An Examination of the Antecedents and Consequences of
Customer Rage in Service Encounters
Jiraporn Surachartkumtonkun
School of Marketing Australian School of Business The University of New South Wales Sydney, Australia
September 2011
Table of Contents
About the thesis: A note from the author ...... 1
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION...... 2 Overview ...... 2 Research objectives ...... 6 Research approach ...... 7 Contributions ...... 9 Thesis structure ...... 11 CHAPTER 2: CUSTOMER RAGE BACK-SOTRY: LINKING NEEDS-BASED COGNITIVE APPRAISAL TO SERVICE FAILURE TYPE ...... 13 Abstract ...... 13 Introduction ...... 14 Conceptual development...... 17 Methodology ...... 24 Analysis and results ...... 28 Discussion and managerial implications ...... 41 CHAPTER 3: MODELING CUSTOMER COGNITIVE APPRAISALS TO RAGE EMOTIONS FOLLOWING A SERVICE FAILURE ...... 51 Abstract ...... 51 Introduction ...... 52 Theoretical background and research hypotheses ...... 56 Methodology ...... 69 Analysis and results ...... 76 Discussion and managerial implications ...... 90 CHAPTER 4: A STUDY OF ANTECEDENTS AND OUTCOMES OF CUSTOMER COPING STRATEGIES IN RAGE INCIDENTS: A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY ...... 96 Abstract ...... 96 Introduction ...... 97 Conceptual development ...... 100 Methodology ...... 104 Analysis and results ...... 108 Discussion and managerial implications ...... 118 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION ...... 126 Synopsis ...... 126 Managerial implications ...... 130 Limitations and directions for future study ...... 132 Conclusion ...... 134 CHAPTER 6: APPENDICES ...... 138 Appendix 1: Interview script...... 138 Appendix 2: Customer Rage Questionnaire ...... 147 Appendix 3: Coding Scheme ...... 155 Appendix 4: Types of Initial Service Failure/Ineffective Service Recovery ...... 158 Appendix 5: A Violation of Fundamental Human Needs ...... 160 Appendix 6: Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity ...... 164 Appendix 7: Coping scale ...... 165 Appendix 8: Cognitive appraisal scale ...... 166 Appendix 9: Factor Analysis of Cognitive Appraisal...... 167 Appendix 10: Factor Analysis of Coping ...... 168 Appendix 11: Factor Analysis of Cognitive Appraisal: USA and Thai...... 169 Appendix 12: Factor Analysis of Coping: USA and Thai ...... 170 REFERENCES ...... 171 List of Figures and Tables
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION Figure 1: Cognitive Appraisal and Coping Processes...... 4
CHAPTER 2: CUSTOMER RAGE BACK-SOTRY: LINKING NEEDS-BASED COGNITIVE APPRAISAL TO SERVICE FAILURE TYPE Figure 1: Cognitive Appraisal Process Resulting in Customer Rage Incidents ...... 16
Table 1: Types of Initial Service Failure (Episode 1) ...... 29
Table 2: Types of Ineffective Service Recovery ( after customer complaint, service employees response ineffectively) (Episode 2) ...... 30
Table 3: Cognitive Appraisals of Initial Service Failure (Episode 1) ...... 32
Table 4: Cognitive Appraisals of Ineffective Service Recovery (Episode 2) ...... 32
Table 5: Logistic Regression Estimation Results (Episode 1: initial service failure) 37
Table 6: Logistic Regression Estimation Results (Episode 2: ineffective service recovery following a customer complaint) ...... 38
Table 7: Summary of Significant Results (Episode 1) ...... 44
Table 8: Summary of Significant Results (Episode 2) ...... 44
CHAPTER 3: MODELING CUSTOMER COGNITIVE APPRAISALS TO RAGE EMOTIONS FOLLOWING A SERVICE FAILURE: A LONGITUDINAL ASSESSMENT Figure 1: Dynamic Process of Cognitive Appraisals and Emotions ...... 55
Figure 2: Cognitive Appraisals that Trigger Negative Emotions at Each Episode ...78
Figure 3: Negative Emotional Responses of Customers at Each Episode ...... 83
Figure 4: Negative Emotional Responses by Country ...... 84
Table 1: Trait Anger-Temperament Scale ...... 75
Table 2: Negative Emotional Reactions Coding Categories ...... 82
Table 3: Multinomial Logistic Regression Results ...... 86
CHAPTER 4: A STUDY OF ANTECEDENTS AND OUTCOMES OF CUSTOMER COPING STRATEGIES IN RAGE INCIDENTS: A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY Table 1: Correlation Matrix and Descriptive Statistics: Cognitive Appraisal and Coping (US data) ...... 111
Table 2: Correlation Matrix and Descriptive Statistics: Cognitive Appraisal and Coping (Thai data) ...... 112
Table 3: Correlation Matrix and Descriptive Statistics: Coping and Encounter Evaluations (US data) ...... 114
Table 4: Correlation Matrix and Descriptive Statistics: Coping and Encounter Evaluations (Thai data) ...... 114
Table 5: Regression Models ...... 116
About the thesis: A note from the author
The thesis is comprised of three journal articles–styled manuscripts, in each of which the data came from the same sample. The data used in this thesis is part of a large scale dataset of the project “Customer rage spectrum emotions in service failure encounters: Linking experience, expression, behaviour, and organisational responses” funded by the Australian
Research Council discovery grant. However, work relating to formulating and investigating the research questions and hypothesises for the thesis and subsequent analysis is the original work of the author.
Sections of this thesis have previously appeared in the following conference proceedings.
Jiraporn Surachartkumtonkun, Janet McColl-Kennedy, and Paul Patterson (2010).
“Customer Rage Cognitive Appraisal Across Service Failures: Cultural Comparisons”, in proceedings of Frontiers in Service Conference, Karlstad, Sweden
Jiraporn Surachartkumtonkun, Paul Patterson, and Janet McColl-Kennedy (2010).
“Customer Cognitive Appraisal Processes in Service Failure Situations”, in proceedings of
AMA Winter Marketing Educators’ Conference, New Orleans, USA
Jiraporn Surachartkumtonkun, Paul Patterson, and Janet McColl-Kennedy (2009).
