Co-creating service recovery after service failure:The role of brand equity! Abstract Co-creating service recoveries with customers has recently appeared as a new perspective in service research. Prior research demonstrates the effectiveness of co-created recovery strategies in driving customer outcomes, and outlines when co-creating a service recovery is recommended. This paper complements prior research not only by demonstrating the mediating role of outcome favorability in the relationship between co-created service recovery and customer outcomes, but also by showing whether organizations with different levels of brand equity benefit equally from co-creating service recovery with their customers.The results of two experiments show that co-creating a service recovery makes customers believe they received the most favorable solution for the service failure, which in turn influences satisfaction with service recovery and repurchase intentions. In addition, cocreating a service recovery is recommended for organizations with low levels of brand equity, but not for organizations with high levels of brand equity.
Access-based services (ABS), which grant customers limited access to goods without any transfer of ownership, are unique technology-based service innovations requiring the substantial involvement and collaboration of customers without employees' supervision. Although ABS offer several potential advantages, convincing customers to use them remains challenging. Combining 56 in-depth interviews with supplementary literature, the authors address this challenge by proposing an integrative framework that reflects the (1) barriers that prevent customers from using ABS and (2) practices in which customers engage to attenuate those barriers. The complex, multidimensional barriers relate not only to the service and technology features but also to other customers. Customers can engage in different practices to attenuate perceived barriers and create value, namely, "to distance," "to manage," "to elaborate," "to control," and "to relate." Yet, they regard these barrier-attenuating practices as necessary sacrifices to use ABS. Complementing suggestions that customers adopt and use ABS to escape the burdens of ownership, the current research reveals that customers actually may confront several "burdens of access." This research suggests managers who wish to reduce rejection of their innovation could not only overcome customers' perceived barriers but also facilitate and reduce the number of practices in which customers engage to attenuate those barriers themselves.
Research on customer participation in service recovery is surging, yet empirical examinations provide mixed results. A meta-analysis of 30 independent samples reported in 21 studies (N = 7,872) shows that the effect sizes for the relationships between customer participation in service recovery and customer outcomes are rather weak. We also find that customer participation in service recovery has an indirect effect on satisfaction with service recovery via distributive justice and procedural justice, but not via interactional justice. Conversely, customer participation in service recovery has an indirect effect on overall satisfaction via distributive justice and interactional justice, but not via procedural justice. Finally, the effectiveness of customer participation in service recovery is stronger when customers participate in the outcome of the recovery and for customers with an Eastern cultural background, but weaker when additional compensation is offered and in online settings.
PurposeTechnological innovations such as smart mobile devices and mobile applications gave rise to a new business model: collaborative consumption. This business model, which is receiving significant attention from researchers and practitioners, is characterized by an intermediating digital platform that facilitates exchanges between customers and peer service providers. However, many digital platform providers still fail to build a critical mass of demand and supply. Accordingly, the aim of this research is to develop a better understanding of the barriers perceived by both customers and peer service providers.Design/methodology/approachThis study uses a mixed-method qualitative approach to develop a comprehensive understanding of the factors that explain the rejection of collaborative consumption. In particular, six focus groups and 14 in-depth interviews were conducted, totaling 50 Belgian participants (with a mean age of 33 years). In addition, 375 online critical incidents—retrieved from various sources, such as review websites and social networks—were used for triangulation purposes. All data were analyzed using a thematic analytic approach.FindingsCustomers and peer service providers reject collaborative consumption because of a complex set of multidimensional functional and psychological barriers. In particular, actors may perceive barriers related to complexity, value, risk, compatibility, contamination, image, and responsibility, which prevent them from participating in collaborative consumption.Originality/valueThis paper builds theory on the reasons why both customers and peer service providers reject collaborative consumption. The research identifies several barriers that were not captured in prior research. Digital platform providers can use the research findings to more fully understand actors' decision-making processes in collaborative consumption.
Although access-based services (ABS) offer many benefits, convincing consumers to use these service innovations remains challenging. Research suggests that contamination concerns are an important barrier to consumer adoption of ABS; they arise when a person believes someone else has touched an object and transferred residue or germs. However, systematic examination of this phenomenon is lacking. We conduct four experiments to determine (1) the impact of contamination concerns on consumer evaluations of ABS, (2) when such concerns become salient in ABS, and (3) how ABS providers can reduce these concerns. The results reveal that consumers experience more contamination concerns about objects used in proximity to their bodies, especially when those objects are shared with unfamiliar users, and that such concerns negatively influence their evaluations of ABS. Consumers also exhibit less contamination concerns about ABS that have high brand equity because of their elevated stereotype-related perceptions of the competence of those users. Firms’ advertisements depicting physical contact between shared objects and other users negatively influence ABS evaluations by consumers whose contamination concept is activated. This article provides insights for developing product, branding, and communication strategies to reduce consumers’ contamination concerns and maximize ABS adoption.
PurposeOrganizations increasingly develop and offer sharing services enabled by means of product-service systems (PSS). However, organizations offering sharing-based PSS face a unique set of design challenges and operational risks. The purpose of this paper is to provide researchers and practitioners with customer-based insights into service delivery system design and risk management for sharing-based PSS operational success.Design/methodology/approachThis qualitative study combines in-depth interviews with supplementary, multidisciplinary literature and secondary firm data. In total, the authors conducted 56 semi-structured interviews with diverse customers across different business-to-customer (B2C) PSS settings.FindingsFirst, the authors develop an integrative conceptual framework that reveals what structural and infrastructural design choices customer expect organizations to make for mitigating risks and enhancing customer-perceived value in the sharing economy. These design choices may influence customers' trust and control perceptions in all actors involved in the service delivery system. Second, the results suggest that sharing value proposition, customer-perceived level of consequentiality and level of customer-supplied resources are contingency factors that need to be considered when making design decisions for risk management in the sharing economy.Originality/valueThis study extends Sampson's Unified Service Theory by proposing that, with sharing-based PSS, production flows from customers to customers. This situation creates unique challenges for operations management. This paper extends current understanding of the role, characteristics and contingencies of service delivery system design for risk management in the sharing economy. In doing so, authors challenge common wisdom and suggest understanding both the organizational and customers' individual contexts is critical for (contingency) theory and practice.
PurposeCustomers might become concerned about getting contaminated and adapt their behavior accordingly, which is of critical concern for service managers. The purpose of this paper is threefold. First, this paper synthesizes the extant body of research within psychology and marketing into an integrative framework that helps understand the current state of knowledge on contamination. Second, this review summarizes evidence-based managerial recommendations on how to deal with customers' contamination concerns. Third, this paper provides guidance for future research by proposing several ways in which those concerns might influence service management.Design/methodology/approachThis paper conducts an integrative literature review of over 30 years of psychology and marketing research on contamination concerns.FindingsThe paper reviews physical and metaphysical contagion models, the situational cues that may activate customers' contamination concerns, the psychological mechanisms that underlie the relationship between contamination and customer outcomes and the individual characteristics that influence customer sensitivity to contamination cues. Moreover, this review identifies actions that service managers can take to prevent customers' contamination concerns. Finally, still much has to be learned about how organizations should deal with fear of contamination by the time a next pandemic breaks out.Originality/valueThis paper develops an integrative framework that serves as a structured knowledge map onto the contamination phenomenon and paves the way for future service research.
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