Quality, value, satisfaction, trust, a

esponse to the behavior of other customers found that most of the demographic
differences such as age, education, income and gender are not related to our
behavior towards fellow customers. They however found that marital status is
positively related to dissatisfaction with the behavior of fellow customers.
Since most of the demographic variables fail to explain much of the
variation in customers’ reactions towards incompatibility, we need additional
variables to explain the variation. Another set of variables, personal psychological
variables, seems promising in improving our understanding of incompatibility.
Variables such as mood states, perceived control, prior expectations,
involvement and personal values has been demonstrated to be strongly linked to
consumer purchase intentions (Machleit et al. 2000, Swinyard 1997, Hui and
Bateson 1991). We believe that these variables, in addition to having a direct
effect on purchase intentions, also directly impact the intensity of a consumers’
reaction to the incompatibility of their fellow customers which in turn contributes
to future purchase intentions and re-patronage. Although Martin (1989) suggests
the possible impact of personal psychological variables such as individual beliefs,
attitudes, personal values on our reactions to customer incompatibility, his
propositions have not been tested.
In providing guidelines for incompatibility management, researchers have
predominantly opted for segmentation as the preferred method to avoid
unpleasant situations (Martin 1996, Martin and Partner 1991, Martin and Partner
1989). Customer education on their roles in achieving satisfaction, clear
communication about the acceptable behaviors (Grove and Fisk 1997, Bitner et
al. 1997), realistic expectation setting (Bitner et al. 1997), and efficient
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