Customer Familiarity and its Effects on Expectations, Performance Perceptions, and Satisfaction: A Longitudinal Study

This paper examines the effects of customer familiarity (i.e. the number of previous consumption-related experiences) on a) expectations prior to the consumption of a service, b) performance perceptions after the consumption, and c) satisfaction after the consumption. Data collected in a longitudinal study of a tour operator's customers who took part in a trip to the same destination shows that familiarity is unrelated to expectations, but negatively and significantly associated with performance perceptions and satisfaction.