“Cognitive appraisals that trigger customer rage in East (Thai) and West (US) cultures”, in proceedings of Australian and New Zealand Marketing Academy Conference, Melbourne,
Australia
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CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
Overview
Incidences of customer rage are becoming more common in business today and service settings in particular (Grove et al. 2004). “We’re seeing more and more service rage with infuriated customers punishing companies for hopeless performance,” said the deputy chief executive of the UK National Consumer Council (BBC NEWS, 2006). The organization receives around 800,000 complaints every year. ComPsych Corp., a U.S. provider of employee assistance programs, recently reported a 78% increase in the number of acute-stress counselling sessions it provides to retailers related to customer abuse of store employees (Villagran 2006). In Australia, Choice, a consumer protection organization, received 2,500 complaints a week from consumers who want to give their opinions about poor service they received from companies (Cubby 2007). A similar picture is emerging in Thailand. Evidence of the customer rage phenomenon was reported in a
Thai newspaper when an angry Honda customer smashed her car with an axe after the company continued to ignore her complaints (The Manager Online, 2005). These reports clearly indicate that consumer rage incidents are on the rise in several countries.
“Customer rage” is defined as furious, overwhelming, extreme anger accompanied by its expression through potentially harmful behaviours toward the organization following a dissatisfactory service experience (McColl-Kennedy et al. 2009). Dealing with rage incidents can be costly and complicated for organizations (Grove et al. 2004). Employees who are directly involved in customer rage incidents are prone to become angry (Dallimore
1 et al. 2007) and even suffer severe psychological strain (Dormann and Zapf 2004; Grandey et al. 2004). Despite an increasing number of rage incident, service organizations are ill- equipped for these potentially dangerous situations (McGregor 2008). Understanding the nature of customer rage incident is important for service organizations aiming to design service actions that could prevent or at least prepare employees for such incidents.
Emotion is known to be episodic, that is, it occurs and guides individuals’ behaviours in response to a particular stimulus or event (Dallimore et al. 2007). Few studies in the management literature have attempted to explain the psychological underpinnings of customer rage incidents. Earlier conceptual work (Schneider and Bowen 1999) proposed that rage incident originates from mishandling of customers’ basic KXPDQQHHGVʊVHFXULW\ justice, self-esteem, and the like. They argued that dissatisfaction due to less than expected performance on service attributes may not be a forceful driver of rage. Rather it is a violation of fundamental human needs which are deeply ingrained in the customer’s psyche that triggers rage incidents (McColl-Kennedy and Smith 2006). Furthermore, a study by
Patterson et al. (2009) revealed another interesting characteristic of customer rage. They found that rage does not manifest immediately after an initial service failure; rather, it unfolds over time as customers repeatedly received ineffective or nonexistent service recovery efforts by the organization. However, these key insights have not been supported by a large scale empirical study, nor have the causal associations (e.g., failure types to appraisal, appraisal to coping) been systematically examined to date.
In social psychology, there are several studies (e.g., Anderson and Dill 2000;
Outlaw 1993; Rodriguez and Green 1997; Spaccarelli 1995) that attempt to explain why people have strong emotional and behavioural reactions. However, these studies are often 2 done in a context of stressful life events such as daily personal problems, community relocations, and the sexual abuse of children. A number of researchers (e.g., Frijda 1987;
Lazarus 1991; Scherer 1999) have explained that strong emotional and behavioural responses are the outcome of individuals’ cognitive appraisal or subjective interpretation of the situation. Lazarus and Folkman (1984) provide theoretical explanation of this process in their theory of stress and coping—alternatively known as cognitive appraisal theory. The theory has been used extensively in the psychology and health literature (Scherer 1999) to explain negative emotions and behaviours such as depression (Outlaw 1993), extreme anger
(Flint 2003), and aggressive driving behaviours (Flint 2003). The theory identifies two key processes: cognitive appraisal and coping. Figure 1 illustrates the relationships of these key processes.
Figure 1: Cognitive Appraisal and Coping Processes
As shown in Figure 1, cognitive appraisal refers to a person’s subjective evaluation about whether they have anything ‘at stake’ in the stressful encounter. If a situation is
3 perceived as a threat, or harm to, or loss of personal significance such as values or needs, then it is likely to result in negative emotional responses. This type of appraisal can cause a psychological state of disequilibrium by which the person is driven to return to his or her normal state through coping responses. Coping refers to “cognitive and behavioural efforts to manage specific external and/or internal demands that are appraised as taxing or exceeding the resources of the person” (Folkman and Lazarus 1988, p.310). Forms of coping can be grouped into two broad categories: problem-focused coping (attempting to change or alleviate the sources of stress including actions such as planning to solve the problem and confronting the source of problem) and emotion-focused coping (attempting to reduce or manage negative emotions including responses such as telling friends, seeking family support, and venting emotions). Generally, people employ various coping strategies in managing single stressful situations.
Culture is an important factor in explaining individual differences in cognition, emotion, and behaviour (Chun et al. 2006). Culture composes of shared elements that provide a foundation for information processing among people who share a language, a history, and a geographic location (Triandis 1996). Culture not only has an impact on the way people think or interpret an environment, but it also governs their ways of expressing emotion. Social norms of displaying emotions tend to vary from one culture to another. In
Thai society for example (and other eastern cultures), open, public displays of extreme emotion is considered a social taboo (Mattila and Patterson 2004c; Tremlett 2006). In addition, people from East and West societies tend to share different sets of values, norms, and beliefs that result in opposing views of acceptable or unacceptable behaviours.
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Therefore, national culture is an important factor that may have an influence on the relationships of key constructs in the cognitive appraisal and coping process.
Research objectives
Although, previous studies have provided great insights into the psychological antecedents of individuals’ strong emotional and behavioural responses, it is less clear about how the cognitive appraisal and coping processes interact in customer rage incidents.
It is also unclear whether any relationships between key constructs vary across cultures.
Therefore, using stress and coping theory (Lazarus and Folkman 1984), the overriding purpose of the present study is to empirically examine, in both Eastern (Thailand) and
Western (U.S.) cultures, the causes and consequences of customer rage following service failures. More specifically, the study aims to accomplish the following objectives:
1. Empirically examine over two time periods the association between types of
service failures and customers’ cognitive appraisals
2. Explore the dynamic processes of cognitive appraisals that lead to escalating
negative emotions (e.g., from anger to rage)
3. Examine customers’ coping patterns in relation to cognitive appraisal and their
influence on customer satisfaction with service recovery
4. Examine the extent to which the relationships studied in objectives (1) to (3)
vary across East (Thailand) – West (USA) cultures
Findings are reported in three different studies, each of which is presented in
Chapters 2, 3, and 4.
