Effects of service setting and other consumers’ age on the service perceptions of young consumers

Services are often delivered in settings where many consumers are present at the same time, yet the issue of how other consumers affect service perceptions has received little attention. We study young adults’ response to fellow consumers who are middle-aged and old, testing predictions based on recent research suggesting that stereotypes are context dependent, and that stereotypes of older adults vary depending on the person attributes considered. Varying the age of the other consumers and service settings we find that the presence of older consumers affects young adults’ attitude to the service as well as their patronage intentions. Young consumers’ attitude to the service deteriorated in the presence of older consumers for services requiring physical attributes, but this was less so for services requiring personal expressive attributes.     

The impact of service failure on brand credibility

Recent studies have examined the consequences of brand credibility, with the majority of works embedded in physical goods. Despite the growing attention service branding receives, little is known about how service failure and recovery efforts impact on brand credibility in service organisations. The purpose of this study is to examine how brand credibility is affected by service failure and an organisations recovery efforts. An online self-completion survey of airline consumers (n=875) was employed to test the relationships between the focal constructs. The results show that a service firm’s effective complaint handling positively impacts satisfaction with complaining, overall satisfaction and service brand credibility. The study also finds that the higher the perceived magnitude of failure, the more difficult it is to satisfy a customer. These results demonstrate that it is possible to maintain service brand credibility during a service failure, provided brand managers develop and implement effective complain handling procedures.     

The journey from customer participation in service failure to co-creation in service recovery

Customer participation is growing into a widespread phenomenon in the service context. Despite the inherent significance of customer expectations to service failures in the high-participation service context, scant research exists on studying the links among customer participation, customer expectation of service recovery, and service outcomes (e.g., word-of-mouth or WOM). Even more pressing is the lack of research on the type of service recovery that can countervail the inflated customer expectation of service recovery and restore service outcomes. This research demonstrates that high contribution of customers in the beginning of service provision procedure leads to high recovery expectations and low satisfaction. The results also support that co-created service recovery (CCS-R), as contrasted to firm and customer recoveries, has a greater positive effect on satisfaction. Further, the contrasting impacts of each service recovery type on positive and negative WOM are presented. An experiment was conducted using service failure and recovery scenarios. Regression analysis was used to test the hypotheses. The current research has some important implications for scholars and managers who wish to effectively recover failed high-participation service encounters.     

The effects of social justice and stigma-consciousness on gay customers' service recovery evaluation

This study examines how social justice and the stigma-consciousness level of gay customers influence their service recovery perceptions. The results, based on an experiment involving 379 gay respondents, indicate that distributive justice, procedural justice, and interactional justice significantly affect gay customers' service recovery evaluations (satisfaction) and post-complaint behavioral intentions (negative word-of-mouth and repatronage). Also, higher stigma-consciousness gay customers show more negative service recovery evaluations and behavioral intentions than those with lower stigma-consciousness. Service providers who are interested in attracting and maintaining gay customers should create awareness among their employees about stigma-consciousness.     

Examining the impact of service robot communication styles on customer intimacy following service failure

With the growing use of robots in the service industry, service failures have increased. This study applies the Communication Accommodation Theory to examine how robot employees' communication style can foster perceived intimacy, reducing customer anger and negative word-of-mouth. The study also tests if this relationship varies based on failure severity. Results show that an informal communication style significantly reduces negative word-of-mouth through intimacy, but only for low severity failures. These findings offer valuable insights for service providers using robots, emphasizing the need to adapt communication styles based on failure severity to effectively manage negative customer experiences.     

The effects of harm directions and service recovery strategies on customer forgiveness and negative word-of-mouth intentions

This study aims to investigate the direction of harm and the role of service recovery strategies on customer positive (i.e., forgiveness) and negative (i.e., word-of-mouth) intentions. We found that customer intentions are stronger among those who are directly affected by the service failure than indirectly affected customers. Further, we assess the role of service recovery in customer intentions after the service failure. The study findings contribute to the development of theory on the “other customers” effect by comparing the consequences of service failure directed at the focal customer and other customers and provide solutions to practitioners to reduce this damaging effect.     

Group service recovery strategies effectiveness: The moderating effects of group size and relational distance

The extant service recovery literature focuses on consumers' responses to individual failures. However, group service failures are in fact common, but they have received insufficient research attention. This study contributes to theory and practice by applying social impact theory to explain the social nature of group failures. Findings from two studies show that group size and relational distance substantially affect consumers' response to group service recovery strategies. Specifically, private economic recovery creates less consumer satisfaction as group size increases, whereas consumers with a distant social relationship are more satisfied with public recovery for both economic recovery and social recovery. However, consumers with close relationships are more satisfied with public economic recovery and private social recovery. Apart from offering practical insights, this study expands the theoretical understanding of service failures, suggesting that they occur in a complex social ecology instead of relatively simple dyadic interactions between service providers and consumers.     

