Customers’
assessments of quality and value, buying decisions, and recommendations are all
influenced by emotions. But too often companies don’t adequately anticipate
those emotions and therefore can’t mitigate negative ones. This is especially
true for high-emotion services—those that trigger strong feelings before the
service even begins. Services relating to major life events such as birth,
marriage, illness, and death fall into this category, as do airline travel, car
repair, and home buying, selling, and renovation. They may elicit intense
feelings for the following reasons: lack of familiarity with the service, lack
of control over its performance, major consequences if things go wrong,
complexity that makes the service a black box, and a long duration. The authors
have identified four guidelines that can help managers influence expectations
and perceptions of quality and value, enhancing customers’ satisfaction and
loyalty: (1) Identify emotional triggers, (2) respond early to intense
emotions, (3) enhance customers’ control, and (4) hire the right people. They
use some leading providers of cancer care to illustrate the application of
these guidelines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]