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Research approach
The current research uses both qualitative and quantitative approaches. At an initial stage, the author conducted in-depth interviews with 24 respondents from Thailand and the
US (12 from each country) (see Appendix 1 for an interview script). The aim was to gain an understanding of the nature and context of customer rage incidents. The information from this stage combined with a literature review was used in development of the questionnaire.
A working questionnaire was then pilot tested among 30 respondents to help spot any potential problems, improve comprehension, and avoid response bias. The final questionnaire was decided on the basis of an analysis of the pilot survey. For the final stage
(see Appendix 2 for the final questionnaire), the study involved a self-administered, cross- sectional survey and employed the critical incident technique (CIT) to identify types of service failures, actual cognitive appraisal processes, and emotional responses. All analyses in Chapters 2, 3, and 4 are based on the data of this cross-sectional survey.
CIT is a qualitative research procedure that facilitates researchers to gain understanding of the significant incident from the respondents’ point of view (Chell and
Pittaway 1998). There are several advantages of collecting data through CIT (de Ruyter et al. 1995; Gremler 2004). First, the data will be collected from the respondents’ standpoint and in their own words allowing researchers to obtain rich and insightful data. Second CIT is useful when there is little existing research investigating a particular topic. Third, it can be easily adapted in service research aiming to understand the customer’s experience during a service encounter. Lastly, it is a cultural neutral method allowing researchers to collect data from respondents with dissimilar cultural backgrounds. On the other hand, there are also some disadvantages associated with this method of collecting data. First, CIT relies on 6 a self-report data which can be accurate. Second, a process of categorization the key constructs from respondents’ stories can be subjective because it depends on judges who read and assign content to different categories.
CIT allows several ways for collecting data, such as individual interviews, group interviews and open-ended questionnaires (Flanagan 1954). The present study uses a questionnaire as a method for collecting data. The questionnaire has two main parts: open- and close-ended questions. Based on CIT procedures, details of rage incidents are queried through open-ended questions including the situational context, the specific circumstances surrounding the incident, thoughts, and emotions. A series of close-ended questions involve information such as coping strategies, customer satisfaction, criticality of consumption, and demographic characteristics. The qualitative data from the open ended questions were analysed using content analysis to systematically interpret and categorize customer experiences. Furthermore, regression analyses (i.e., logistic, multinomial logistic, and multiple regression) are employed to investigate the relationships among key constructs.
The data were collected in Thailand and the US by professional research companies in each country. A convenience sampling was used. A selection of sampling units depends on one criterion where a respondent must experienced rage emotion caused by a service company’s failure. Fieldwork researchers were given an introduction about customer rage projects (e.g., the purpose of this project, the meaning of customer rage, selection criterion for respondents, and the clarification for each question in the questionnaire). They were instructed to give a brief overview about this project before the respondents start answering questions, provide clarification on questions and meanings of words if asked and be with respondents until they complete the questionnaire. 7
The population of interest is customers who have experienced an extreme form of negative emotion accompanied by some forms of rage behaviours (yelling, slamming down the telephone, threatening, etc.) subsequent to a service failure. The study only includes respondents who have experienced rage in the past 6 months. The selection of sample is based on a judgment sampling technique. It is a non-probability sampling technique where the subjects are selected based on the judgment of researchers (Malhotra et al. 2004). There are a total of 435 samples whose questionnaires were included in the final analysis (223 in the US and 212 in Thailand).
Contributions
The following section presents the academic and managerial contributions of the study.
Academic contributions
The study contributes to theory in three important ways.
1. Focusing on customer rage
While rage incidents constantly appear in various media, there is limited knowledge on these phenomena in the marketing literature. Therefore, the study addresses this research gap by using theory of stress and coping (Lazarus and Folkman 1984) as a theoretical anchor to empirically examine causes and consequences of customer rage. It offers insight into actual processes of customers’ cognitive appraisal and coping involved in rage incidents. In addition, this study is the first to reveal and theoretically explain, emotion escalation over time, and how this is a key driver of rage incidents.
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2. Examining the key causal linkages that precede rage incidents
The study is the first to empirically examine the nature and significance of the causal linkages between type of initial service failure and cognitive appraisal; appraisal to emotion and coping; and between coping strategies and post recovery customer satisfaction/ dissatisfaction.
3. Exploring the impact of national culture (U.S. and Thailand)
The present study contributes to an understanding of rage incidents beyond a
Western context. The antecedents and consequences of customer rage in Western context might not be generalizable to Eastern context because individuals from Eastern collectivist societies tend to have a distinctive way of dealing with stressful situations and follow different rules of emotional display (Markus and Kitayama 1991; Patterson and Smith
2003). For example, Asian customers are less likely than Western customers to express their emotions through facial expressions, because public display of emotions is considered to be a threat to social harmony, which is greatly valued in Asian collectivist societies
(Mattila 1999a). Therefore, the present study investigates customer rage incidents across
Eastern (Thailand) and Western (the US) countries.
Managerial contributions
The managerial contribution of the present study is as follows.
1. Providing insights into the customer rage incidents
Insight into customer rage incidents can help service organizations in educating frontline employees to better understand customers’ psychological and economic needs and
9 the situations that could trigger customer rage incidents. Findings from this study suggest that customers possess a set of fundamental human needs (e.g., needs for self-esteem, economic resources, and sense of control). When these needs are under threat or worse, violated, it could set customers off to rage. It is important for frontline staff to avoid any potential damage to these basic human needs of customers during service delivery. In addition, the present study offers insights into how customer rage develops over time. It demonstrates that customer rage does not immediately occur right after initial service failure. Hence, the study findings suggest that a customer rage incident is preventable if an organization takes action during the early stages of the incident.
2. Providing directions for preventing customer rage
The findings of the present study provide practical directions to help service organizations and employees prevent the onset of customer rage. The study identifies the links between types of failed encounters and threats to fundamental human needs. Based on these findings, service failure typologies might be used as a situational cue for frontline employees to be alert to potential damage of customers’ fundamental needs. As suggested by Smith et al. (1999), service organizations could provide an effective service recovery by offering a recovery embedded with a value that matches customers’ psychological and economic loss in a service failure. Hence the findings from this study can be used as a guide for frontline staff on how to respond appropriately following a service failure.
