Designed for advanced MBA and doctoral courses in Consumer Behavior and Customer Satisfaction, this is the definitive text on the meaning, causes, and consequences of customer satisfaction. It covers every psychological aspect of satisfaction formation, and the contents are applicable to all consumables - product or service.Author Richard L. Oliver traces the history of consumer satisfaction from its earliest roots, and brings together the very latest thinking on the consequences of satisfying (or not satisfying) a firm's customers. He describes today's best practices in business, and broadens the determinants of satisfaction to include needs, quality, fairness, and regret ('what might have been').The book culminates in Oliver's detailed model of consumption processing and his satisfaction measurement scale. The text concludes with a section on the long-term effects of satisfaction, and why an understanding of satisfaction psychology is vitally important to top management.

The importance of service and service quality has been growing in the world economy since the late 1970s. Establishing new levels of sophistication and rigor, as well as a broad set of approaches, Service Quality presents the latest research and theory in customer satisfaction and services marketing. Designed to advance the practice of delivering superior service, the field's leading scholars and practitioners present a wealth of ideas that include measuring the managerial impact of service quality improvement, new methods of assessing the various elements of service quality, and philosophies about the nature of customer value. Presenting diverse points of view and revealing a variety of emerging ideas, the editors conclude with a look toward the future of service quality. An exhilarating--and sometimes demanding--change of pace, Service Quality is essential for professionals, researchers, scholars, and students in marketing studies.