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Customer Familiarity and
Its Effects on Satisfaction
and Behavioral Intentions
Magnus Söderlund
Stockholm School of Economics

ABSTRACT

When customer familiarity increases, customer expertise is likely to

increase. Although expertise is known to affect information
processing in several ways, few studies have examined the effects of
familiarity on customers’ evaluations and behavioral intentions. In
this study, it was found that a high level of prepurchase familiarity
was associated with more extreme (i.e., more polarized)
postpurchase responses in customer satisfaction, repurchase
intentions, and word-of-mouth intentions compared to a low
prepurchase level of familiarity. More specifically, when service
performance was high, high-familiarity customers expressed a
higher level of satisfaction and behavioral intentions than did less
familiar customers. On the other hand, when performance was low,
high-familiarity customers expressed lower levels of satisfaction and
behavioral intentions than did low-familiarity customers. 䉷 2002
Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

This article deals with the customer’s postpurchase responses in terms

of both an overall evaluation and behavioral intentions. Overall evalu-
ations serve as a crucial topic in research on customer satisfaction (cf.
Oliver, 1996) and perceived service quality (cf. Parasuraman, Zeithaml,
& Berry, 1988), and the main rationale behind this interest is usually
an assumed positive association between postpurchase evaluations and
future behavior. For some reason, however, literature on satisfaction Base of text
Psychology & Marketing, Vol. 19(10): 861–880 (October 2002)
Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com)
䉷 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. DOI: 10.1002/mar.10041
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and quality seems to have overlooked the possibility that a considerable Base of text
purchase history may exist before the customer makes his or her post-
purchase evaluation.
This is unfortunate, because purchasing history is likely to affect
postpurchase evaluations as well as future intentions and future pur-
chases. For example, considerable evidence suggests that customer fa-
miliarity (i.e., the number of purchase-related experiences) increases
customer knowledge. And customer knowledge affects customer infor-
mation processing activities in several ways (Alba & Hutchinson, 1987).
However, relatively little work has been carried out on the extent to
which customer familiarity/customer expertise affects evaluations fol-
lowing a behavioral act. This is reflected in Linville’s (1982) observation
that research on knowledge structures (e.g., schemas, scripts, and pro-
totypes) has generally not addressed the question of evaluation. Simi-
larly, Lusk and Judd (1988) note that general work on the representa-
tion of evaluative beliefs is in its infancy.
Thus, on the one hand a rich literature on postpurchase evaluations
(customer satisfaction and perceived service quality literature) is usu-
ally so future-oriented that the role of past behavior as a possible de-
terminant of evaluations is not explicitly dealt with. On the other hand,
literature that does focus on past purchases, particularly in terms of
familiarity, has not examined postpurchase evaluations to any consid-
erable extent. This, then, calls for an attempt to integrate these two
fields. The present article offers one such attempt. The purpose of the
article is to examine how customer familiarity affects customer satis-
faction and two of the commonly assumed consequences of satisfaction,
namely, repurchase intentions and word-of-mouth intentions. More spe-
cifically, this article addresses the following question: Do high-familiar-
ity and low-familiarity customers express different levels of satisfaction
and future intentions?
The main rationale behind this question is that the effects of famil-
iarity on purchase evaluations and behavioral intentions are important
for the relationship marketer with a long chain of repeated purchases
as the main objective. This objective has in fact become important for
many firms today. However, to date, it seems as if relationship market-
ers are focusing on understanding and managing the factors that serve
to create long-term relationships (i.e., antecedents to long-term rela-
tionships are in focus). It will be useful to go one step further and ex-
amine what to expect when the customer is developing a long-term re-
lationship with the firm (i.e., consequences of long-term relationships).
It is often claimed that one major consequence of long-term relation-
ships is profitability (Reichheld, 1996), but we believe that such claims
fail to recognize that the long-term customer is subject to cognitive
changes that may offset the effects on profitability. Concern has been
fueled by one of the few existing empirical studies of the association short
between customer lifetime and customer profitability that identifies sev- standard

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eral patterns that challenge conventional assumptions. For example, Base of text
long-term customers were not found to pay higher prices than short-
term customers, and long-term customers did not result in lower costs
than short-term customers (Reinartz & Kumar, 2000). It seems reason-
able that such patterns reflect increasing customer familiarity, in the
sense that more familiarity may create a more demanding customer.
This in turn implies that customer familiarity may be a useful segmen-
tation variable. In fact, a long-term customer — a high-familiarity cus-
tomer in the terminology used here — may not react to marketing stim-
uli in the same way as a low-familiarity customer. If this is the case,
differences in reaction patterns call for attention in the relationship
marketing process.