Thesis structure
This thesis comprises of three empirical papers that are presented in Chapters 2, 3, and 4. Based on theory of stress and coping (Lazarus and Folkman 1984), the three papers
10 examine different aspect of customer rage incidents. The first study (Chapter 2) explores the relationship between types of service failures and customers’ cognitive appraisal that ultimately trigger rage incidents. The focus of the second study (Chapter 3) is to examine the psychological antecedents (e.g., cognitive appraisal, residual emotions, etc) that trigger extreme negative emotions across three time periods (i.e., an initial service failure, first and second ineffective service recoveries). In the third paper (Chapter 4), the relationships between customers’ cognitive appraisal and coping strategies are explored as well as the influence of different forms of coping on the service recovery satisfaction. Each paper also reports similarities and differences in the relationships of key constructs across two national groups (Thailand and the US).
Each paper is organized in the same format as follows: abstract, introduction, conceptual development (or theoretical background and research hypotheses), methodology, analysis and results, and discussion and managerial implications.
The conclusion chapter (Chapter 5) summarizes key findings of the three studies and discusses managerial implications, limitations of the present study, and directions for future research. All appendices are placed in the Chapter 6 (Appendices). References for each study are consolidated and presented at the end of this thesis.
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CHAPTER 2
CUSTOMER RAGE BACK-STORY: LINKING NEEDS-BASED COGNITIVE
APPRAISAL TO SERVICE FAILURE TYPE
Abstract
The back-story of customer rage, that is, what leads up to a rage episode, particularly the consumers’ cognitive appraisal processes that trigger extreme negative emotions is not well understood. This study, employing the critical incident technique and involving 435 adult customers investigate the association, over two time periods, between initial service failure type and subsequent ineffective service recovery attempts, and cognitive appraisals. This two country research clearly shows that during cognitive appraisal, threats to economic resources, self esteem, justice, control, and physical well- being appear to be a set of fundamental needs, irrespective of the customer’s home country.
However, US and Thai customers appear to place different relative importance on various cognitive appraisals.
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Introduction
“I purchased a ‘certified’ used vehicle and found that the A/C was not working properly. … A store manager … assured that they would fix it… [But] it would cost me $175. I took the car back [45 minutes drive] … for the repairs … [but] the A/C still was not working. I felt very upset … [They] told me that some other parts needed to be fixed … and it would cost me a couple hundreds more … I was outraged… . We had a quarrel. … Finally, I left without paying. I am determined to never use this dealership again and to tell anyone that would listen that they were not honest in their dealing” (female, 40, US, car dealership)
“… It was annoying that my mobile phone received a poor signal … I tried to call the customer service number but it was difficult to get connected. … After several attempts, I got to talk to a service employee. … She told me that it happened because of my mobile phone and it has nothing to do with their company. … I was already upset about having to call them several times and this kind of response really drives me mad. … She told me I need to change my mobile phone. … I was very angry so I yelled at her and demanded an apology. …I reported this incident to the manager …” (female, 27, Thai, mobile phone service)
Customer rage episodes are occurring in store, online, over the phone and in the air with potentially serious consequences for the front-line employee facing the brunt of the outburst, the brand, even other customers, such that these episodes can incur significant economic and social costs (Patterson et al. 2009). Prior research (e.g., DeWitt and Brady
2003; Fitness 2000; Harris and Reynolds 2003) has focused on the harmful consequences of customer rage following a service failure, including violent behaviours, verbal or nonverbal attacks, exiting, boycotting, and negative word of mouth. However, the back- story of customer rage, that is, what led up to the rage episode, particularly the consumers’ cognitive appraisal processes that trigger extreme negative emotions, is still not well understood (Hess et al. 2007).
Few studies in the management literature have attempted to explain the psychological drivers of customer rage. Earlier conceptual work (Schneider and Bowen
1999) proposed that rage incident originates from mishandling of customers’ basic human 13
QHHGVʊVHFXULW\MXVWLFHVHOI-esteem, and the like. They argued that dissatisfaction due to performance may not be a forceful driver of rage unlike fundamental human needs which are deeply ingrained in the customer’s psyche. The importance of fundamental human needs becomes more apparent when the needs are deprived; it could drive a customer to react with extreme negative emotions and rage behaviours (Patterson et al. 2009). Several empirical works (e.g., Baumeister and Leary 1995; Shapiro et al. 1996) in the psychology literature also support the view that an individual’s cognitive appraisal process ( perceived threat to, or violation of, fundamental human needs) can act as a trigger to aggressive and destructive behaviours. Although, previous studies have provided critical knowledge on the psychological link to customer rage, it is unclear about actual cognitive appraisal processes following a service failure situation and the variables that influence them. This gap in an understanding of customer rage leaves several important questions unanswered. For example, little is known about whether different cognitive appraisals (e.g., threat to self- esteem or justice) are associated with a certain type of service failure, such as core service failure, slow speed of service, or unresponsive employee behaviour. It is also unclear whether any associations vary across East-West cultures because customers from collectivist Eastern countries (e.g., China, Taiwan, Thailand, etc) and individualist Western societies (e.g., USA, U.K., Australia) interpret and evaluate consumption experiences differently (Chan et al. 2010).
Therefore, the current study, using the theory of stress and coping (Lazarus and
Folkman 1984) as a theoretical platform, investigate the link between cognitive appraisal and type of service failure among Western and Eastern customers over two time periods following an initial service failure (Episode 1) and an ineffective (or nonexistent) service
14 recovery (Episode 2). Figure 1 summarizes a framework of the current study. In sum, the study is guided by the following research objectives.
1. To empirically examine over two time periods the association between types of
service failures and customers cognitive appraisals that trigger rage incidents.
2. To examine the extent to which culture (East/West) moderates the association
between cognitive appraisal and service failure type.
Figure 1: Cognitive Appraisal Process Resulting in Customer Rage Incidents
At Episode 1 a customer experiences an initial service failure which then triggers the initial cognitive appraisal. Following a complaint to service employees regarding the initial service failure, at Episode 2 employees provide ineffective (or nonexistent) service recovery, which then in turn triggers customers’ (re)appraisal process.
I address the research objectives through use of the critical incident technique and content analysis of customer descriptions of rage incidents. I then use logistic regression analysis to establish the relationship between initial service failure and ineffective service recovery, and customers’ cognitive appraisal. In doing so, the study makes several key contributions. First, it is the only empirical study of customer rage that delves into customers’ cognitive appraisal process longitudinally, at two time points (Episode 1: initial service failure and Episode 2: ineffective or nonexistent service recovery). Second, the study establishes a clear empirical link between type of service failures (core service, inappropriate behaviour, slow speed of service, etc) and cognitive appraisals (e.g.,
15 perceived threats to self-esteem, justice need, security, etc). Third, the study demonstrates the extent to which a customer’s cognitive appraisal process may be generalized across
Western-Eastern cultures. In the following section, the study introduces and defines customer rage, cognitive appraisal process and other key concepts of the current study.
