Perception of Customer Behavior

Perception of Customer Behavior

The Psychological State of Consumer Behavior

The psychological state of the customer plays an important part in determining the consumer satisfaction. The perception and behavior of the consumer has an impact on the service climate as well as customer perception of service equality. According to Benjamin Schneider, Suzan White and Michelle Paul in the journal of applied psychology (Schneider, White & Paul, 1998), a given set of foundation issues that usually holds up employee work and service worth is conceptualized as essential cause of a climate for service. The climate for service is also reflected in the customer services. A cutthroat international competition, slower growth and mature markets characterize the current environment for many businesses organizations. Therefore, various organizations are making the perceptions of customers of quality of service a priority to in order to stay competitive and retain customers.

Apparently, it is relatively less expensive to keep a current customer than to get a new one. The bottom line is that a person who holds positive perceptions regarding quality of services of an organization is likely remain loyal as customer of that particular organization. Such a customer will be reluctant to quit from being an esteemed customer of that organization. The retention of a customer always yields numerous benefits. Benjamin Schneider defined climate as the summary perception that bank customers have of their bank. However, Schneider conceptualized perceived climate as an intervening variable-basically a summary perception that is based on specified events related to service but foregoing customer account switching. Additionally, Schneider and Bowen (1985) believed that the differences in the organizational dynamics that exist between the manufacturing and service enterprises which recently received attention in organizational behavior (OB) and Marketing literatures. The former primarily emphasizes on implications of structuring of organizations to ease delivery of services, which are less tangible but requiring greater participation from the consumers in the production of what they receive. The latter is mainly concerned with establishing how the defining characteristics of services would require different kinds of strategies for marketing services as opposed to those used for goods.

Therefore, this paper will mainly focus on the influence that perception and behavior of consumer has on service climate and service quality. In essence, service climate and the quality of service have great influence on consumer perception about a business enterprise. Customer perception in relation to service quality and climate is exhaustively discussed based on the major five published and peer-reviewed articles. The basis of the discussion will be examining the various types of service climate and service quality, the research methodology used in the perception findings and the implication of consumer behavior in both practical and theoretical terms.

The Scope and Objectives of the Paper

Scope of this paper

Specifically focus on the customers' perception which has an impact on service climate and service quality.

The journal articles employed both the quantitative and qualitative method.

The primary focus of the paper is analyzing the impact of perception on service climate as well as service quality

Providing the existed theories and implications of perception on the psychological state of the behavior of a consumer with reference to the published scholarly articles

Objectives of these journal articles

The key objective of the journal articles is to examine and analyze the impact of perceptions on consumer behavior, which in relation to the service climate and service quality affect the purchasing behavior within the service environment. Consequently, a consumer perception greatly determines his willingness to purchase a commodity and negative attitude towards another, which make him prefer less of the latter.

Schneider et al. (1998) attempted to explain consumer perception by linking service climate and customer perceptions of service quality. Apparently, climate for services rests upon the foundation issues. In addition, it requires policies alongside practices that focus attention directly on service quality. A customer who holds positive perceptions about an organization's service quality and climate is likely to remain customer of the organization for a longer period.

Schneider (1973) explores the perception of organizational climate from the customer's point-of-view. He defines climate as summary perception, which is the characteristic of bank customers about their bank. Ideally, the present intentions that customers have to switch accounts are not in any way related to specific service-related concerns but more strongly related to summary perceptions. The present customers have relatively positive perception towards the bank and its employees compared to former customers. In fact, former customers will always have negative perception about the bank together with its staff.

Schneider & Bowen (1985) also examine the employee and customer perceptions of service in banks. A significant relationship was reported between the perception of branch employees of the organization and branch customers' attitude about the service. The employee attitude as well as customer attitude are related to their own and one another customer's turnover intentions.

Schneider et al. (1994) survey customer service perceptions with a special focus on a case of a student and chair ratings of faculty effectiveness. The big question in this article has been whether the customer service perception generalizes. The major objective of the study according to this particular article is to examine carefully the association among multiple facets of employee performance according customer and supervisor ratings. The student is the customer, and teaching is the service being delivered while departmental chairs as supervisors.