Theoretical Framework and Hypotheses

A customer who is becoming more familiar with one particular offer over
time is likely to undergo several cognition-related changes. In particu-
lar, increasing familiarity leads to a more elaborated cognitive structure
(Alba & Hutchinson, 1987; Fiske, Kinder, & Larter, 1983; Mitchell &
Dacin, 1996). A high level of familiarity, then, provides the customer
with a different frame of reference for evaluations compared to a low
level of familiarity. The main issues in this section are (a) how and (b)
why these different frames may affect the customer’s response to an
additional encounter with the offer. In theories related to these issues,
different points of departure exist regarding the type of encounter that
takes place between the individual and the object. Two main theoretical
domains are examined below.
First, when an encounter involves the individual’s mere exposure to
stimuli, it has been observed that evaluations tend to polarize as fre-
quency of exposure increases. Zajonc (1968) is generally acknowledged
as having initiated a substantial amount of research on this effect. Ba-
sically, he reported that mere exposure of the individual to a stimulus
object enhances his/her attitude toward it. However, one significant con-
dition must be present if this pattern is to materialize: An additional
exposure is likely to produce increased liking, given that previous en-
counters have produced nonnegative attitudes. If previous encounters
have been negative, further exposure seems to produce increasingly
negative evaluations (cf. Burgess & Sales, 1971; Suedfeld, Epstein,
Buchanan, & Landon, 1971). Grush (1976) offers the following expla-
nation. Initially, when a stimulus is unfamiliar, it elicits only a few
associations. With repeated exposure, however, subjects generate in-
creased associations to the stimulus. These associations tend to be of
similar valence — that is, a positively evaluated stimulus produces pos-
itive associations, and a negatively evaluated stimulus produces nega-
tive associations. The final evaluation of the stimulus is assumed to be short
a function of the summed evaluations of its associations. Moreover, as standard

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exposure increases, the summed evaluations of positive stimuli become Base of text
more positive, and the summed evaluations of negative stimuli become
more negative.
Why, then, would this pattern occur? It has been argued that the
positive exposure – liking association serves an adaptive function: It is
adaptive — for the adult — to prefer the familiar to the unknown, be-
cause more risk is involved in ventures into the unknown (Bornstein,
1989). An increasing liking for the familiar thus reduces risk-taking
behavior. Moreover, given that familiarity sometimes breeds contempt,
in the sense that stimuli sometimes become increasingly disliked as
exposure increases, adaptive functions may again explain the pattern.
In this case, increasingly negative evaluations may foster a behavior
that eventually facilitates escape from negative objects. Without in-
creasingly negative evaluations in a situation with repeated exposure,
rigidity or perceived lack of alternatives may freeze the individual into
a behavioral path that would be less adaptive in the long run.
Second, when an encounter between an individual and an object in-
volves more than mere exposure, for example, thinking about the object,
predictions about the evaluations of an additional encounter by high-
familiarity and low-familiarity subjects are offered by attitude polariza-
tion theory. Basically, it is predicted (and shown in several empirical
studies) that when the outcome of the evaluation of the additional en-
counter is positive, the individual who has spent relatively more time
thinking about the object tends to be more positive than an individual
who has spent relatively less time thinking about the object. On the
other hand, when the outcome of the evaluation of the additional en-
counter is negative, an individual who has spent relatively more time
thinking about the object tends to be more negative than an individual
who has spent relatively less time thinking about it (cf. Tesser, 1978).
In other words, it is predicted that evaluations tend to polarize, or be-
come more extreme, as experience accumulates. Other studies with sim-
ilar results are reported in Chaiken and Yates (1985), Judd and Lusk
(1984), Lusk and Judd (1988), and Taylor and Fiske (1978). An obser-
vation of this type is also made by Peracchio and Tybout (1996), who
claim that individuals with an extensive network of knowledge, reflect-
ing substantial prior thought, are likely to make inferences that are
more polarized than individuals with a less elaborate knowledge struc-
ture. In contrast, a limited knowledge structure, which reflects little
prior thought, produces moderate rather than extreme affect. One par-
ticular condition for this pattern seems to exist, namely, that the indi-
vidual is committed to an attitude position (Millar & Tesser, 1986). In
other words, a polarization pattern is expected when the individual feels
a need to judge the additional stimulus so that the evaluation is con-
sistent with prior evaluations. Some reasons for this pattern are ex-
amined below. short
Given that a need for consistency is important for the individual (Lord standard

