CHARACTERISTICS OF SERVICES AND CONSUMER BEHAVIOR: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY

The last two decades have been a growth in the study of the marketing of services, with the focus shifting from "are goods and services different" to "how do the characteristics of services effect marketing consideratons". Despite this burgeoning interest leading to over three dozen hypothesized characteristics in the literature, little has been done to empirically substantiate the existence of these characteristics, or analyze their possible effects.;Eight of the 24 hypotheses tested in the presence of control variables were significant at the appropriate level. The most influential characteristic was the consumer time and effort "cost" of changing to a new service provider. Increasing costs were associated with decreasing willingness to try a new brand, increasing search effort prior to purchase, and increasing likelihood, prior to purchase, of telephoning the service provider and visiting the service site. Increasing consumer participation in production is related to increasing likelihood of a site visit; increasing service heterogeneity is associated with increasing willingness to try a new brand and increasing importance of a convenient service location, while increasing evaluation difficulty is related to decreasing willingness to try new brands. Demographic factors were generally not related to service characteristic perceptions.;This dissertation examines the relationships of four service characteristics (heterogeneity, participation in production, cost of brand change, and evaluation difficulty) with six types of consumer behavior (new brand trial willingness, information search effort, importance of service provider location, and use of telephone, site visit and word of mouth information sources). The 24 hypotheses, examined in a crossectional descriptive design using questionnaire data from adult respondents, are tested by bivariate correlation, and by regression controlled for other variables. Measures used for service characteristics were developed for this study and tested for reliability and validity.