During financial crises, businesses often take risks and seek new customers from non-core segmentation for survival. It may satisfy immediate needs but could lead to lower future revenue potential.

Applying Schema Congruity Theory and using experimental study, the authors aim to demonstrate that simply having customers not aligned with the primary customer segmentation in the servicescape could lead to lower repurchase intention. The effect is mediated by self-congruency, which refers to the degree to which consumers think the image of the business is with their self-image.

The current study theoretically contributes by adding the “who” factor to the stream of research on servicescape that deals mainly with human interactions, broadening the literature on extrinsic cues of servicescape and further expanding on the literature on self-congruence. For the practitioners, it provides directions on dealing with the new business types when the next crisis arises.