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et al., 1979), it is likely that previous experiences with an object influ- Base of text
ence the evaluative direction of an additional encounter (Tesser, 1978).
When an additional stimulus is positive, it is expected that the individ-
ual searches his/her memory for judgments of previous positive evalu-
ations in order to allocate an evaluation value to the new encounter,
which is consistent with the accumulated evaluation. The high-famil-
iarity subject has encountered the object more often than the low-fa-
miliarity subject, and should therefore have a larger pool of positive
evaluations stored in his or her memory. This means that the high-
familiarity subject has a higher sum of accumulative positive evalua-
tions stored in his or her mind than the low-familiarity subject. For
example, if one thinks of an evaluative continuum as a 7-point scale
(⫺3 ⫽ very bad, 3 ⫽ very good), an individual with seven positive en-
counters may have an evaluation history of the following type: 2 ⫹ 3 ⫹
3 ⫹ 3 ⫹ 3 ⫹ 2 ⫹ 3 ⫽ 19. An individual with a lower level of familiarity,
including, say, only two positive previous encounters, may have the fol-
lowing evaluation history: 3 ⫹ 2 ⫽ 5. In order to obtain an evaluation
of an additional positive encounter that is consistent with the level of
the accumulated positive evaluation, then, the high-familiarity subject
is driven to a higher evaluation of the additional positive encounter than
the low-familiarity subject. Similarly, when an additional stimulus is
negative, the previous history of negative encounters is accessed, and a
need for consistency would drive the high-familiarity subject toward a
lower evaluation level of the additional encounter than the low-famil-
iarity subject. This reasoning is based on the premise that different
schemes are activated given the evaluative direction of an additional
stimulus: positive accumulated experience is used as a point of reference
for an additional positive encounter, whereas negative accumulated ex-
perience is activated when an additional negative encounter is faced. In
other words, the individual is assumed to distinguish between catego-
ries of positive and negative experiences, rather than averaging positive
and negative experiences into one single category. An integration pro-
cess of this type, thus including two different sets of norms, is indicated
by research that shows that positive and negative reactions are quali-
tatively distinct phenomena (Taylor, 1991). Or, as Ebbesen, Kjos, and
Konecni (1976) put it, liking and disliking are not two sides of the same
coin.
Another consistency-based reason for more polarization in high-fa-
miliarity individuals’ evaluations of additional encounters is that a neu-
tral — or near-neutral opinion — is likely to be perceived as inconsistent
with the fact that the high-familiarity subject has seen him- or herself
(a) carry out object-related behavior several times, and (b) observed him-
or herself repeatedly make evaluations of the object. In this case, then,
it is assumed that prior behavior serves to commit the individual to an
attitudinal position (cf. Kiesler, 1971). More specifically, we expect that short
the high-familiarity subject, who by definition has more behavioral in- standard

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vestments to protect, uses justifying arguments of the following type: Base of text
“If I repeatedly come back to this object, it matters to me, and if it mat-
ters to me, I should have an opinion about it that signals that it matters,
and a neutral, or near-neutral, opinion does not do that.”
In addition, the high-familiarity subject’s ability to produce more ex-
treme opinions is facilitated by his or her more detailed cognitive struc-
ture in terms of evaluation categories. For example, it has been noted
that the low-familiarity subject is likely to think of an object basically
in terms of dichotomies (e.g., “the motorcycle has a powerful engine or
it does not have a powerful engine,” “the personnel is either friendly or
unfriendly,”), whereas the more detailed categories of the high-famil-
iarity subject allows him or her to make statements about the extent to
which the object has this or that feature (Mitchell & Dacin, 1996). Ap-
plied to evaluations, the high-familiarity customer can be assumed to
have more steps on his or her evaluative continuum and more experi-
ence in using the full range. These characteristics, then, serve as nec-
essary conditions for the ability to make more extreme evaluations.
In sum, empirical studies and arguments from different theoretical
domains suggest that an evaluation polarization is at hand, in that the
high-familiarity individual’s evaluations of an additional encounter are
located at more extreme positions on an evaluative scale compared to
the low-familiarity individual. It should be noted that the notion of en-
counter in theory on mere exposure and attitude polarization requires
relatively little effort from the individual’s point of view. The individual
in these theories is basically perceiving stimuli (e.g., nonsense word,
Chinese ideographs, and photos of faces, in the case of Zajonc, 1968) or
reflecting on stimuli (e.g., on courses that they may take in the future,
in the case of Millar & Tesser, 1986). However, turning to the type of
encounter in focus here, that is, the service encounter, more effort is
required from the individual. For example, direct physical interaction
with a service provider is necessary, and the exchange usually involves
payment. The greater effort demanded of the individual in a service
encounter is believed to mean that the hypotheses below are subject to
assessment in a situation that would increase the scope of the theoret-
ical propositions underlying them, given that they survive (cf. Stinch-
combe, 1968). On this basis, then, and given that customer satisfaction
is a significant type of evaluation in a service situation, the following is
hypothesized:

