Preferential treatment in the service encounter

The purpose of this paper is to examine reactions when customers in service encounters receive preferential treatment (i.e. something extra in relation to other customers). The examination is conducted in a social context that allows the customer to compare what he or she receives with what other customers receive. The main effect variables are perceived justice and customer satisfaction.

An experimental method is employed to examine the effects of providing customers with preferential treatment. The study involves four treatment groups with various combinations of receiving or not receiving preferential treatment.

Customers perceived preferential treatment as relatively unjust. This was true for customers who received the preferential treatment and for those who did not. However, customer satisfaction among those receiving preferential treatment was enhanced, thus signaling that preferential treatment affects perceived justice and satisfaction differently. In addition, different contexts for receiving preferential treatment (i.e. receiving it alone or sharing it with another customer) produced different levels of customer satisfaction.

The extant research on preferential treatment has failed to acknowledge that this treatment often occurs in the presence of several customers, which is likely to evoke perceptions of justice. At the same time, extant research on perceived justice in service situations has mainly focussed on service failures as antecedents of justice perceptions. This study attempts to extend theory on both preferential treatment and perceived justice in service-encounter settings.