PERCEPTIONS OF SERVICE QUALITY, BEHAVIORAL INTENTIONS, AND FINANCIAL OUTCOMES:
WHAT WE DO NOT KNOW
Of all the relationships in the chain between service quality and profitability, the link between service quality and purchase intentions has been most often researched and confirmed. Customer questionnaires that study ser- vice quality can easily incorporate questions about pur- chase intentions, indicating perhaps that methodological ease accounts for the preponderance of research on this connection. However, the more compelling relationship between purchase intentions and actual purchase behavior lacks confirmation.
1. What is the relationship between customer purchase intentions and initial purchase behavior in services? It has long been known that customers do not always behave in ways they say they will; in general, they tend to overreport their intentions to buy products and services. They are also not particularly good predictors of their own behavior. Therefore, an important relationship to contemplate and capture is between purchase intentions and purchase behavior. The relationship between customer purchase intentions and initial purchase behavior will be one of the most difficult to document because to do so would mean matching data from customers before purchase (usually obtained anonymously) with postpurchase data. Postpur- chase data can be collected through warranty cards or other means, but to try to connect these data to prepurchase intentions means having both customer identification and a mechanism to relate the two forms. One context in which