H1: When perceived performance after the most recent encounter is

high, the high-familiarity customer’s level of satisfaction is
higher than the low-familiarity customer’s level of satisfaction.
H2: When perceived performance after the most recent encounter is
low, the high-familiarity customer’s level of satisfaction is lower
than the low-familiarity customer’s level of satisfaction. short
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Furthermore, many studies show that customer satisfaction is posi- Base of text
tively associated with behavioral intentions, particularly repurchase in-
tentions and word-of-mouth intentions (cf. Fornell, 1992; Mittal, Ku-
mar, & Tsiros, 1999; Oliver, 1996). Existing literature is basically silent
with regard to the level of such intentions given different levels of fa-
miliarity, and therefore the following hypotheses are framed in terms
of the expected pattern for evaluations in general:

H3: When perceived performance after the most recent encounter is

high, the high-familiarity customer’s level of repurchase inten-
tions is higher than the low-familiarity customer’s level of repur-
chase intentions.
H4: When perceived performance after the most recent encounter is
low, the high-familiarity customer’s level of repurchase inten-
tions is lower than the low-familiarity customer’s level of repur-
chase intentions.
H5: When perceived performance after the most recent encounter is
high, the high-familiarity customer’s level of word-of-mouth in-
tentions is higher than the low-familiarity customer’s level of
word-of-mouth intentions.
H6: When perceived performance after the most recent encounter is
low, the high-familiarity customer’s level of word-of-mouth inten-
tions is lower than the low-familiarity customer’s level of word-
of-mouth intentions.

METHOD

Research Design and Sample

The sample in this study consists of 140 participants in a 4-year busi-
ness education program. Data were collected with a questionnaire that
included a scenario. An approach based on scenarios has been used ex-
tensively in satisfaction research (Alford & Sherell, 1996). In this study,
the scenario was developed with Maute and Forrester (1993) and Söd-
erlund (1998) as points of departure. A scenario-based approach was
chosen because customer satisfaction measures tend to be highly
skewed in empirical studies, in that the majority of all observations are
concentrated toward the high end of a satisfaction continuum (Fornell,
1992; Peterson & Wilson, 1992). A similar skewness is usually at
hand — but seldom explicitly reported and discussed — in terms of hy-
pothesized effects of satisfaction such as repurchase intentions and
word-of-mouth intentions. Needless to say, a limited range of variable
values reduces the possibility of detecting covariation. A scenario ap- short
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proach, therefore, facilitates a manipulation of overall evaluations — Base of text
which in turn would provide data within a less-limited range.
More specifically, respondents were instructed to imagine themselves
in the situation described in the scenario. Two versions of the question-
naire were distributed (cf. Appendix 1). The first version was designed
to simulate a service experience with a relatively high level of perform-
ance, and the second version was designed to simulate a service expe-
rience with a relatively low level of performance. In order to keep con-
stant as many factors as possible, only one feature was manipulated,
resulting in one sentence being added to the second version. This ad-
ditional sentence describes an aspect of the social encounter. Given that
service encounters are first and foremost social encounters (McCallum
& Harrison, 1985), it was predicted that aspects of the social interaction
would strongly influence the perceived level of performance (cf. Bitner,
Booms, & Tetreault, 1990). More specifically, the smell of the service
person in the scenario was manipulated, since previous research (Mar-
tin, 1996) has indicated that the (bad) smell of other persons contributes
significantly to evaluations of social encounters (particularly in a dining
setting, which is the case at hand here).
The scenario was followed by a set of questionnaire items, and re-
spondents were instructed to respond to them by imagining that they
had experienced the scenario situation. The items were identical for
both versions of the questionnaire. Moreover, the two versions of the
questionnaire were randomly distributed to the respondents (and each
respondent completed only one version).

Measurement
Customer familiarity was measured with the following open-ended item:
“During the past six months, I have dined in restaurants approximately
㛮㛮㛮㛮 times.” The variable was subject to substantial variation in the sam-
ple, since it took on values in the 2 – 100 range (mean ⫽ 19, sd ⫽ 15.7).
Several studies report that familiarity in this sense is positively asso-
ciated with measures of customer knowledge such as subjective knowl-
edge, objective knowledge, and various aspects related to the complexity
of the cognitive structure (Flynn & Goldsmith, 1999; Raju, Lonial, &
Mangold, 1995). As a validity check, the questionnaire included a three-
item subjective knowledge scale. It consisted of the following items
scored on a 7-point scale (1 ⫽ “Do not agree at all,” 7 ⫽ “Definitely
agree”): “I know a lot about the range of restaurants in the town where
I live,” “I consider myself to be an experienced restaurant guest,” and “I
know very well what characterizes good and bad restaurants” (alpha ⫽
0.73). The correlation between the familiarity measure and the subjec-
tive knowledge measure was 0.39 (p ⬍ .001) which is in tune with find-
ings in previous studies. short
Customer satisfaction was measured as the unweighted mean, for standard

