Perceived Experience Disconfirmation Scale

What it measures

Measures the degree to which a customer perceives that an actual service experience exceeded, met, or fell short of prior expectations. Items use bipolar anchors to capture directional comparisons between expected and experienced outcomes, with higher scores indicating positive disconfirmation (i.e., the experience surpassed expectations).

Scale items

• Overall, my experience with the _____ was: much worse than expected / much better than expected
• Overall, my experience with the _____ was: much poorer than I thought / much better than I thought
• Overall, my experience with the _____ was: an unpleasant surprise / a pleasant surprise
• Overall, my experience with the _____ was: fell short of expectations / exceeded expectations
• Overall, my experience with the _____ was: more problematic than expected / less problematic than expected

Full scale items shown. Always cite the original source when using this scale in research.

Usage notes & scoring

Developed by Allen et al. (2015) for use in a service recovery context, drawing on disconfirmation terminology from Oliver and Bearden (1985). Administered via an online panel (n = 264) in Study 2, with hotel service as the focal experience. The scale stem requires a generic label for the focal service or product to be inserted in the blank (e.g., 'hotel'). Note: some secondary citations list this as Oliver and Bearden (1989); the correct year is 1985.

Citation

Allen, A. M., Brady, M. K., Robinson, S. G., & Voorhees, C. M. (2015). One firm's loss is another's gain: Capitalizing on other firms' service failures. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 43(5), 648–662.