior Research, and Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, among others. He received his master’s and doctoral degrees from the School of Business Administration at Columbia University. He was the founder and academic director of the Executive MBA in Strategic Management, tailored for chief executive officers. Professor Ofir won (with Itamar Simonson) the American Marketing Association Best Services Article Award for 2002.
Itamar Simonson is Sebastian S. Kresge Professor of Marketing in the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. Itamar has published more than 50 articles in leading marketing and decision-making journals, primarily in the areas of buyer decision making, consumer choice, and marketing management. He has won many awards for his research, including the best article published in Journal of Consumer Research, the Journal of Marketing Research O’Dell Award (twice), the best article in Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, the Association for Consumer Research Ferber Award, and the American Marketing Association award for the best article on services marketing. At Stanford, Dr. Simonson has taught MBA courses on marketing management, marketing to firms, and technology marketing, as well as doctoral-level courses on buyer behavior, buyer research methods, and decision making. Itamar’s doctoral students are currently on the marketing faculties of several leading universities. He serves on eight editorial boards of leading marketing and decision-making journals. Itamar has consulted companies on marketing, consumer behavior, and customer research issues in a wide range of industries.
Song-Oh Yoon is Assistant Professor of Marketing in the Korea University Business School at Korea University. Before joining Korea University, Song-Oh was Assistant Professor of Marketing in the Lee Kong Chian School of Business at Singapore Management University. She received her PhD from the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University in 2005. Her main research interest lies in the area of consumer decision making and consumer psychology. She has recently published articles in leading consumer and psychology journals, such as Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, and Journal of Consumer Psychology. Song-Oh was a recipient of 2007 Journal of Consumer Psychology Young Contributor Award for the article “Approach-Avoidance Motivation and the Use of Affect as Information” (with Thomas Kramer).
Journal of Marketing, Volume 73, Number 6, November 2009
View Table of Contents