TAKING RELATIONSHIP MARKETING FOR A JOYRIDE: THE EMOTION OF
SURPRISE AS A COMPETITIVE MARKETING TOOL
Joëlle Vanhamme
Université Catholique de Louvain
Adam Lindgreen
Cranfield University
Professor Roderick J. Brodie
Auckland University
Abstract
The main purpose of this research project is to examine the possibility of attracting and retaining
customers by means of surprise. First, in the literature review the concept of relationship
marketing is briefly introduced; the relevance of customer retention for today’s businesses is
cemented; the emotion of surprise is examined in detail; and the possible correlation between
surprise, customer delight and retention is discussed. Second, the methodology for a research
project on marketers’ use of surprise as a competitive marketing tool is explained.
Literature Review
Berry coined relationship marketing more than fifteen years ago (Berry 1983) but the concept
still remains ambiguous (e.g., Brodie et al. 1997; Gummesson 1994; Snehota and Söderlund
1998). It is argued that businesses should focus on retaining existing customers. There is thus
evidence to suggest that customer retention lead to increased market share and bigger profits
(e.g. Fornell 1992; Rust et al. 1996). Marketing tools that can be used for retaining customers are
likely to provide a competitive advantage (Dwyer et al. 1987; Levitt 1983; McKenna 1991). But
there is still an evident need for more research into customer retention (e.g., Buttle and Ahmad
1998; Smith et al. 1998). Interestingly, it has been suggested that positive surprise is a necessary
condition for customer delight and that customer delight translates into higher customer retention
levels (e.g., Rust et al. 1996; Oliver et al. 1997).
On the one hand, most studies suggest that customer satisfaction is a necessary condition for
customer retention (e.g., Goderis 1998; Scheuing 1995) with customer satisfaction translating
into higher customer retention (e.g., Anderson and Sullivan 1993; Fornell 1992; Oliver 1980).
On the other hand, it has been reasoned that merely satisfying customers is not enough,
businesses need to delight their customers, which cannot be achieved without positively
surprising them (e.g., Oliver et al. 1997; Rust et al. 1996). However, surprise has not yet been
studied in the marketing literature although a number of authors have asked for it or complained
about the lack of a theoretical framework (Derbaix and Pham 1989; Oliver et al. 1997;
Westbrook and Oliver 1991). What is known about surprise originates from the literature on
psychology. Surprise, which is a syndrome of reactions, is considered by most researchers to be a
short-lived emotion (e.g. Charlesworth 1969; Derbaix and Pham 1991; Ekman and Friesen 1985;
Izard 1977; Meyer et al. 1994). It seems fair to suggest that surprise consist of physiological and
behavioural changes (including specific facial expressions), as well as subjective experience
(Table 1) (see Vanhamme 1999 for a detailed review). Surprise is elicited by either unexpected
or misexpected products, services or attributes (Ekman and Friesen 1975; Izard 1977; Meyer
1988; Plutchik 1980).
Table 1. The emotion of surprise, at the behavioural, physiological and verbal levels
Behavioural level
At the behavioural level, surprise is characterised by (1) facial expressions such as raised
eyebrows and upper eyelids; widened eyes; open or even dropped jaw; (2) cessation of on
going activities such as cognitive activities; (3) a sudden and involuntary focusing on the
surprising stimulus; (4) a heightened consciousness of the surprising stimulus, at the expense
of other stimuli; (5) a subsequent curiosity/exploratory behaviour such as Why questions and a
tendency to search for the causes of the surprising events, which can lead to an update of
previous schemaa; and (6) an increase in the ability to retain in memory the surprising
stimulus.
a
A schema is a type of private, normally informal, inarticulate unreflective theory about the
nature of objects, events or situations. In this case, the same stimulus is not likely to elicit
surprise once again since it becomes part of the schema and thus it is expected
Physiological level
At the physiological level, surprise is characterised by changes in heart and respiration rates,
increase in skin conductivity and neural activation, and different cortical response wave
patterns (P300). Through its arousal surprise is an amplifier of subsequent affects. This could
explain the link between surprise and delight that is a level of satisfaction characterised by a
high degree of arousal.
Verbal level
At the verbal level, surprise may lead to spontaneous vocalisations such as Why, Oh etc.
The polarity of surprise is interesting. Is surprise negative, neutral or positive? Although the
emotion of surprise itself is neutral it is often followed by another emotion that ‘colours’ it either
positively (e.g., surprise ➙ joy) or negatively (e.g., surprise ➙ anger) (Ekman and Friesen 1975;
Meyer et al. 1994). If positive surprise through customer delight can be used for retaining
customers (as in relationship marketing) then what about negative surprise? Perhaps negative
surprise is more apt for attracting customers (as in transaction marketing). But despite the
widespread attention businesses have paid to positively surprising their customers the possible
correlation between positive surprise and customer delight has received only little attention in the
literature. The exploratory study by Oliver et al. (1997), an exception, supports the correlation.
