This article explores the effects of time and relationship strength on the evolution of customer revenge and avoidance in online public complaining contexts. First, the authors examine whether online complainers hold a grudge-in terms of revenge and avoidance desires-over time. They find that time affects the two desires differently: Although revenge decreases over time, avoidance increases over time, indicating that customers indeed hold a grudge. Second, the authors examine the moderation effect of a strong relationship on how customers hold this grudge. They find that firms' best customers have the longest unfavorable reactions (i.e., a longitudinal lovebecomes-hate effect). Specifically, over time, the revenge of strong-relationship customers decreases more slowly and their avoidance increases more rapidly than that of weak-relationship customers. Third, the authors explore a solution to attenuate this damaging effect-namely, the firm offering an apology and compensation after the online complaint. Overall, they find that strong-relationship customers are more amenable to any level of recovery attempt. The authors test the first two issues with a longitudinal survey and the third issue with a follow-up experiment.

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.

This article develops and tests a comprehensive model of customer revenge that contributes to the literature in three manners. First, we identify the key role played by the customer's perception of a firm's greedthat is, an inferred negative motive about a firm's opportunistic intent-that dangerously energizes customer revenge. Perceived greed is found as the most influential cognition that leads to a customer desire for revenge, even after accounting for well studied cognitions (i.e., fairness and blame) in the service literature. Second, we make a critical distinction between direct and indirect acts of revenge because these sets of behaviors have different repercussions-in "face-to-face" vs. "behind a firm's back"-that call for different interventions. Third, our extended model specifies the role of customer perceived power in predicting these types of behaviors. We find that power is instrumental-both as main and moderation effects-only in the case of direct acts of revenge (i.e., aggression and vindictive complaining). Power does not influence indirect revenge, however. Our model is tested with two field studies: (1) a study examining online public complaining, and (2) a multi-stage study performed after a service failure.

No abstract

No abstract