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each respondent, of the following items scored on a 7-point scale (1 ⫽ Base of text
“Do not agree at all,” 7 ⫽ “Definitely agree”): “After an evening like this,
I would be satisfied with the restaurant,” “I would believe that the res-
taurant matches my demands,” and “I would give the restaurant a high
overall score” (Cronbach’s alpha ⫽ 0.91).
Repurchase intentions were measured with the following items: “I
would like to return to this restaurant,” and “I would not hesitate to
come back again” (Cronbach’s alpha ⫽ 0.93). Each item was scored on
a 7-point scale (1 ⫽ “Do not agree at all,” 7 ⫽ “Definitely agree”).
Word-of-mouth intentions were measured with this two-item scale: “I
would recommend this restaurant to my friends” and “If someone asked
me for information about a good restaurant, I would recommend this
one” (Cronbach’s alpha ⫽ .96). Each item was scored on a 7-point scale
(1 ⫽ “Do not agree at all,” 7 ⫽ “Definitely agree”).

Analysis and Result

Manipulation Check. Independent samples t tests were used to assess

the difference between the respondents who were exposed to Scenario
1 (high level of performance) and those exposed to Scenario 2 (low level
of performance). The results indicated that satisfaction, repurchase in-
tentions, and word-of-mouth intentions differed significantly between
the two scenarios (all p ⬍ 0.001). All means were higher in Scenario 1.
However, there was no significant difference between the familiarity
means (p ⫽ .698). Therefore, it was contended that the manipulation
was successful in producing the intended performance situations (i.e.,
high and low performance). It should be recalled that only one single
feature was manipulated (cf. Appendix 1). The significant differences in
the means thereby illustrate that one single poorly performed attribute
may alter the service experience in a substantial way (cf. Mittal, Ross,
& Baldasare, 1998 for a similar observation).

Hypothesis Testing
Satisfaction. The following procedure was used to test the hypotheses
regarding the level of satisfaction (H1 and H2). First, the respondents
were split into two groups according to the scenario they had been ex-
posed to. Second, the respondents were split into two groups with regard
to their level of familiarity. The mean value of familiarity (mean ⫽ 19)
served as the demarcation line. This, then, resulted in four groups of
respondents. The satisfaction means in the four groups are depicted in
Table 1.
A visual inspection of Table 1 suggests that, under the condition of
high performance, high-familiarity customers were more satisfied than short
low-familiarity customers. Table 1 also suggests that, under the condi- standard

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Table 1. Mean Satisfaction in the Four Groups Base of text
Low Familiarity High Familiarity
High performance 6.30 (n ⫽ 41) 6.55 (n ⫽ 28)
Low performance 4.92 (n ⫽ 41) 4.14 (n ⫽ 30)

tion of low performance, high-familiarity customers were less satisfied

than low-familiarity customers.
In order to test these differences in means, multiple pairwise com-
parison of differences in means (Scheffé test) was applied (cf. Umesh,
Peterson, McCann-Nelson, & Vaidyanathan 1996). This procedure in-
dicated that the hypothesized differences in H1 and H2 were significant
(p ⬍ 0.001 in both comparisons). Hence, H1 and H2 cannot be rejected.
Turning specifically to the case of low-familiarity customers, it can be
noted that the difference in satisfaction for this group with regard to
low and high performance was not significant (p ⫽ 0.82). On the other
hand, the difference in satisfaction for high-familiarity customers with
regard to low and high performance was significant (p ⬍ 0.001). This
result suggests that high-familiarity customers may have a more de-
veloped discriminating ability in terms of low and high performance.
The pattern of cell mean differences in Table 1 indicates that an in-
teraction may be at hand. That is to say, it seems that the effect of
performance on satisfaction varies across levels of familiarity. However,
cell mean differences do not necessarily reveal anything about the po-
tential for interaction effects on a dependent variable (cf. Umesh et al.,
1996). In order to explore if an interaction effect may be at hand, a two-
way analysis of variance was performed on the data in Table 1. The
level of perceived performance (low or high) and the level of familiarity
(low or high) served as independent variables, whereas customer sat-
isfaction was the dependent variable. The results revealed that the main
effect of performance was significant (p ⬍ 0.001), the main effect of fa-
miliarity was not significant (p ⫽ 0.17), and the interaction effect was
significant (p ⫽ 0.012).

