An Exploratory Study of Consumption Emotion in Services

Abstract

Abstract This article addresses the significance of emotions in the consumption of services. There has been little investigation of emotions in services. This study attempts a general examination of consumers’ emotional experiences across four quite distinct services. Six hypotheses test the significance of emotions and/or emotional involvement in areas regarded as important in marketing, namely the service itself satisfaction, frequency of usage, age and gender. Particularly, the authors explore the appropriateness of the Consumption Emotion Scale in a service consumption setting. The findings from this study do not suggest that services may be classified by emotion descriptors. Equally there is little evidence of emotions explaining satisfaction, and distinctiveness in emotional responses by frequency of usage, age and gender was not much in evidence.