Enhancing satisfaction with public services: The effect of recalling personal experiences

Abstract

This article contributes to the study of the determinants of satisfaction with public services and the application of the expectation-disconfirmation model to public services. This is relevant for a better understanding of the mental processes that determine public service satisfaction and the role that personal experiences play in this. The study is based on a survey experiment on public healthcare provision in Catalonia, where citizens were primed to describe positive and negative experiences. The results show that when there is high personal involvement in the form of an affective reaction there is a positive effect on satisfaction. This effect is stronger among those individuals who demand more from pubic organizations, give lower ratings to public services, and are less willing to change their judgements considering the particular social and economic context. Priming citizens into recalling their positive encounters with public services is an interesting way to battle the anti-public sector bias in the provision of public services through an ethically acceptable intervention.