Consumers' contingent use of the service duration for service judgments.

In the marketplace, marketers often emphasize the duration of a service in their advertisements or promotions. An experimental study revealed that an explicit 2-h program with a less favorable service episode was judged more favorably than was an explicit 1-h program with a more favorable service episode under unbundled purchase, in which consumers could evaluate duration in relation to price. The-longer-the-better effect was not prominent under the bundled purchase in which consumers could not conceptually match duration to price. The findings of a field study replicated those of the experimental study and expanded external validity for the duration heuristic. The results provide insights into the promotion through framing duration for the service in which the duration and its value correlate positively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]