Conceptual development
Customer rage is defined as furious, overwhelming, extreme anger accompanied by its expression and potentially harmful behaviours towards the organization following a dissatisfactory service experience (McColl-Kennedy et al. 2009). The consequences of customer rage are known to create an economic loss for the organization involved (Grove et al. 2004), a severe psychological strain for front-line service employees (Dormann and Zapf
2004; Grandey et al. 2004) and a ripple effect of emotional contagion in the service encounter (Dallimore et al. 2007). In order to understand the psychological process that drives customer rage, the study draws on affective events theory (AET) incorporating the theory of psychological stress and coping (often referred to as cognitive appraisal theory)
(Lazarus and Folkman 1984).
Affective events theory posits that individuals react to a negative event through a two stage process (appraisal and emotion) that then leads to coping behaviours (Weiss and
Cropanzano 1996). According to AET, individuals make an initial cognitive appraisal of experiences or events in their life that elicit emotions. The valence (positive or negative) is related to whether the encounter is perceived by the individual to be a threat (or beneficial) to one’s well-being. For example, a situation such as racism or discrimination has been appraised by African Americans as a threat or harm to their self-esteem and sense of
16 control, which then triggers negative emotions such as withdrawal or depression (Outlaw
1993). Theory of stress and coping (Lazarus and Folkman 1984) further explains that during negative emotional responses, people experience a psychological state of disequilibrium and are driven to return to their normal state through coping. Coping strategies may be grouped into either problem-focused coping (attempting to change or alleviate the sources of stress) or emotion-focused coping (attempting to change the meaning of the source of stress to make one feel better). Typical coping behaviours include rational planning, confrontation, seeking social support, and venting emotions. In fact, rage behaviours such as verbal or physical aggression are a form of coping strategies that customers employ to deal with the source of stress. This current study will further explore cognitive appraisal process but not coping strategies.
Cognitive appraisal process
The cognitive appraisal process goes a long way to explaining why people have strong emotional reactions to stressful life events such as daily personal problems, community relocations, and the sexual abuse of children. Appraisal refers to a cognitive process through which a person interprets or evaluates an event as a challenge, harm or threat (Lazarus 1984). Several studies in psychology literature point out that subjective appraisal of a stimulus or event is a key determinant of emotional responses (e.g., Ellsworth and Smith 1988; Frijda 1993; Lazarus 1982). Challenge refers to a sense of difficulty that blocks the achievement of personal goals, values, or needs although the person has confidence in his or her ability to overcome the hindrance. Harm or threat appraisal refers to damage of personal values and needs or loss of a loved person which have occurred or are expected. Harm and threat appraisals of events in the context of fundamental human 17 needs are typically fertile ground for extreme negative emotions (McColl-Kennedy and
Smith 2006).
Threats to fundamental human needs
A fundamental human need is what individuals strive to satisfy in life. It directs the cognitive appraisal process and has an impact on emotional reactions (Baumeister and
Leary 1995). When needs are blocked, people continually strive to find ways of attaining their needs because these are inherent motivations in human behaviours and inspirations in the person-environment interaction (Markus and Wurf 1987). Fundamental needs are the essence of one’s well-being and are parts of one’s internal attributes which contribute to a construal of self (Markus and Kitayama 1991). A mismatch of the meaning in the situation
(e.g., perceived violation of one’s self-esteem due to poor service) and the internal meaning of self (e.g., needs for self-esteem) could result in immense distress (Burke 1991). If the needs are persistently withdrawn, it can lead to severe negative reactions (Baumeister and
Leary 1995). In an extreme case, a continual threat to fundamental human needs can cause violence, depression and even poor mental health (Hirschfeld et al. 1976; Shapiro et al.
1996). Thus, in service settings, a violation of customers’ fundamental human needs could give way to extreme emotional and negative behavioural responses.
Conforming with previous studies (e.g., Patterson et al. 2009; Schneider and
Bowen 1999), the study proposes that cognitive appraisals that lead up to rage incidents would entail violations of customers’ fundamental human needs for physical well-being
(safety), economic resources, self-esteem, justice, and control. As Schneider and Bowen
(1999) suggested, the needs for security (physical well-being and economic well-being) and
18 esteem were drawn from Maslow’s needs hierarchy and need for justice was derived from considerable research in philosophy and psychology. In addition, from a review of marketing and psychology literature (e.g., Hui and Bateson 1991; Langer and Rodin 1976), the study includes a sense of control as another important fundamental need of customers during a service encounter. The next section discusses each of these fundamental human needs.
Economic needs (money and time). Economic needs refer to a need to protect one’s economic well-being such as financial security (Schneider and Bowen 1999). Money and time are greatly valued by most people who work hard to earn income to support themselves and their family. Financial security, the effective use of time in various activities, or whether money is well spent are the typical economic well-being issues that people deal with in their daily life. In service encounters, customers spend money and times for an exchange of goods or services from an organization. When a service failure occurs especially in the area of core service mistake, it could create a perceived loss of customers’ economic needs (Smith et al. 1999) and could potentially drive customers to leave for other service providers (Keaveney 1995).
Self-esteem needs. Self-esteem refers to a person’s views of his or her own worth
(Rosenberg 1965). Feeling good about oneself could potentially have a positive impact on mental well-being (Caplan 1974). In service consumption, self-esteem plays an important role in consumers’ decision to purchase. For example, the study by Sirgy (1982) shows that customers are motivated to buy a good or service which maintains or enhances their self- esteem and often avoid consumption that has the potential to harm it. The quality of interpersonal interactions of service employees is a main factor in enhancing or damaging 19 customers’ feelings of self-worth (Patterson et al. 2009). Several service organizations recognize this and subsequently train their frontline employees to enhance customers’ self- esteem by, for instance, genuinely greeting customers, remembering their names, and listen to the opinions of customers
Sense of justice (fairness) needs. Justice refers to a need that one should receive no less than one deserves (Lerner 2003). In any transaction, there is an implicit promise between service providers and customers of fair treatment (Seiders and Berry 1998).
Customers form their sense of justice with a particular business through prior experiences with firms, word-of-mouth recommendation, and company marketing communication.