Managing social media recovery: The important role of service recovery transparency in retaining customers

This research examines the influence of service recovery transparency on customer forgiveness to retain customers in the context of service recovery via social media. We propose that customer forgiveness mediates the effect of service recovery transparency on switchover intentions. We further posit that the effect of service recovery transparency on customer forgiveness is moderated by two additional recovery strategies, i.e., apology and explanation. The results of two studies, i.e., a survey and a scenario-based experiment, show that service recovery transparency acts to elicit customer forgiveness, which subsequently negatively affects switchover intentions. Furthermore, both apology and explanation moderate the effect of service recovery transparency on customer forgiveness. The positive effect of service recovery transparency on customer forgiveness is attenuated when an apology/explanation is absent.     

Pursuit of loyalty in service recovery: The roles of brand equity and cognitive reappraisal as moderators

This research investigates the roles of brand equity and cognitive reappraisal in the association between the perception of justice and loyalty via customer affection in a service failure and recovery context. Survey data were subjected to the conditional process analysis using the regression-based method. Results reveal that customer affection plays a mediating role in the link between the perception of justice and loyalty. In addition, brand equity and cognitive reappraisal contribute as moderators in influencing the behavioral outcomes. Implications for researchers and managers are also provided.     

Satisfaction with service recovery: Perceived justice and emotional responses

This study examines the relationship between perceived justice, emotions, and satisfaction during service recovery (SR). The current research work proposes a model analyzing the direct effects of justice on satisfaction, along with its indirect effects, via emotions. A field study that captures consumer perceptions of actual SR situations in the cellular-telephone sector tests the model. The paper investigates the relative effects of the dimensions of perceived justice on satisfaction and the emotions triggered by SR. Results indicate that all three justice dimensions affect satisfaction, with procedural justice showing the strongest relative influence, as well as being the only dimension affecting the emotions. Results also show that negative emotions mediate the effects of justice on satisfaction with SR (SSR).     

Managing service recovery experience: Effects of the forgiveness for older consumers

The research studies empirically the role that fairness plays in shaping emotional and behavioral forgiveness among older U.S. consumers (55 years of age and older). A theoretical model is proposed and tested that proposes, consistent with theory on emotions, that perceptions of justice affect behavioral forgiveness through emotional forgiveness. An alternative theory questions whether the effects of justice are totally mediated by emotion. Comparative results support the latter model. The cognitive perceptions of justice display a stronger effect compared to the mediated effect through emotional forgiveness. Additionally, an examination of moderation by psychological age suggests that relatively old and young (psychologically) consumers react in the same manner. While clearly, service managers need to be sensitive to the emotions of senior customers, the results here suggest a stronger role for cognitive perceptions of justice. Thus, service providers need to provide senior consumers with clearly understandable explanations for any service failure and explain how the recovery efforts will compensate for the failure.     

The distinctive agenda of service failure recovery in e-tailing: Criticality of logistical / non-logistical service failure typologies and e-tailing ethics

What is so different about executing service failure recovery in an online environment as in e-tailing?Answering this, the present research points out to the need of considering e-tailing's natural propensity to foster multiple avenues of service failures which are either logistical or non-logistical in nature. Furthermore, given the distant location of the product, e-tailer, and the buyer, e-tailing is posed with risks of ethical transgressions. Therefore, by contextualizing on an Indian e-tailing scenario, we explore how service failure recovery in this challenging setting could be shaped. Justice building failure mitigation strategies such as response speed and compensation emerge to improve recovery efforts, however, apology seems to not work well in establishing justice to drive service failure recovery. Interestingly, an e-tailer's watchfulness toward the strengthening of its online ethics synergistically redeems recovery satisfaction, customer forgiveness, and positive word-of-mouth for the grieving consumer. This synergy can further mitigate the adverse impacts of service failure severity on recovery outcomes. Yet, a consumer having faced a severe service failure instance can have reservations in spreading positive word-of-mouth despite forgiving. Lastly, when considering logistical vs. non-logistical service failure typologies, the synergistic influence of e-tailing ethics and justice over recovery satisfaction becomes very strong in the case of non-logistical service failures.     

Co-creation of service recovery: Utilitarian and hedonic value and post-recovery responses

Based on the literature on customer value and service dominant (S-D) logic, this study suggests that hedonic and utilitarian value derived from co-creation of a service recovery contribute to perceived equity and affect toward the service recovery, which, in turn, enhance customers’ repurchase intentions. A scenario-based survey approach was used to collect data from U.S. consumers (N=330). Results show that utilitarian value enhances both equity and affect toward the service recovery while hedonic value contributes only to equity. In addition, the findings reveal that both equity and affect toward the recovery are positively associated with repurchase intentions.     

