Weitzl, Wolfgang. 2019. Webcare’s effect on constructive and vindictive complainants. Journal of Product & Brand Management. 28 (3), 330-347.
BibTeX
Abstract
Purpose – This paper aims to demonstrate that online complainants’ reactions to a company’s service recovery attempts (webcare) can significantly vary across two different types of dissatisfied customers (“vindictives” vs “constructives”), who have dramatically diverging complaint goal orientations. Design/methodology/approach – Online multi-country survey among 812 adult consumers who recently had a dissatisfying brand experience and turned to a marketer-generated social media site to voice an online complaint for achieving their ultimate complaining goals. Scenario-based online experiment for cross-validating the survey findings. Findings – Results suggest that “vindictive complainants” – driven dominantly by brand-adverse motives – are immune to any form of webcare, while “constructive complainants” – interested in restoring the customer-brand relationship – react more sensitively. For the latter, “no-responses” often trigger detrimental brand-related reactions (e.g. unfavorable brand image), whereas “defensive responses” are likely to stimulate postwebcare negative word-of-mouth. Research limitations/implications – This research identifies the gains and harms of (un-)desired webcare. By doing so, it not only sheds light on the circumstances when marketers have to fear negative effects (e.g. negative word-of-mouth) but also provides insights into the conditions when such effects are unlikely. While the findings of the cross-sectional survey are validated with an online experiment, findings should be interpreted with care as other complaining contexts should be further investigated. Practical implications – Marketers have to expect a serious “backfiring effect” from an unexpected source, namely, consumers who were initially benevolent toward the involved brand but who received an inappropriate response.
Tags
Press 'enter' for creating the tag- service failure
- service marketing
- online complaints
- complaint handling
- service recovery
Publication's profile
Status of publication | Published |
---|---|
Affiliation | WU |
Type of publication | Journal article |
Journal | Journal of Product & Brand Management |
WU-Journal-Rating new | MAR-C, STRAT-C |
Language | English |
Title | Webcare’s effect on constructive and vindictive complainants |
Volume | 28 |
Number | 3 |
Year | 2019 |
Page from | 330 |
Page to | 347 |
Reviewed? | Y |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JPBM-04-2018-1843 |
Open Access | Y |
Open Access Link | https://doi.org/10.1108/JPBM-04-2018-1843 |
Associations
- People
- Weitzl, Wolfgang (Former researcher)
- Organization
- Marketing DP (Details)
- Retailing and Marketing IN (Details)
- Research areas (ÖSTAT Classification 'Statistik Austria')
- 5300 Economics (Details)
- 5308 Management sciences (Details)
- 5320 Marketing (Details)
- 5338 Science of advertising (Details)