Service marketing scholars argue that to maintain and enhance the customer’s sense of justice, organizations and frontline employees must deliver justice on three dimensions: distributive justice, procedural justice, and interactional justice (Smith et al. 1999; Sparks and McColl-Kennedy 2001; Tax et al. 1998). When service firms fail to provide a sense of fairness to their customers (e.g., breaking a promise), it can lead to the perception of being cheated (Dunn et al. 1995), as well as giving rise to customers’ negative responses such as switching behaviours, complaining, having strong negative emotions, and even aggressive responses (Chebat and Slusarczyk 2005; Mattila and Patterson 2004a; Schoefer and Ennew
2005; Skarlicki et al. 1999).
Control needs. A need for control refers to a need for a belief in oneself of being able to achieve a goal, deal with a problem, or control a situation (White 1959). Need for some control in one’s life is regarded as a basic psychological need (Skinner 1996). People feel and behave positively when they perceive that they are competent and able to freely make decisions (Hui and Bateson 1991; Proshansky et al. 1970). In contrast, lacking a 20 sense of control could result in a perception of helplessness and subsequently maladaptive behaviours (Bowen and Johnston 1999). A need for some degree of control is essential for any satisfying relationship (Hui and Bateson 1991). It is also a critical element that is known to influence customer satisfaction and positive emotional reaction (Langer and
Rodin 1976). Service companies can increase customers’ sense of control by facilitating the customer decision-making process (e.g., providing options [behavioural control] or relevant information [cognitive control]) such as allowing him or her to freely choose instead of being forced to follow a company-fixed procedure (Hui and Bateson 1991).
Physical well-being (safety needs). Physical well-being needs or the need to be free from physical harm is the most basic in Maslow’s (1943) hierarchical needs and the most important of all human needs. Customers cannot be satisfied with service encounters unless they feel secure in their lives. Service organizations must be aware of security issues and should plan for the protection of their employees and customers. Failure to provide a safe service environment can result in public outrage (Schneider and Bowen 1999). In fact, they typically avoid involvement in situations that can harm their physical well-being.
During the September 11 attack, for example, many people feared being in an airport or taking a flight and hence tended to travel by plan less in that time.
In summary, an organization that threatens (or violates) the fundamental human needs of its customers should be prepared to deal with customer rage. However, to fully understand rage incidents I argue that the cultural background of customers should be examined.
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Cultural differences
There is evidence in cross-cultural studies that individuals from collectivist societies
(e.g., China, Thailand, Indonesia) and individualist societies (e.g., United States, United
Kingdom, Australia) process information and behave differently following service failures
(Patterson and Smith 2003). Eastern customers also have different views from Western counterparts on what constitutes a good service (Zeithaml and Bitner 1996). For example,
Japanese consumers would view a Western friendliness style of a frontline employee who may greet and chat in a casual way as disrespectful (Winsted 1997). Cultural difference in service evaluation is greatly influenced by the value orientation of Western and Eastern cultures (Mattila 1999b). In this study, I examine customer rage in two highly dissimilar cultures (i.e., the U.S. and Thailand). The cultures of the US and Thailand represent polar extremes in cognition and behaviour. On Hofstede’s (1980) collectivism/individualism dimension, the US has an index score of 91 indicating a highly individualist culture, whereas Thailand rates 17 on the index. In collectivist society, such as Thailand, people tend to value interdependence, social hierarchies, and conformity to norms more so than in individualist society (such as the US) in which individuals tend to emphasize independence, achievement, and uniqueness. Thus, I expect customers in Thailand and the US to place emphasis on different fundamental human needs during service encounters.
Other influences on cognitive appraisal process
There is evidence supporting the view that criticality of the consumption episode and strength of relationship have an impact on the customer evaluation process (Garbarino and Johnson 1999; Hoffman and Kelley 2000; Webster and Sundaram 1998). For example,
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Ostrom and Iacobucci (1995) showed that in a service context, criticality has an influence on customers’ evaluation of what service attributes are important. The study showed that price becomes less important in highly critical consumption compared to a low criticality condition. Strength of relationship is another important factor that influences customers’ perception and attitude towards consumption experience (Garbarino and Johnson 1999).
Berry (1995) suggests that building a relationship with a customer is a key strategy to overcome the intangibility characteristic of service. Customers with a higher strength of relationship with a firm tend to have a more positive attitude towards the firm’s performance (Crosby and Stephens 1987). Therefore, criticality and strength of relationship might have influence on customers’ cognitive appraisal of what fundamental needs are at stake.
Methodology
Critical incident technique
The study employs the critical incident technique (CIT) to uncover types of initial service failure, types of ineffective service recovery and customers’ cognitive appraisal processes. CIT is a qualitative method that facilitates the investigation of significant incidents (Chell and Pittaway 1998; Flanagan 1954). It has been described as “...a qualitative ... procedure which facilitates the investigation of significant occurrence (events, incidents, processes, or issues) identified by the respondent, the way they are managed, and the outcomes in terms of perceived effects.” (p.56). There are several advantages of collecting data through CIT (de Ruyter et al. 1995; Gremler 2004). First, the data will be collected from the respondents’ standpoint and in their own words allowing researchers to
23 obtain rich and insightful data. Second CIT is useful when there is little existing research investigating a particular topic. Third, it can be easily adapted in service research aiming to understand the customer’s experience during a service encounter. Lastly, it is a cultural neutral method allowing researchers to collect data from respondents with dissimilar cultural backgrounds. On the other hand, there are also some disadvantages associated with this method of collecting data. First, CIT relies on a self-report data which can be accurate.
Second, a process of categorization the key constructs from respondents’ stories can be subjective because it depends on judges who read and assign content to different categories.
Critical incident technique was first introduced to social science more than fifty years ago by Flanagan (1954). He outlined five general steps which researcher should plan before using the method. First, there should be clear objectives and questions for the study.
This is very important to CIT because researchers want to ask respondents to recall the event which is relevant to the research questions. Second, researchers need to identify types of events which they aim to collect. The incidents should be recalled easily and data should be collected from a person who is in best position to answer all the questions. The third step is data collection. It can be done in several ways. Data can be collected through direct observations, open-ended questionnaires, individual interviews, and group interviews. The last step is interpreting (content analysis) and classifying the results of the study.
CIT has been used in prior studies related to cognitive appraisal processes and emotion elicitation (e.g., Ruth et al. 2002; Weiner et al. 1979). In service contexts, CIT has been used to understand customers’ cognition, emotion, or behaviour (Bitner et al. 1990b; van Dolen et al. 2001). This procedure enables deep insights to be obtained from respondents’ narratives of their own thoughts and emotions. It also helps reduce interviewer 24 bias and selective listening or recording (Keaveney 1995). Therefore, given that the cognitive appraisal process that precedes the emotion of rage is poorly understood in both initial service failure and failed recovery contexts, CIT is an ideal method to explore and refine key themes and then examine the nature of the association between cognitive appraisal and type of service failure (and subsequent service recovery efforts).