Measuring experienced emotions during service recovery encounters: construction and assessment of the ESRE scale

The role of emotions is increasingly gaining attention as a central element in understanding customer evaluations of service failure and recovery experiences. Despite the importance of emotions for service organizations, however, empirical investigations of customers’ emotional response to service recovery encounters remain scarce. A reason for this has been the absence of a valid and reliable measurement instrument for analyzing and comparing the emotions associated with different recovery experiences. Addressing this issue, the current paper presents the development and validation of a new scale specifically designed to measure experienced emotions during service recovery encounters (ESRE). The results show that the ESRE scale is a valid and reliable instrument, which should be helpful for empirically studying the role of emotional responses to service failure and recovery encounters.

The impact of ethical cues on customer satisfaction with service

This study examines the effects of ethical and unethical cues on customers’ evaluations of the ethics of a service provider and their subsequent satisfaction with the service. The results of a disguised, laboratory experiment are used to suggest that customers respond to unethical cues in the environment through lower ethical assessments and satisfaction ratings, but that ethical cues may not necessarily increase satisfaction scores when compared to a neutral situation. The implications suggest that ethical cues and an honest service provider may be the expected norm, and thus will lead to (or maintain) satisfaction with the service encounter, while unethical cues will create dissatisfaction.     

Management of perceptions of information technology service quality

The present study evaluates the perception gaps of service quality between information technology (IT) service providers and their clients. IT services require high investments, which make analyzing its effectiveness increasingly important. To do this analysis, this study uses the instrument SERVPERF of the SERVQUAL model. The research took place in a large Brazilian retail bank, which identified gaps in perceptions between IT service providers and its clients. The findings suggest opportunities for improvement in the quality of IT services from a strategic alignment perspective, particularly in the following dimensions: tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy. The study also indicates some enhancements for the SERVQUAL model.     

Exploration of lead factors affecting service recovery

This research attempts to explore the influence of empowerment on service recovery from the viewpoint of managers and also to probe into the possible differences in the adoption of service recovery strategies in different corporate cultures. Linear multivariate data analysis and nonlinear fuzzy neural network are combined to analyze data and verify the proposed hypotheses. Through the investigation into Chinese and Western food chain stores, it is shown that the more empowered employees will adopt more active failure recovery strategies; and tougher corporate cultures tend to have passive service recovery strategies, whereas minor corporate cultures tend to have active service recovery strategies. Customer relationship involvement reveals positive influences on the adoption of recovery strategies. The characteristic of this research is that, on the one hand, through the empirical conclusion of the nonlinear fuzzy neural network model, we not only measure the relationship among the variables more precisely, but also have less restrictive conditions. Also, according to organizational management factors, this research proposes and examines the influencing factors affecting service recovery strategies. It explores the responses to service recovery from the viewpoint of internal prevention in the organization, which is different from past research that focussed mostly upon consumers' views.     

The competitive impact of service process improvement: Examining customers’ waiting experiences in retail markets

In this paper, we investigate the impact of a service process improvement in front-end retail operations on the waiting experiences of shared customers, that is, those customers who patronize a retailer as well as its competitors. Our findings from two studies—a field study and a controlled laboratory experiment—suggest that while customers’ waiting time perceptions are independent across competing firms, their waiting time satisfaction is interdependent. As a result, the impact of a retailer's service improvement initiative that reduces waiting times is not merely local to the retailer but propagates to its competitors through its shared customers. Specifically, such an improvement not only raises shared customers’ satisfaction with the focal retailer, it also concurrently lowers their satisfaction with the retailer's competitors. By implication, current approaches that assess the impact of a service process improvement by just measuring the difference in customer satisfaction before and after the improvement may be underestimating the true impact of such improvements.     

Global managers’ perceptions of cultural competence

To work effectively in the global business arena, managers need a strong set of intercultural management skills. When dealing with clients, co-workers, and other stakeholders at home or abroad, managers with cross-cultural competence have a distinct competitive advantage in the multicultural marketplace. Although generally accepted as a valuable asset for doing business, cross-cultural competence defies easy definition. This study attempts to conceptualize the complex term from the practitioner's point of view. What does cross-cultural competence mean to global managers? From their perspective, which aspects of culture do business people need to understand? From the universe of cultural beliefs, values, attitudes, and country-specific information, what should an executive, with limited time, focus on to develop a basic level of cultural competence? This study asked Mexican managers what they needed to know about culture to do business with the U.S. In the process, they consistently identified certain basic components of cultural competence. Responses were surprisingly similar among the managers, indicating they had a clear picture of which cultural essentials were most important for global executives to learn. The results of the study reveal a working definition of cultural competence for global managers. This research also provides trainers and business educators a content framework for a short-term training program, based on the global managers’ perceptions of cross-cultural competence.