Affective responses to service failure: Anger, regret, and retaliatory versus conciliatory responses

Abstract

After a service failure, consumers make appraisals or assessments about the characteristics of this failure. These appraisals, in turn, affect how a consumer responds emotionally and behaviorally. Using an appraisal-tendency framework, we predict that two negatively valenced emotions (anger and regret) underlie or mediate the effects of consumers’ appraisals about service failure on post-purchase behaviors. Consistent with the predictions, in a laboratory study, we find that anger plays a powerful role in explaining retaliatory behaviors, and that both anger and regret account for the effect of appraisals on conciliatory behaviors. We extend the same appraisal-tendency framework to predict how changes in emotions underlie the effects of recovery efforts on post-purchase behaviors. Again consistent with predictions, in the laboratory study and in a web-based study, we find that recovery efforts that reduce anger decrease retaliatory behaviors. However, both studies provide less clear-cut evidence about the emotional mediators between recovery efforts and conciliatory behaviors. Because conciliatory behaviors are important behaviors for businesses to promote, future research should explore what other emotions explain recovery effort effects on conciliatory behaviors. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2007Post-purchase, Anger, Regret, Recovery,

Customer Rage: Triggers, Tipping Points, and Take-Outs

“…22 These appraisals in turn affect how a customer reacts emotionally and behaviorally. 23 Different individuals may evaluate a situation differently. In other words, emotions are produced by an individual's appraisal process in conjunction with a specific service encounter.…”

White response to potentially discriminatory actions in a services setting

“…Specifically, ambiguous service failures involving black consumers might serve as an emotionally laden trigger for some whites witnessing said acts. If this is indeed the case, one could make the case that the negativity of a service failure involving ambiguously racist actions is significantly broader than originally considered, since negative emotion that arises due to a service failure has been found to lead to everything from retaliatory behaviors (Bonifield & Cole, 2007), switching behavior and negative word-of-mouth (Bougie, Pieters, & Zeelenberg, 2003), as well as to consumer complaints and repurchase intentions (Folkes, Koletsky, & Graham, 1987). This suggests that the ultimate impact of the service failure is much more wide-reaching than originally considered.…”

The impact of the package opening process on product returns

“…It is worth noting that the emotions mentioned in previous service failures research are ''high-road'' affective reactions (i.e., anger and regret), as they are the outcomes of cognitive reactions (i.e., appraisals about service failure) (Bonifield and Cole 2007;Choi and Mattila 2008;Gelbrich 2010;Smith and Bolton 2002). However, marketing researchers have also explored ''low-road'' affective reactions, e.g., emotions evoked by color, gift, and coupon.…”