Data collection
The population of interest is customers who have experienced an extreme form of negative emotion accompanied by some form of rage behaviour (yelling, slamming the telephone, threatening, etc.) subsequent to a service failure. An explanation of intense emotions (e.g., anger, fury, wrath, rage, etc.) was given in the instruction part of the questionnaire. Respondents were asked whether they have experienced rage in the past 6 months. Only those who answered yes were eligible to be included in the sample.
Respondents were then asked to recall a recent customer rage incident as a result of a failed service encounter on the part of the firm and describe their experiences and emotions in detail in their own words. Open-ended questions were developed based on the cognition and emotion literature (e.g., Folkman and Lazarus 1980) and the exploratory in-depth interviews. The following information was requested: 1) the situational context (e.g., retail, health care service); 2) the specific circumstances surrounding the incident (the respondent’s story of what happened to trigger negative emotions and how the situation worsened over time); 3) thoughts (appraisal process) and emotions after the initial service failure; and 4) thoughts (appraisal process) and emotions following the organization’s ineffective recovery efforts. Note that respondents were not asked to identify the underlying causes of rage but rather to describe a specific instance that gave rise to their negative 25 emotions. Asking questions in this way is something that most people can easily answer
(Bitner et al. 1990b).
Data were collected in Thailand and the US through local market research companies using self-administered questionnaires. To ensure meaning equivalence, the
English-version questionnaire was translated into Thai language and then back-translated into English. Sample 1 comprised 223 adult-American respondents and Sample 2, 212 adult-Thai respondents. A wide range of service organizations were represented including department stores, supermarkets, boutiques, restaurants, hotels, health care providers, utilities, and airlines. The mean age of the Thai sample is 31 years, with 51% female while the mean age of the US sample is 41years, with 57% female.
Category development and reliability
Data were content analysed and coded independently by three trained judges. The classification scheme is included in Appendix 3. The classification is based on a priori categories that derived from a review of literature and the initial exploratory stage of in- depth interviews. The coding scheme of cognitive appraisal (what was at stake or being threatened in the encounter) is derived from previous work in psychology literature (e.g.,
Ellsworth and Smith 1988; Folkman et al. 1986) and exploratory in-depth interviews in an early stage. In addition, the classification scheme of initial service failure and failed service recovery is based on Keaveney’s (1995) study. Despite a priori classification scheme, judges were encouraged to develop new categories, as appropriate. Incidents with unsolved dispute were sent to fourth judge, who made a final decision. Inter-judge reliability was
87%, which exceeds the accepted benchmark of 80% (Latham and Saari 1984).
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Analysis and results
In this section, the study first presents the content analysis results and then logistic regression analysis results.
Content analysis results
From the content analysis, the study confirmed five main categories of failed service encounters and five fundamental human needs being violated. The following sections discuss the categories of failed service encounters and fundamental human needs.
Failed service encounters
In this section the study reports descriptive results of the categories of failed service encounters occurred in Episodes 1 (initial service failure) and 2 (ineffective service recovery). Verbatim quotes representing each type of failed encounters are shown in
Appendix 4. Note that the total sample size in Episodes 1 (n = 435) and 2 (n = 415) is different because some respondents only reported rage incidents during initial service failure (Episode 1) and then the issue was either resolved or the information was incomplete.
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Table 1: Types of Initial Service Failure (Episode 1)
% of total % of total Total % of % of Types of Initial Service Failure U.S. Thai Incidents* Incidents N(435) (n = 223) (n = 212)
Core service failure - billing or system error - service mistake or outcome 215 41.5 49.4 52.9 45.8 failure
Employee unresponsive behaviour - uncaring/ignorant 119 23.0 27.4 30.5 24.1 - unresponsive - unknowledgeable
Employee inappropriate behaviour 52 10.1 12.0 5.4 18.9 - rude/impolite
Slow speed of service - slow service - long queue 79 15.3 18.2 17.5 18.9 - transferring calls
Employee unethical behaviour - dishonesty 51 9.9 11.7 12.6 10.9 - hard sell
Others 1 0.2 0.2 0 0.47
Total 517 100.0 * Note: Number of incidents (517) exceeds the sample size (435) because multiple responses were allowed
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Table 2: Types of Ineffective Service Recovery (after customer complaint, service employees response ineffectively) (Episode 2)
% of % of total Total % of % of total U.S. Thai Reasons for ineffective recovery Incidents* Incidents N(415) (n = 206) (n = 209)
Employee unresponsive response - ignoring customers’ complaints - not taking responsibility for 229 51 55.2 66 44.5 the problem - unable to explain or find solution
Employee inappropriate response - rude response 168 37.5 40.5 35.4 45.5 - impolite manner
Slow speed of recovery - telephone call continually transferred - customer must continue to 17 3.8 4.1 5.8 2.4 wait for a solution from the firm
Employee unethical response - dishonesty 32 7.1 7.7 12.1 3.4 - hard sell
Others 2 0.6 0.5 0.5 0.9 Total 448 100.0 * Note: Number of incidents (448) exceeds the sample size (415) because multiple responses were allowed
The results in Table 1 show five main categories of initial service failure (Episode
1). The two largest categories are core service failure and employee unresponsive behaviour, cited by 49.4% and 27.4% of respondents, respectively. For Table 2, there are only four main categories of ineffective service recovery (Episode 2). Interestingly, core
29 service failure which is the biggest category of initial service failure was not present in
Episode 2. All categories found in Episode 2 are only related to employees’ behaviours.
The two main categories of ineffective service recovery are employee unresponsive response (55.2%) and employee inappropriate response (40.5%).
There are some differences between US and Thai customers in the frequency of failed encounter categories. From Table 1 (Episode 1), employee inappropriate behaviour was reported much higher by Thai (18.9%) than US customers (5.4%). Similarly, in
Episode 2 (Table 2), there are higher numbers of Thai customers (45.5%) than the US
(35.4%) experiencing employees who behaved inappropriately (e.g., being rude, impolite) to their complaints. On the other hand, US customers (Episode 1: 30.5%, Episode 2: 66%) were far more likely than Thais (Episode 1: 24.1%, Episode 2: 44.5%) to report unresponsive service employees (e.g., failing to take responsibility, ignoring the complaint).
