Be Careful What You Have Customers Wish For

An unmet expectation has a more negative influence on a customer than a satisfied expectation has a positive effect. An example of this repeated consumer psychology finding, in terms of entitlement rather than expectation, appears from researchers at Macquarie University in Australia and Universidad Torcuato Di Tella in Argentina. They found that while a bonus reward delivered regularly by a marketer can delight a customer who feels they’re receiving the reward because they’re valuable to the business, the marketer discontinuing the reward in that situation risks revenge against the business.
     The study was inspired by an incident in which one of the researchers received on her birthday for three years in a row from an online retailer a voucher to be used on her next purchase. She came to feel entitled to the voucher. She believed the retailer considered her valuable to the business, as evidenced by her birthday being commemorated. When the voucher didn’t arrive one year, she cancelled the order she’d planned to make using the voucher, and she decided not to purchase from that retailer again.
     The reaction was not unusual. In their studies about disappearing delights, the researchers saw ample evidence of revenge intentions. In explaining why, the researchers distinguish between expectations and entitlement. The desire for revenge derives from the recipient believing they’re entitled to the bonus because they consider themselves to be of special value to the marketer.
     Based on their findings, the researchers recommend marketers avoid regularity in the gifts. The studies also indicate that the revenge intentions are more pronounced when the monetary value of the delightful treat is large. For this reason, they recommend that, if a marketer chooses to give a bonus at regular intervals, such as for each birthday, they keep the monetary value of the bonus modest. Also, explaining to recipients that they’re getting the bonus because they’ve been chosen randomly, when this is true, can dampen the desire for revenge. Again, entitlement is different from expectation.
     Loyalty program rewards can bring a related, but different, problem. Members come to feel entitled, experiencing joy only when the reward amount is increased, and only until they again become accustomed to the increased amount. In one study, this effect was so strong that when the loyalty program reward was decreased, the disruption to store loyalty was greater than if the participant was told the program had been discontinued altogether.

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