The Role of Relationship Norms in Responses to Service Failures
- 1 August 2011
- journal article
- Published by Oxford University Press (OUP) in Journal of Consumer Research
- Vol. 38 (2), 260-277
- https://doi.org/10.1086/659039
Abstract
A friendly relationship with a service provider can sometimes decrease the negative feelings that consumers experience as the result of a service failure. However, friendship is not always beneficial. When consumers focus their attention on the provider’s obligation to respond to their needs, they react more negatively to a service failure when they are friends of the provider than when they have only a business relationship with him or her. When their attention is drawn to their own obligation in the relationship, however, the reverse is true. This difference is confirmed in four experiments in which the perspective from which participants imagined a service failure was activated either by unrelated experiences before being exposed to the failure or by features of the service encounter itself.Keywords
This publication has 29 references indexed in Scilit:
- The Moderating Effect of Relationship Norm Salience on Consumers' Loss Aversion: Figure 1Journal of Consumer Research, 2006
- The Effects of Self‐Construal and Commitment on PersuasionJournal of Consumer Research, 2005
- The Effects of Brand Relationship Norms on Consumer Attitudes and BehaviorJournal of Consumer Research, 2004
- When Good Brands Do BadJournal of Consumer Research, 2004
- "I" seek pleasures and "we" avoid pains: The role of self-regulatory goals in information processing and persuasionJournal of Consumer Research, 2001
- Empathy Versus Pride: the Influence of Emotional Appeals Across CulturesJournal of Consumer Research, 1998
- The Difference between Communal and Exchange Relationships: What it is and is NotPersonality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 1993
- Evaluating Service Encounters: The Effects of Physical Surroundings and Employee ResponsesJournal of Marketing, 1990
- Recipient's mood, relationship type, and helping.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1987
- Interpersonal attraction in exchange and communal relationships.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1979