Service fairness and customer satisfaction

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between service fairness and customer satisfaction, and test the mediation role of customer psychological empowerment in this relationship. Design/methodology/approach A cross-sectional empirical study is designed to test the research model. Customers of retail bank in South China are surveyed. Regression analysis and structural equation model analysis are done with SPSS 21.0 and LISREL 8.72 separately. Findings The results indicate that: first, service fairness increases customer satisfaction. Specifically, distributive fairness, procedural fairness and interactional fairness affect customer satisfaction positively and directly, while informational fairness affects customer satisfaction indirectly. Second, customer psychological empowerment fully mediates the relationship between informational fairness and customer satisfaction, while plays a partial mediating role between distributive fairness, procedural fairness, interactional fairness and customer satisfaction. Third, four kinds of service fairness have different influences on three dimensions of customer psychological empowerment. Practical implications The findings provide suggestions for managers to improve customer psychological empowerment by treating customer fairly, and to increase customer satisfaction through empowering customer in services, especially for state-owned banks. Originality/value It is recognized that service fairness leads to customer satisfaction in marketing literature; however, the empirical research studies about this are rare. This research not only contributes to service fairness theory, but also enriches our understanding of customer empowerment in service process.

How do social media influencers inspire consumers' purchase decisions? The mediating role of parasocial relationships

“…In addition, this study's findings are consistent with the findings of earlier studies related to individual perception of fairness in the organization conducted by Waribo et al (2020) in Nigeria and service fairness perception of consumers conducted by Han et al (2019) in China. The result of the study conducted by Waribo et al (2020) depicted that all four dimensions of fairness have a significant positive influence on employee perception, whereas a study conducted by Han et al (2019) suggested that distributive, procedural, and interpersonal fairness have a significant positive influence on customer psychological empowerment. In contrast, there is no influence on informational fairness.…”

“…The findings of this study are also in line with the findings of earlier studies conducted by Waribo et al (2020) that all four dimensions of fairness significantly positively influence employee behaviour outcomes via employee perception. Moreover, the study conducted by Han et al (2019) suggested that distributive, procedural, and interpersonal fairness significantly positively influence customer satisfaction via customer psychological empowerment.…”

“…Han et al (2019) suggested that distributive, procedural, and interpersonal fairness have a significant positive influence on customer psychological empowerment. In contrast, there is no influence on informational fairness.The mediation analysis results suggested an indirect positive influence of interpersonal, procedural, and informational fairness on consumers' purchase intentions via PSR.…”

“…In contrast, the earlier study byYuan and Lou (2020) suggested that only distributive and informational fairness indirectly influence the product interest via PSR.The findings of this study are also in line with the findings of earlier studies conducted byWaribo et al (2020) that all four dimensions of fairness significantly positively influence employee behaviour outcomes via employee perception. Moreover, the study conducted byHan et al (2019) suggested that distributive, procedural, and interpersonal fairness significantly positively influence customer satisfaction via customer psychological empowerment. Thus, the takeaway from this study is that source credibility and fairness are essential antecedents of PSR between T-SMIs and followers, leading to the marketing outcome of purchase intentions.…”

Customer fairness perceptions in augmented reality-based online services

“…AR-based services service efficiency, the time needed or the degree of service personalization (Han et al, 2019).…”