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As mentioned earlier there has been an on-going, largely conceptual debate among the service quality and partly also customer satisfaction researchers about the differences, similarities, linkages, temporal order and relationship between service quality and customer satisfaction. (see e.g. Bitner 1990; Bolton and Drew 1991; Cronin and Taylor 1992; Dabholkar 1993; Oliver 1993; Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry 1994; Bitner and Hubbert 1994; Liljander and Strandvik 1995a) Traditionally customer satisfaction has been defined according to the same disconfirmation paradigm as service quality.

Some researchers see satisfaction and service quality as different constructs, but satisfaction as a lower-order construct compared to service quality, and thus satisfaction precedes service quality (e.g. Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry 1988; Bitner 1990; Bolton and Drew 1994). According to this line of research, satisfaction is merely an emotion, arousing feeling from the usage of the product/service or interaction between seller and customer and service quality is an attitude towards the product, the service or the firm. The another line of research takes the view that quality precedes satisfaction and serves as a lower-level construct (e.g. Cronin and Taylor 1992; Oliver 1993; Liljander and Strandvik 1994, 1995a; Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry 1994; Rust and Oliver 1994; Lapierre and Deslandes 1996). The third line of research sees the concepts as somewhat overlapping. The fourth line of research considers the concepts as being inseparable and separation only leads to confusion. (See more Dabholkar 1993)

At the beginning of this discussion, most of the researchers saw service quality as an attitude and satisfaction as a lower level concept. Among the first critics of this assumption were Cronin and Taylor (1992) who found that service quality was a determinant of satisfaction, not the other way

around. Liljander and Strandvik (1995a) came to same kind of conclusions. Oliver (1993) criticized the comparison standard used in service quality studies (ideal standard) and argued that a large number of other referents (for example needs and equity perceptions) are left out in service quality studies, but used in satisfaction research. He also argued that service quality can be evaluated without actually experiencing the service, but satisfaction can only be evaluated during or after the actual experience (ibid.).

Liljander and Strandvik (1995b) have based their view of service quality and satisfaction relationship largely on the same argument. According to them, service quality judgments can be made before the actual service is experienced based, for example, on prior knowledge about the service received through media or word-of-mouth. Satisfaction is linked to the service experience, and in addition to pre-knowledge –component, it includes an affective component. (ibid.). It is, however, hard to believe that the quality judgments could be based only on pre-knowledge, because the information the customer gets before the actual experience, for example, from advertisements probably causes some kind of affective responses. Furthermore, the situations where the quality judgments can be based only on the "second hand" information are, at least from the relationship perspective, very limited as they include only information prior to the actual first service experience. According to my perspective, this view of quality is a step closer to the objective product quality judgments. Service quality is now seen as extrinsic, more or less objective judgment about service, and it is at the same time losing the profound meaning as customer perceived service quality.

Liljander and Strandvik (1995b) also see that satisfaction is affected in addition to service quality by perceived sacrifices (see also Koelemeijer, Roest and Verhallen 1993; Liljander and Strandvik 1994; Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry 1994). According to their view the customer can consider the service to be of high quality, but at the same time he might not be satisfied with the service, because it is too expensive or it does not fit his preferences. (Liljander and Strandvik 1995b)

The discussion among researchers about relationship between service quality and satisfaction is according to my view a good example of the language game of the science. The phenomenon itself (i.e. the evaluation and the perception formed as a result of it) has been forgotten, and the terms have gained a central role.

However, the discussion concerning service quality and satisfaction brought certain aspects to the service quality research that can be useful in relationship quality evaluation. First, the separation into two different concepts (i.e. service quality and satisfaction) advanced the thinking about the two different evaluation levels. Second, the discussion concerning sacrifices brought an important aspect to the evaluation that was in the service quality research largely neglected. The role of sacrifices can be regarded as being even more important in the evaluation of quality in business relationships as the firms seem to be more capable of evaluating

the economic gains and loses of certain operations than an individual consumer. As the sacrifices (investments) have also been discussed in interaction approach (e.g. Wilson and Mummalananeni 1986), the aspects that service quality literature involve in this respect is the level in which sacrifices are examined. In the service quality literature sacrifices are handled in the episode level, but in the interaction approach they are handled in the relationship level.