The effect of consumer emotions on outcome behaviors following service failure

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of emotions that consumers experience following service failures and to assess the effects of each of these emotions on important behavioral outcomes. Design/methodology/approach This paper extends the work of Wetzer et al. (2007) and draws upon the existing literature to test a series of research hypotheses tying emotions to four important behavioral outcomes primarily using stepwise regression. Findings When a service failure occurs, customers experience any of a variety of negative emotions. The effect on behavioral outcomes depends on the specific emotion experienced by the consumer. The current research, which benefits by using retrospective experience sampling, finds that frustration is the predominant emotion experienced by customers following service failure, but that anger, regret and frustration affect behavioral outcomes. Uncertainty also plays a role. Research limitations/implications Future research should investigate the antecedents of propensity for emotions and predisposition toward industries, as well as the consequences of word-of-mouth (WOM) praise and WOM activity. Additionally, emotions could be examined by service stage. Several other moderators could be investigated, including severity, complaining behavior, repeat occurrence, service importance, remedies and forgiveness, product vs process failures, tenure, gender and age. Practical implications The current research emphasizes the importance of understanding which emotion is being experienced by a customer following service failure to identify the behavioral outcomes that will be most impacted. The specific managerial implications depend upon the specific emotional response experienced by the customer and are discussed separately for anger, regret and frustration. Service personnel must be trained to recognize and address specific customer emotions rather than to provide a canned or generalized response. Originality/value To date, there has been little, if any, systematic research into the effects of multiple discrete negative emotions on multiple desirable behavioral outcomes. The current study examines six discrete emotions. Predominant emotions are differentiated from emotional intensity. The behavioral outcomes of reconciliation and reduced share-of-wallet are added to the traditional outcomes of repatronage intentions and negative WOM. While existing research tends to rely on a scenario approach, this study uses the retrospective experience sampling method. The authors distinguish between mixed emotions and multiple emotions. The relative effects of disappointment and regret are examined for each of the four outcomes. Finally, importance-performance map analysis was applied to the findings to prioritize managerial attention. Numerous managerial and research implications are identified.

The psychology of frustration: Appraisals, outcomes, and service recovery

“…Emotions (Grandey et al, 2004; Ruth et al, 2002), and in particular frustration are a key element in customer satisfaction and loyalty in service encounters (Gelbrich, 2010; Guchait & Namasivayam, 2012; Van Steenburg et al, 2013). Failure is known to generate a variety of negative emotions, such as anger, regret or frustration (Antonetti et al, 2020; Gelbrich, 2010; Harrison‐Walker, 2012, 2019a; Hudson et al, 2017). Using a valence‐based approach to emotions, Smith and Bolton (2002) showed that the magnitude and type of service failure impacted negative emotions with subsequent effects on satisfaction.…”

The event experiences of attendees with food allergies, intolerances and coeliac disease: risk loaded value-creation/destruction

“…The lack of responsiveness towards meeting consumers' needs or empathy regarding the consequences of disappointing the consumers represents multiple service failures. The cumulative effects of such service failures are likely to provoke negative affective responses leading to poor service evaluation and ultimately value-destruction (Harrison-Walker, 2019).…”

Towards an Inclusive Museum Management Strategy. An Exploratory Study of Consumption Experience in Visitors with Disabilities. The Case of the CosmoCaixa Science Museum

“…Experiences for these kinds of consumers may also be influenced by the opinions of third parties such as caregivers and companions [28]. The result of the experience may be satisfactory or unsatisfactory and will affect the customer's behavior, generating memories that will determine their loyalty or degree of recommendation [29]. Another result of the experience is the customer's involvement in future co-creation of experience.…”

“…However, they can try to know their visitors, and design and manage interaction points to influence perceptions, thus increasing interest, involvement, satisfaction, loyalty, and support [35]. Indeed [20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36] all point out the importance of identifying environments that produce different touchpoints and generate customer experience.…”