Behavioral Intentions. The same approach, that is, comparison of cell

means with regard to the groups in Table 1, was employed to assess
H3 – H6. The result for repurchase intentions (H3 and H4) indicated
that the same pattern is at hand: Under the condition of high perform-
ance, high-familiarity customers were significantly more likely to re-
purchase than low-familiarity customers (p ⬍ .001). And under the con-
dition of low performance, high-familiarity customers had a
significantly lower level of repurchase intentions than low-familiarity
customers (p ⫽.002). Thus, H3 and H4 are supported. Moreover, as in
the case of the satisfaction hypotheses, there was no significant differ- short
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the conditions of low performance and high performance (p ⫽ .85). How- Base of text
ever, the difference in repurchase intentions under low- and high-per-
formance conditions was significant between high-familiarity customers
(p ⫽ 0.063). A two-way analysis of variance showed that the main effect
of performance on repurchase intentions was significant (p ⬍ 0.001), the
main effect of familiarity was not significant (p ⫽ .205), and the inter-
action effect was significant (p ⫽ .012).
Turning to word-of-mouth intentions (H5 and H6), the same pattern
was repeated. That is to say, under the condition of high performance,
high-familiarity customers had a significantly higher level of word-of-
mouth intentions than low-familiarity customers (p ⬍.001). Under the
condition of low performance, on the other hand, high-familiarity cus-
tomers had significantly lower level of word-of-mouth intentions than
low-familiarity customers (p ⫽ 0.001). H5 and H6, then, cannot be re-
jected. Again, the comparison of means indicated that there was no sig-
nificant difference in word-of-mouth intentions between low-familiarity
customers under low performance and high performance (p ⫽ 0.91). The
difference in word-of-mouth intentions under low and high performance
conditions, however, was significant between high-familiarity custom-
ers (p ⬍ 0.001). The same pattern as above was also produced in the
two-way analysis of variance. The main effect of performance on repur-
chase intentions was significant (p ⬍ 0.001), the main effect of famil-
iarity was not significant (p ⫽ 0.385), and the interaction effect was
significant (p ⫽ 0.055).

Additional Comments. The nonsignificant main effects of familiarity

in the ANOVAs suggest that familiarity per se had little effect on post-
purchase responses. In addition, an examination of bivariate corre-
lations revealed that familiarity per se was only weakly associated
with customer satisfaction (r ⫽ ⫺ 0.10, p ⫽ .23), repurchase intentions
(r ⫽ ⫺ 0.15, p ⫽ 0.08), and word-of-mouth intentions (⫺.07, p ⫽ .41).
Thus, as indicated in theory on attitude polarization, the interaction
between familiarity and performance, not familiarity per se, contributes
to the differences in terms of the three variables. One implication, from
a methodological point of view, is that the effects of familiarity run the
risk of going unnoticed if bivariate associations (e.g., satisfaction versus
familiarity) are examined without control of the performance level.
Because the familiarity measure was positively and significantly as-
sociated with the subjective knowledge measure, the same analyses (i.e.,
multiple mean comparisons and two-way ANOVAs) were carried out
with the use of the subjective knowledge measure instead of the famil-
iarity measure. That is to say, the sample was split into one low sub-
jective knowledge group and one high subjective knowledge group, with
the mean subjective knowledge as the demarcation line. In this case,
however, the hypothesized differences were not significant, and no in- short
teraction term in the ANOVAs was significant. These results are con- standard

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sonant with Raju, Lonial, and Mangold (1995), who show that different Base of text
facets of expertise (familiarity, subjective knowledge, and objective
knowledge) do not correlate identically with other variables.

DISCUSSION

Summary of Main Results

The overall pattern that emerges from this study is that customers with
a high level of familiarity (in terms of the number of supplier encoun-
ters) exhibit different post-purchase reactions than customers with a
low level of familiarity. More specifically, when performance in an ad-
ditional service encounter is high, high-familiarity customers have
higher levels of satisfaction, repurchase intentions, and word-of-mouth
intentions than low-familiarity customers. And when performance is
low, high-familiarity customers have lower levels of satisfaction, repur-
chase intentions, and word-of-mouth intentions than low-familiarity
customers. High-familiarity customers, therefore, seem to utilize
broader intervals of postpurchase continua. In other words, high-famil-
iarity customers are able to discriminate between poor and good per-
formance to a larger extent than low-familiarity customers are. This is
consonant with suggestions in previous research that familiarity, and
other facets of expertise, is likely to go hand in hand with more elabo-
rated cognitive categories (cf. Alba & Hutchinson, 1987).