Other studies by Oliver and his colleagues (Oliver 1997; Oliver and Westbrook 1993; Westbrook
and Oliver 1991) also indirectly support the notion that positive surprise leads to higher
satisfaction levels and repurchasing intentions. Furthermore, the literature in psychology
suggests that customer delight is a second-order emotion resulting from a combination of two
first-order emotions, namely surprise and joy (Plutchik 1980). According to these findings
positive surprise might thus play an important role in customers’ satisfaction and ultimately
customer retention. In addition to surprise, customer delight and customer retention, one more
variable needs to be considered, that is affective commitment. In the literature on commitment
one view on affective commitment is that it is “an affective state of mind an individual or partner
has toward a relationship with another individual or partner” (Wetzels et al. 1998: 409). Recent
research suggests that affective commitment is the form of commitment that is most effective for
developing and maintaining mutually beneficial relationships between partners and that affective
commitment is influenced by satisfaction (Kumar et al. 1994). And so positive surprise might
influence customers’ level of affective commitment, that is: positive surprise ➙ customer
satisfaction ➙ affective commitment ➙ customer retention.
Research Methodology
The concepts of relationship marketing and the emotion of surprise are contemporary and preparadigmatic and there is little consensus as to what they constitute. This makes it difficult to
begin with a theory and so inductive theory building is appropriate as a first step (Churchill
1999). Overall, a combination of inductivism-deductivism is employed. Thus the research project
moves from gathering evidence of surprise as a marketing tool (inductivism) toward developing
hypotheses and a framework (deductivism). These are also the reasons why the case research
method is the most appropriate research method for the first part of the research project where
the objective is to get an overall understanding of the phenomena (Crawford 1997; Yin 1994). It
has been deemed necessary to gather information from both partners in a dyad in order to
understand a relationship (e.g., Anderson 1994; Weitz and Jap 1995). This is why this research
project contacts both sides of the business-customer dyads, arranged by networking from the
business toward its customers. A multiple, embedded case study design has been designed to
build up evidence of contemporary practices of using positive surprise for retaining customers.
Thus the study involves a number of programmes such as different mail-order companies in
Belgium and insurance companies in New Zealand, and the primary unit of analysis is the
individual business with sub-units in the form of its marketing philosophy, marketing activities,
etc. Cases are chosen for theoretical reasons, as the aim is to develop our understanding of how
surprise can be used for attracting and retaining customers.
The first part of the project, which is the exploratory part, consists of in-depth interviews with
businesses that use surprise as a marketing tool. The purpose of this part is to better define
hypotheses and build the causal model that would be tested in the second part of the research
project. The polarity of surprise is examined. Cases include mail order businesses in Belgium
and insurance companies in New Zealand. The first part also includes individual interviews and
possibly focus groups with the businesses’ customers in addition to consumption-buying
experience simulations or observations of customers in a real consumption-buying context. The
second part of the project, which is the quantitative part, consists of an experimental
manipulation of the emotion of surprise (including the polarity), in a real consumption-buying
context. The experiment allows the researchers to test the model. Customers are randomly
assigned to one of three groups, that is (1) positive surprise, (2) no surprise and (3) negative
surprise. The methodology is well suited for researching the issue. The main reason is that
without manipulating it is likely that the effect of surprise would be too clouded by other factors
(Varki 1999). An experiment in a real consumption-buying context, as opposed to a laboratory
experiment, also has the advantage that it allows the researchers to record the effects of surprise
over time. This is necessary in order to measure the effectiveness of a programme of using
surprise as a competitive marketing tool. Recording the effects in a real context also yields
higher ecological validity. For all three groups of customers, a mail questionnaire is used for
measuring the effects of the manipulation. For path analysis either the LISREL or AMOS
programme is employed. The project also includes analysis of already existing data on the New
Zealand insurance industry.
It appears there is no one existing scale to perfectly record and measure all aspects of emotion
(Derbaix and Poncin 1998; Vanhamme 1999). Thus a multi-method approach with both verbal
and non-verbal scales is the best way to identify the polarity, the intensity and the quality of
surprise and the subsequent emotions that will colour it, that is joy, anger, etc. The marketing
literature has traditionally favoured verbal scales (e.g., Richins 1997; Edell and Burke 1987) but
there are a number of drawbacks of such scales. Respondents tend to rationalise their emotions,
they cannot always identify their emotional state and they may not want to share their emotions
with strangers (Derbaix and Poncin 1998; Graillot 1998). Because of this some researchers have
sought to develop non-verbal scales of emotions but these scales, although they have notable
advantages (they record the emotion in real time, they are free of the problems of retrospection
and introspection, etc.), are usually costly, time consuming and constraining. In this research
project both verbal scales such as the CES scale (Richins 1997), the DES scale Izard (1977) and
non-verbal scales are employed in the first part of the project and, if possible, in the first phase of
the second part of the research project. For the mail questionnaire only verbal scales are possible,
though. Non-verbal scales of emotions include coding of facial expressions (e.g., Derbaix 1995;
Ekman and Friesen 1975).
An exploratory in-depth interview has been conducted with the sales promotion director of one
of the most important mail order businesses in Belgium. The business sells clothes, household
furniture and equipment, etc. The procedure by Eisenhardt (1989) for developing theory from
case research data was suitable for this part of the research project. The information obtained
from this interview - together with quantitative data from the New Zealand insurance industry are currently being analysed by the researchers and will be presented at the conference.
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