Implications for Marketers
The foregoing suggests that marketers are often in a favorable position by enhancing consumers’ hope, because high levels of hope create delight and consumer satisfaction if the product delivers the goal-congruent outcome and limited dissatisfaction if it does not. Notably, the effects are not explained by the concept of consumer expectations. Although marketers may always be in a positive position by enhancing hope, their enhancing expectations may cause negative effects for them because it sets consumers up for a potentially negative expectancy disconfirmation. Moreover, 10 / Journal of Marketing, January 2005 if hope has an effect on an expectation disconfirmation process, it operates through the disconfirmation component, not the expectancy component. Indeed, that consumers regard the goal-congruent outcome as possible but uncertain suggests that they may have relatively weak expectations of the occurrence of the outcome. Furthermore, we argue that the impact of hope on satisfaction and dissatisfaction operates through not only disconfirmation but also additional antecedents to satisfaction, such as equity and attributions.