Limitations
The independent variable in this study, familiarity, was conceptualized
in a conventional way, in the sense that the construct encompasses the
number of encounters during a specific period (cf. Alba & Hutchinson,
1987). However, this is a somewhat limited way of assessing familiarity,
because the construct can be conceived of as having several other di-
mensions. These may include how long the customer has been patron-
izing a supplier, how regularly the supplier is patronized, and how many
different types of suppliers within the same category are patronized.
Research by Hedlund (2001) suggests that such dimensions are not per-
fectly correlated, and that they therefore may affect post-purchase var-
iables differently. That is to say, it remains to be explored if the number
of purchase-related experiences is the most important familiarity di-
mension with regard to effects on postpurchase variables. Moreover,
recent research has identified biases in self-reported familiarity. Lee,
Hu, and Toh (2000), for example, found that high-frequency customers
underreport their behavioral frequencies, whereas low-frequency cus-
tomers overreport them. This regression toward the mean, it was ar- short
gued, leads to a distorted view of the customers in a sample. Presum- standard

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ably, biases are also at hand with regard to familiarity dimensions other Base of text
than the number of purchase-related experiences. This calls for the use
of objective familiarity measures (e.g., the supplier’s data base), at least
as a validity check. At the same time, it has been suggested that people
are surprisingly accurate at answering how often events occur — fre-
quency information serves an important function in the development of
conceptual knowledge (Hascher & Zacks, 1984). If objective sources of
familiarity data are unavailable, then the self-reported number of pur-
chase-related experiences may not be such a bad option after all. Per-
haps a more important limitation with respect to the use of the famil-
iarity construct in the present study, however, is that familiarity can be
conceived of as the process by which knowledge is acquired. Yet it is
knowledge — not familiarity per se — that is assumed to constitute the
frame of reference for postpurchase evaluations; differences in knowl-
edge structures produce differences in evaluations between individuals.
The lack of several measures of knowledge in this study must therefore
be seen as an important limitation. One may indeed ask why the fa-
miliarity measure, but not the subjective knowledge measure, produced
the hypothesized differences between experienced and less-experienced
customers. One reason could be that subjective knowledge is a some-
what rough indicator of customer knowledge, because it is likely that
self-confident individuals overestimate their knowledge levels (Brucks,
1985).

SUGGESTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH

It can be noted that the differences in postpurchase reactions between

high-familiarity and low-familiarity customers in this study were de-
rived from a setting — restaurant visits — which allows a considerable
amount of variation in customer knowledge. The evaluation of restau-
rants is in fact almost an industry per se, in the sense that products
such as the Michelin Guide exist. More generally, products of the ex-
perience type (cf. Pine & Gilmore, 1999), such as opera, art, soccer
games, and music, where consumption may be an end in itself and not
a means to a particular goal, require substantial efforts by the customer
if he or she is to become an expert. Indeed, such products can be expe-
rienced for a very long time and still offer more to learn. Other products,
however, may not be subject to substantial differences between high-
and low-familiarity customers, in the sense that they do not provide
much room for an expert to excel. This means that future research
should examine whether the present pattern is reproduced in settings
that differ from the one selected here.
Similarly, it has been argued by Fournier and Mick (1999) that con-
sumer evaluations of products, particularly in terms of satisfaction, are short
usually framed (by researchers) as isolated and individualized phenom- standard

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ena. However, some products are highly integrated into customers’ so- Base of text
cial lives. Restaurant visits may be an example of a product that is
indeed integrated in the visitor’s social life. For example, the experi-
enced restaurant visitor is likely to perceive that his or her social status
is at stake when a judgment of a restaurant is made in public, while the
less-familiar restaurant visitor may care little about what others think
of his or her judgments. This status factor may thus affect judgments
and, perhaps even to a larger extent, repurchases and word-of-mouth
behavior. That is to say, one can easily think of products other than
restaurants that are less well integrated in the individual’s social life,
and that they may therefore produce patterns of differences unlike those
obtained in this study. Again, then, one important avenue for further
research is to examine whether evaluation differences between subjects
with different levels of familiarity occur for other types of products.
Future research should also examine differences between expert and
novice customers in a dynamic perspective. One particular issue is re-
lated to what happens, in cognitive terms, after the most recent service
encounter (but before the next service encounter) in a chain of repeated
purchases. It has been suggested that satisfaction decays over time, in
the sense that satisfaction is likely to be negatively associated with the
time between the purchase/consumption occasion and the measurement
occasion (Richins & Bloch, 1991). It has also been suggested that ex-
pectations are updated as experience grows (Boulding, Kalra, Staelin,
& Zeithaml, 1993; Rust & Oliver, 2000). Similarly, Fournier and Mick
(1999) found that comparison standards relevant in the early days of
ownership rarely remained constant as usage experience evolved. More-
over, performance perceptions are not likely to remain constant as we
move further in time from the purchase/consumption occasion (cf. Mit-
tal, Ross, & Baldasare, 1999). Given differences between experts and
novices in terms of information processing in general, and in terms of
evaluations in particular, it is likely that something will happen to dif-
ferences in evaluations over time. Exactly what pattern we may expect,
however, remains unclear. Do experts and novices, perhaps, integrate
new experience differently, so that initial differences are affected over
time?

MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS

Turning to the specific differences between high- and low-familiarity

customers identified in this article, what do these differences in post-
purchase reactions mean in managerial terms? Several aspects call for
attention.
One aspect is related to feedback to personnel in a service firm. Con- short
sider, for example, the case in which the firm implements a customer- standard

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satisfaction/service-quality program. This means, in the typical case, Base of text
that the personnel are informed that the customer’s subjective view
matters. It may also mean that the personnel are explicitly evaluated
(and compensated) in terms of customers’ evaluations. Assume that this
program works, in the sense that substantial efforts are undertaken by
the personnel to produce a high level of perceived performance. Given
the present results, however, these efforts are not likely to produce top
performance ratings from low-familiarity customers. Moreover, given
service failures, low-familiarity customers’ ratings may not signal that
performance was particularly poor. Outcomes of this type may serve to
reduce enthusiasm and motivation for the program, because they ap-
pear to provide distorted feedback. However, if the response patterns
by low-familiarity customers are made explicit (e.g., in a training pro-
gram), it may be easier to keep motivation on a high level. A related
aspect is when the boundary occupant deals mainly — and continu-
ously — with low-familiarity customers because of organizational design
factors (e.g., the junior business school teacher is assigned to first-year
students). This may create frustration, given lower ratings from novices.
However, explicit knowledge about differences between experts and
novices may keep frustration at bay — or serve as the basis of rotation
schemes.
Another managerial aspect relates to service failures (i.e., occasional
low service performance). It has become imperative that service pro-
viders develop recovery strategies for such situations (Grönroos, 2000),
because it has been shown that responsive recovery strategies affect
satisfaction positively (Bitner et al., 1990). The present results, how-
ever, indicate that customers with different levels of familiarity respond
differently to poor service performance. They also indicate that high-
familiarity customers are subject to a more negative response. This im-
plies that the same service recovery strategy may not be equally well
suited to deal with failures, and that the supplier should consider more
elaborate activities in attempts to create recovery among high-familiar-
ity customers.
Finally, when things do go well, that is when performance is on a high
level, the impatient supplier who wishes to see a more immediate pos-
itive reaction from the low-familiarity customer may consider activities
in the service process itself that serve to familiarize this customer with
the offer. Norman (2000) has argued that the inexperienced service cus-
tomer has to base his or her judgments on highly incomplete clues, and
this thus creates a potential for the supplier to aid in the judgment
process by providing more clues. For example, a transparent offering,
which takes the customer behind the scenes, and a high level of com-
munication during the encounter may serve to increase customer knowl-
edge. Restaurants appear to be doing this when the kitchen activities
are highly visible, and when the waiters provide small lectures on wine short
and food-preparation details. standard

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APPENDIX 1: THE TWO SCENARIOS Base of text

Scenario 1 (High Performance)

Imagine that you are in the following situation: You are going to a res-
taurant to have dinner with a person you like very much. It is important
that the evening goes well. You select a restaurant that you have visited
a number of times before, and you have been impressed each time you
have been there. Since your last visit, some people you know have also
spoken highly of this restaurant.
When you and your guest arrive, you are very well received, and you
are promptly shown to your table. When you have sat down, you see the
CEO of a large company at a nearby table. And a few tables away, you
spot a famous actor. A fire burning in the open fireplace fills the room
with a pleasant glow. The other guests appear to be enjoying them-
selves. You order your favorite dish, which is not on the menu, and the
waiter says that it will be a pleasant challenge for the kitchen to prepare
this. Your guest asks the waiter about something on the menu, and it
is obvious that the waiter knows what he is talking about. When food
arrives, it is evident that the kitchen has done a very good job. You
notice that your guest is impressed by the food. When it is time to leave,
the waiter is quickly at hand and deals with the payment in an efficient
way.
Here follows a set of statements regarding this situation. Please in-
dicate the extent to which you agree with the statements.

Scenario 2 (Low Performance)

The identical text was used, except that one sentence was added: “When
the waiter reaches across to collect the menus, both you and your guest
notice that he does not smell good.”

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