A systematic review of brand transgression, service failure recovery and product-harm crisis: integration and guiding insights

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This research examines the extent to which proactivity in handling flight overbooking reduces negative electronic word-of-mouth (NeWOM) and the required costs of compensation, thus increasing firm profitability. It answers recent calls to use a multimethod approach (i.e., we include archival data, qualitative interviews, seven experiments, and a Monte Carlo simulation for a total of 10 studies) and to adapt recovery to specific contexts (i.e., airlines) and heterogeneous customers (i.e., voluntary/involuntary bumping or offloading). The preliminary studies indicate that overbooking and offloading are pervasive and that a proactive approach is both feasible and desirable. The experiments show that, compared to the default reactive approach (informing passengers at the gate), a proactive approach (informing them before they leave for the airport) substantially reduces NeWOM and the sought compensation. Further, a very reactive approach (informing them in the plane) significantly increases NeWOM and the sought compensation, especially when offloading occurs involuntarily. We also unveil the mechanism explaining the effects of proactivity on NeWOM, through the serial mediation of justice and betrayal. Finally, the results of a Monte Carlo simulation show that offering reduced compensation through a proactive approach allows more aggressive overbooking, higher capacity utilization, and increased net revenue of up to 1.3%.

Section: General Discussion and Theoretical Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 82%

Proactive Handling of Flight Overbooking: How to Reduce Negative eWOM and the Costs of Bumping Customers

Nazifi

Gelbrich

Grégoire

et al. 2020

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“…That is, a single article may contain more than one study. b In self-selected context, the respondents are usually asked to remember a recent CX, whereas varied contexts indicate studies with more than one context (Khamitov, Grégoire, and Suri 2020).…”

Section: The Tcq Nomenclature: Methodological Challengesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Moving the Customer Experience Field Forward: Introducing the Touchpoints, Context, Qualities (TCQ) Nomenclature

Keyser

Verleye

Lemon

et al. 2020

299

385

In response to initial voices that put the customer experience (management) (CX(M)) movement into question, this article aims to introduce a formal nomenclature to push the CX(M) field toward a more mature state. First, drawing from an inductive analysis of 143 CX(M) papers, the authors identify 12 basic CX components that aggregate into three overarching building blocks—touchpoints (T, i.e., points of interaction between the customer and brand/firm), context (C, i.e., situationally available resources internal and/or external to the customer), and qualities (Q, i.e., attributes that reflect the nature of customer responses and reactions to interactions with the brand/firm). The TCQ nomenclature offers a language to make CX actionable, moving beyond the breadth of the current definition and frameworks by disentangling CX into small bite-sized chunks (i.e., the CX components) that any academic and practitioner, regardless of their discipline, may understand and use to discuss and manage CX. Second, using the TCQ nomenclature, the authors assess the current state of the CX(M) literature and identify mature (e.g., firm-controlled touchpoints and cognitive and emotional qualities associated with CX) and underdeveloped (e.g., nonfirm controlled touchpoints and the market and environmental context in which CX emerges) areas ripe for future research. In addition, they also provide a set of recommendations to strengthen the methodological rigor of the field. Third, the TCQ nomenclature may support managers in auditing their current CXM practices and/or serve as a basis for CX design and innovation.

“…The time might be ripe to integrate SFR classics, meta-analyses, and systematic reviews into the quantitative-objective domain to take this stream to the next level. Quantitative researchers should realize that the behavioral-subjective domain offers a large variety of well-articulated theories such as justice theory, attribution theory, the disconfirmation paradigm, the service quality paradigm, appraisal theories, and the revenge and forgiveness framework (Khamitov, Grégoire, and Suri 2020). In addition, behavioral SFR offers clear definitions and valid scales for most constructs.…”

Section: Solid Building Blocksmentioning

confidence: 99%

Service Failure and Recovery at the Crossroads: Recommendations to Revitalize the Field and its Influence

Grégoire

Mattila

2020

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In this editorial, we offer a critical assessment of the service failure and recovery (SFR) literature and suggest that the field is at a crossroads in terms of growth and relevance. Specifically, we address two key questions: (1) What is the current state of the field? (2) What avenues should SFR researchers pursue to promote a new stage of success? To answer the first question, we tracked the evolution of SFR articles over the last 15 years by using Web of Science. Our analysis suggests that the recent growth of SFR research is mainly attributable to articles published in specialized journals; the number of articles published in leading journals remains stable and relatively low for the last 10 years. This situation reflects the poor integration of two core SFR domains: Behavioral-subjective research tends to be published in specialized journals, whereas quantitative-objective articles have been in high demand in leading journals. To answer the second question, we propose a dozen research avenues to help the integration of the two domains, so that the whole field can regain prominence. These research avenues are organized in four categories: (1) expanding the static “customer-firm” dyad, (2) studying new contexts that challenge the assumption of recovery, (3) collecting better data and using stronger analytics, and (4) building on the synthetic knowledge base already created. By making such changes, the SFR domain will reclaim its rightful place as an important subfield of service science.