Handling Customer Disconfirmations

1. Introduction.- 1.1. Research problem and purpose.- 1.2. Research process and structure.- 2. Positioning the research subject.- 2.1. Services.- 2.2. Service quality and customer satisfaction.- 2.3. Service encounter and the frontline service provider.- 2.4. Critical service encounters.- 2.5. Importance of studying service providers' behavior in critical service encounters.- 3. Service providers' behavior in critical service encounter situations.- 3.1. Behavior as a dimension of performance.- 3.2. Types of behavioral performance studied.- 3.3. Modeling service providers' behavior in critical service encounters.- 4. Potential determinants of service providers' behavior in critical service encounter situations.- 4.1. Personal characteristics.- 4.2. Organizational characteristics.- 4.3. Discussion of potential determinants.- 5. Service provider's response to customer disconfirmation: a decision making and information processing perspective.- 5.1. The service provider's response process.- 5.2. Disconfirmation situation.- 5.3. Disconfirmation cues and other stimuli.- 5.4. Awareness of disconfirmation.- 5.5. Evaluation of disconfirmation.- 5.6. Identification of reaction alternatives.- 5.7. Evaluation of reaction alternatives and choice.- 6. Conceptual model of the service provider's response process to customer disconfirmation.- 7. Empirical exploration of the service provider's response process.- 7.1. Approach and objectives of the study.- 7.2. Research method.- 7.3. Description of the questionnaire.- 7.4. Interviewer training.- 7.5. Data collection.- 7.6. Data analysis.- 7.7. Results of the incident descriptions.- 7.8. Discussion of results of incident descriptions.- 7.9. Empirical model and hypotheses.- 7.10. Statistical tests of hypotheses.- 7.11.Limitations and implications for further research.- 8. Conclusions.- 8.1. Contribution.- 8.2. Managerial implications.- References.