Zeithaml et al. (1993) noted that the zone of tolerance of a customer would be influenced by several complex and multiple factors within service encounters. In other words, the desired and adequate service levels could change spontaneously because customers have physical and mental vibrations about services. Accordingly, the zone of tolerance would become wide or narrow naturally.
Zeithaml et al. (1993) proposed a comprehensive framework of service expectations and clarified customer expectations by eleven antecedent factors which could affect the desired service level and the adequate service level (as depicted in Figure 2). Zeithaml et al. (1993) addressed that desired service expectations are determined by enduring service intensifiers and personal needs. Enduring service intensifiers are stable and individual factors that lead customers with a high sensitivity to be served. One factor of enduring
service intensifiers is the derived service expectations. For example, customers’
expectations will be affected and thus derived by other parities. Another factor is the customer’s personal service philosophy which is the customer’s attitude about what
“perfect” service means and adaptable service during service encounters. Personal needs are conditions or states necessary to customers’ physical and psychological well-beings.
For example, a patient with high social or dependency needs could have high expectations concerning assurance and professional capability for the hospital staff.
There are five factors about adequate service of the customer’s expectations:
transitory service intensifiers, perceived service alternatives, customer self-perceived service role, situational factors and predicted service. Transitory service intensifiers are individual, provisional and short-range factors that lead customers with a high sensitivity to be served. For example, a patient could have higher expectations to care about responsiveness of the hospital staff when he is anguished in an emergency. Perceived service alternatives are the feelings of customers which they can acquire services from other provides. For example, if customers can choose alternative service provider or types of services, their levels of adequate service could get high determinately. Customer self-perceived service role are “the customers’ perceptions of the degree to which they themselves influence the level of service they receive.” Customers’ normative expectations are partially influenced by how well they believe that they are performing their own roles. Situational factors are service-performance contingencies in which customers are perceived to be beyond the control of the service provider. For example, when catastrophes happen, such as earthquakes or typhoons, customers would recognize that insurers are full of service demand. Customers would decrease their service expectations in this moment. The last factor that affects the level of adequate service expectations is predicted service. For example, when customers could know what service they acquire, their levels of adequate service would be changed by different qualities of services. There are two categories of information searching about product quality which are divided into external and internal searching factors. However, not only the desired service level but the predicted service would be affected by external and internal factors.
The external factors include three types which are explicit service promises, implicit service promise and word-of-mouth communications. Explicit service promises, such as advertisements, personal selling or contracts, are communications about services which are made to customers by providers. Zeithaml et al. (1993) stated the influence of explicit service promises on service expectations based on the intangibility of services. The second factor is implicit service promises which “lead to inferences about what the service should and will be like.” The important elements of implicit service promises are
price and tangibles. For example, a customer wants to buy an insurance form several firms which have different charges. The customer may consider that firms with high prices must provide them perfect service in high quality. Word-of-mouth communication is another important factor which influences desired service level of customers’
expectations and predicted service. In addition, word-of-mouth is personal and non-personal statements which proffer customers what the service encounter will be. At last, the internal factor is past experience which refers to customers’ previous exposure to service encounters. For example, when a customer wants to buy insurance from insurance firms, he would cogitate and consider about the experiences of insurance services in the past to make a correct decision.
Figure 2. Nature and determinants of customer expectations of service ENDURING SERVICE
INTENSIFIERS
z Derived expectations z Personal service philosophies
PERSONAL NEEDS
This study intends to propose a framework to aid in the manipulation of customers’
expectations based on the antecedent factors of zone of tolerance, given the understanding that the nature and determinants of expectations of service is important. In addition, this study divides antecedent factors into three categories, which includes need, context and effort, according to the nature and distinction of factors. The need group contains factors of customers’ mental and physiological demands, such as personal needs etc. The context group is about factors happened extrinsically, such like situational factors etc. Moreover, the effort group means that customers would like to expend their money or energy on services (e.g. self-perceived service role). Basically our framework is constructed by above viewpoints.