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Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science

Erschienen in:

01.06.2008

Customer betrayal and retaliation: when your best customers become your worst enemies

verfasst von: Yany Grégoire, Robert J. Fisher

Erschienen in: Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science | Ausgabe 2/2008

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Abstract

After a service failure and a poor recovery, what leads loyal customers to try to punish a firm even if there is no material gain for doing so? We propose and test a justice-based model that incorporates perceived betrayal as the means to understand customer retaliation and the “love becomes hate” effect. The results suggest that betrayal is a key motivational force that leads customers to restore fairness by all means possible, including retaliation. In contrast to the majority of findings in the service literature, we propose and find that relationship quality has unfavorable effects on a customer’s response to a service recovery. As a relationship gains in strength, a violation of the fairness norm was found to have a stronger effect on the sense of betrayal experienced by customers. The model was tested on a national sample of airline passengers who complained to a consumer agency after an unsuccessful recovery.

Vorheriger Artikel A longitudinal study of the effects of life status changes on changes in consumer preferences

Nächster Artikel Weathering product-harm crises

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We also examined the possibility that demands for reparation and retaliatory behaviors were higher-order constructs formed by (instead of reflected in) their respective first-order constructs. To do so, we performed two multiple indicators of multiple causes (MIMIC) models by following the procedures of Diamantapoulos and Winklhofer (2001). Both models indicated that the expected first-order constructs were valid and significant components of the higher constructs (all p’s < 0.05). The details of this procedure are available from the first author.

The only exception was procedural fairness for which a lesser but still acceptable value was obtained for the average variance extracted. Nevertheless, the scale was not modified because it has been previously validated.

We performed a similar regression analysis using relationship exit as dependent variable. This constructs was composed of three items including “I stopped flying with the airline” (α = 0.67; AVE = 0.51). In this regression, dissatisfaction (β = 0.216; p < 0.01) and failure severity (β = 0.172; p < 0.05) were significant predictors. Although betrayal had a significant impact (β = 0.159; p < 0.05), its effect was less pronounced compared to those observed for retaliatory behaviors and demands for reparation. Anger had no significant effect (β = −0.046; p < 0.57).

We performed additional regression analyses that included anger and dissatisfaction as control variables. Although the effects of anger were significant (all p’s < 0.001) and those of dissatisfaction close to significant (all p’s < 0.06), the three-way interactions remain significant (all p’s < 0.05), and the pattern of interaction supporting the “love becomes hate” effect remains unchanged. These two control variables are not reported in Table 3 because their inclusion was not theoretically justified.

We also performed mediational analyses that examined the role of betrayal in the relationships “fairness violation → retaliatory behaviors, or demands for reparation.” Following the procedures recommended by Baron and Kenny (1986), we found that the effects of “DF × PF” and “DF × IF” on the two fairness restoration mechanisms were fully mediated by perceived betrayal. The details of this analysis are available from the first author.

We tested the “love becomes hate” hypothesis with anger and dissatisfaction (instead of betrayal) as dependent variables. In contrast to the model with betrayal, none of the three-way interactions achieved significance for anger (all p’s > 0.07) or dissatisfaction (all p’s > 0.24).

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Titel: Customer betrayal and retaliation: when your best customers become your worst enemies
verfasst von: Yany Grégoire
Robert J. Fisher
Publikationsdatum: 01.06.2008
Verlag: Springer US
Erschienen in: Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science / Ausgabe 2/2008
Print ISSN: 0092-0703
Elektronische ISSN: 1552-7824
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-007-0054-0

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