An Empirical Examination of Antecedent and Consequence of Service-Intensive Quality Evaluation Within Bridal Retail Setting

Given the difficulties in assessing and delivering acceptable service due to the varying degree of consumer service expectations, scholars have introduced the zone-of-tolerance (ZOT) concept to represent the range of expectation (desired-to-adequate) as an acceptable level of service quality (Zeithaml et al. 1993). The major objective of this research was to propose and empirically examine a theoretical model of BRIDAL-ZOT. Specifically, a number of antecedents of service expectations were expected to influence ZOT, which in turn, affected perceived service quality, satisfaction, and word of mouth (WOM). ZOT is the range of service performance a customer would consider satisfactory because it is bounded by the customer’s desired and adequate expectations of service quality (Zeithaml et al. 1993). According to Zeithaml et al. (1993), changes in the adequate expectations of service level may have caused ZOT to be either wider or narrower, given the relative stability of desired service level. That is, the customers with a wider ZOT tend to tolerate acceptable levels of service as compared to the customers with a narrower ZOT because they are likely to pay more attention to detect any errors that might occur in service performance. The 38-item scale measuring the antecedents of expectation levels based on Zeithaml et al.’s (1993) model of consumer expectations was pretested with 30 soon-to-be brides. Data were collected from 192 soon-to-be brides who had been to, at least, one bridal shopping retailer within the past 6 months. A series of multiple regressions, a paired-sample t-test, and a structural equation modeling technique were employed to test the hypothesized relationships. All measures, adopted from previous research, displayed acceptable reliability (≥0.70). Results revealed that customers’ past bridal shopping experience positively influenced both desired and adequate service expectations (β = .28** and β = .32**, respectively), whereas the explicit service promises given by bridal retailer only positively influenced desired service expectation (β = .19*). As expected, desired service quality expectation was significantly higher than adequate service quality expectation (t-value = 2.95**). Results also revealed that the BRIDAL-ZOT model explains that the differences between desired and adequate service expectations (ZOT) negatively influenced customers’ overall perceived service quality (γ = −0.25**, t-value = −2.88), which in turn, positively influenced satisfaction (β = 0.81***, t-value = 13.30). The results also were also in line with previous studies in that perceived service quality positively influenced satisfaction, which in turn, influenced word of mouth (Anderson 1998). Based on our findings, it is suggested that bridal retailers must provide positive shopping experiences to these customers because such experiences can create the carryover effects on the different levels of service expectations (desired versus adequate) when visiting a store in the future. As such, the soon-to-be brides can become demanding customers as their ZOT are narrower due to a high involvement nature of bridal products and their prior experiences. To gain a competitive advantage, the bridal stores should provide a superior service quality as this level of service will satisfy most customers and create positive marketing outcomes for a future business (e.g., positive WOM). A future study needs to replicate this BRIDAL-ZOT model with other retail industries (e.g., personalized services).References available upon request.