Examining the effect of customer experience on service brand evaluation

Abstract

In the context of services, where perceived risk and uncertainty is often high, brands play a particularly important role to consumers. However, in many cases, evaluation of the service brand cannot be truly orchestrated until the consumer has had first-hand experience with the brand. Therefore, the customer's actual experience with the service firm becomes a key issue in service brand evaluation as is clearly evidenced in Berry's (2000) Service-Branding Model. Using Berry's (2000) framework as a foundation for the theoretical model of this study we examine the effect of customer experience in service brand evaluation. Data collected from 268 self-report surveys reveals significant differences between the brand evaluations of consumers who have experienced the service brand as opposed to consumers who have not had first-hand experience with the service brand.