Service Quality: The Impact of Frequency, Timing, Proximity, and Sequence of Failures and Delights

Service delivery often involves a series of events or stages of exchange between a service provider and its customer. At each stage, performance can meet, exceed, or fall below the customer's expectations. This article contributes to the literature by examining how the patterns of distribution (frequency, timing, proximity, and sequence) of service failures and delights affect customers’ perceptions of service quality. The authors propose a conceptual model based on mental accounting principles derived from prospect theory and develop a series of research propositions to explicate the links between distribution patterns of service failures/delights and service quality perceptions. The study integrates prospect theory with service encounter research and provides a comprehensive theory-driven platform for exploring the impact of various service failure and delight distribution patterns. In addition, it offers important managerial implications for service design and resource allocation regarding when, how often, how close, and in what order delights and failures should take place to maximize gains from delights and minimize losses from failures.