Previous studies have indicated that one of the most important sources of new customers for small firms is recommendations from existing customers (Moriarty et al., 2008). Many small businesses do not have formalized promotional campaigns and rely instead and to a greater extent than larger organizations on word-of-mouth communications (WOM) to develop their customer bases (Lee et al., 2015; Simpson et al., 2006). For such businesses, relying on WOM referrals is reasonable as it is more matched to their resources. Referrals rarely incur additional direct costs and lead to a slower build-up of business which most small businesses prefer since large increases in demand may be difficult to manage (Carson et al., 1995). Marketers and businesses also realize the importance of WOM, with regard to its implications for trust and associated outcomes (e.g. Marchand et al., 2017; Sweeney et al., 2014; East et al., 2008). Consequently, researchers continue to investigate the factors that motivate WOM because of its known credibility. The drivers of WOM have been examined from a variety of perspectives (Baker, Donthu and Kumar, 2016; Wien and Olsen, 2014; Sweeney et al., 2008). Antecedents of WOM activity identified in previous studies include organizational characteristics, product characteristics, customer service provider attributes, customer attitudes towards the provider or product, characteristics of the customer and customer to customer interactions (e.g., Markovic et al., 2018; Singh et al., 2016; Berger, 2014; Berger and Schwartz, 2011; Anderson, 1998; De Matos and Rossi, 2008; Wangenheim and Bayón, 2007; Paridon et al., 2006; Brown et al., 2005; De Bruyn and Lilien, 2008; Libai et al., 2010). With specific reference to recommendations and referral behavior, in addition to antecedents such as rewards and incentives (Söderlund and Mattsson, 2015; Jin and Huang, 2014; Schmitt et al., 2011;), trust and perceived value (Stein and Ramaseshan, 2015), one of the key drivers of service referrals often discussed in the literature is service quality (Stein and Ramseshan, 2015; Bolton and Drew, 1991; Gounaris et al., 2007; Wang, 2009; Harrison-Walker, 2001; Zeithaml et al., 1996). Service quality is often conceptualized as having process and outcome dimensions (Grönroos, 1985), which are judged independently by customers. Whereas process quality is related to the “how” part of the service delivery, outcome quality relates to evaluations of the result of a service transaction or relationship. Although customers do judge process and outcome dimensions independently, for many services, as far as WOM is concerned, the expectation is that customers generally recommend or refer others when a final outcome for a service interaction has been obtained. For everyday services such as hair stylists, restaurants, dry-cleaning etc., this is likely to be the case. However, in some service categories, for instance, building services, estate agency services, legal services, design services etc., the service interaction lasts for a long period before a final outcome materializes. If conventional wisdom is applied, firms selling such products may wait for months for a new customer to make referrals or recommendations. However, there is evidence, (e.g. from review sites), that some customers do make referrals and recommendations even when they are yet to use a product sufficiently or complete a service interaction (we refer to these type of referrals as pre-outcome WOM). This leads to an important question: “what factors might account for differences among customers in their engagement in pre-outcome WOM?”