Cognitive appraisal process
Five key themes relating to cognitive appraisal emerged from the content analysis confirming the a priori categorization. The descriptive results in Tables 3 and 4 show a set of fundamental human needs being violated during an initial service failure and ineffective service recovery, respectively. Appendix 5 provides illustrative quotations for each fundamental need.
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Table 3: Cognitive Appraisals of Initial Service Failure (Episode 1)
Initial service failures % of sample Total % of total % of % of % of Incidents* incidents* total U.S. total Thai total N Threats to...... ( n=223) (n=212) Economic resources 167 33.6 38.4 47.5 28.8 Self-esteem 45 9.0 10.3 6.3 14.6 Justice (fairness) 198 39.8 45.5 50.7 40.1 Need for control 38 7.6 8.7 9.4 8.0 Physical well-being (safety) 50 10.0 11.5 5.4 17.9 Total 498 100.0 * Multiple responses allowed
Table 4: Cognitive Appraisals of Ineffective Service Recovery (Episode 2)
Ineffective recovery efforts % of sample % of % of total Total % of total % of total U.S. Thai incidents* incidents* total N Threats to...... (n=206) (n=209) Economic resources 48 10.0 11.6 19.9 3.4 Self-esteem 103 21.5 24.8 20.4 29.2 Justice (fairness) 230 48.1 55.4 56.3 54.6 Need for control 83 17.4 20.0 32.0 8.1 Physical well-being (safety) 14 2.9 3.4 2.9 3.8 Total 478 100.0 * Multiple responses allowed
Threats to economic resources. Threats to economic resources included all customers’ concerns related to an unforeseen payment and an ineffective use of time. For example, a US female, 44 years old, purchased a second-hand car from a dealer, but the car had to be repaired several times, and she commented, “…[it was] like I was wasting my time. I had to go to the repair shop several times...” Threat to economic resources was the
31 second largest category in Episode 1, mentioned by 38.4% of respondents, whereas it is the second smallest category in Episode 2, cited by only 11.6% of respondents.
Threats to self- esteem needs. The “threats to self-esteem needs” category involved a situation in which customers felt that service providers treated them as being unimportant, showed disrespect, or humiliated them in public. For example, a Thai customer who was about to leave the store but had been asked to stop for a bag inspection commented “The supermarket staff wanted to check my bag and found my sunscreen which he thought I had stolen from the shop. He started to talk to me in a loud voice and acted as if I was a thief…
It was embarrassing. Other people looked at me as if I was a thief. I felt disgraced…”
(female, 33 years old, Thai). In Episode 1, threat to self-esteem was cited by only 10.3% of respondents but in Episode 2 it was the second largest category, cited by 24.8% of respondents.
Threats to justice (fairness) needs. Threats to justice were reported by respondents as being cheated, having a dishonest relationship, or encountering a service provider who acted against social norms or was unable to perform as promised or expected. The narratives included statements like, “I paid ... on eBay for an Xbox… and the guy never shipped [it]…. I felt cheated...” (male, 29 years old, US). Threat to a sense of justice was the largest category of cognitive appraisals in Episodes 1 and 2, mentioned by 45.5% and
55.4%, respectively.
Threats to control needs. This category involved failed service situations which were often described by respondents as one in which they felt helpless or had no control over the situation (i.e., being told or forced to do things). For example, an US female, 58
32 years old, had been charged incorrectly: “…I got several overdraft charges. ... I told the bank [that this is incorrect] but they insisted on the charge and would not do anything. …
(I felt) powerless…there was nothing I could do about the situation…” About 8.7% of respondents cited threats to a sense of control as at least part of the appraisal in Episode 1.
This percentage increases dramatically to 20% in Episode 2.
Threats to physical well-being or safety needs. This category included a situation in which the customers express their concerns on the safety issues related to their (or loved one’s) life, health, or general well-being. The following quote illustrates a violation of physical well-being. “… The bus driver drove dangerously… it was not safe. I was scare that the bus might crash …” (male, 25 years old, Thai). Only 11.5% of respondents claimed that their physical well-being had been threatened in Episode 1 and the percentage declined considerably to 3.4% in Episode 2.
Logistic regression
There are several reasons that support the use of logistic regression for the current study (Hair et al. 1998). First, it is suitable method when the dependent variable has only two groups. Second, this method is not strict to the assumption of multivariate normality and equal variance. Lastly, logistic regression provides straightforward statistical tests
(similar to regression) and can incorporate nonlinear effects. In order to meet the research objectives outlined at the beginning of this paper, eight logistic regression models were run.
Dummy variables were used for each type of fundamental human needs, initial service failure and ineffective service recovery (1 = present, 0 = absent). I exclude physical well-being/safety as a cognitive appraisal category from the analysis because it only occurs
33 in a specific service context (e.g., hospital, public transportation) that was seen as a potential health hazard. A threat to physical well-being tends to be a result of ineffective law enforcement in developing countries in which many service providers failed to provide basic safety needs to customers. As a result, a threat to physical well-being cannot be linked to the situational context. In addition, (threat to) physical well-being was only mentioned by 11.5% in Episode 1 and 3.4% in Episode 2.
For control variables, criticality of transaction and strength of relationship were measured on a 5-point scale where 1 = “not at all important” or “having no relationship” and 5 = “very important” or “having a strong relationship”. Country was coded as 1 for
Thailand and 0 for the US. In addition, demographics (i.e., age and gender) were included as control variables to provide a more robust test of the models. Gender was coded as 1 for female and 0 for male. To further examine relationship patterns in the data, the author test for interaction effects to see if there were any significant change in cognitive appraisals for a given type of failed service encounter with a variation of criticality of consumption and country (US and Thai).
Logistic regression results
In this section, the study outlines the results of tests of association between (a) the type of initial service failure and category of fundamental human needs that were threatened (Table 5), and (b) type of ineffective service recovery and category of fundamental human needs (Table 6), using logistic regression. Tables 5 and 6 summarize the results of a series of logistic regression models where the dependent variable in each model is one fundamental need being violated during the initial service failure (Episode 1)
34 and ineffective service recovery (Episode 2), respectively. For example, in Table 5 the dependent variable in Model 1 is (threat to one’s) economic resources caused by the initial service failure (Episode 1). The dependent variable in the Model 5 (Table 6) is (threat to one’s) economic resources caused by the ineffective service recovery (Episode 2).
Each model showed large chi-square values and small p-values indicating good fit
(Erramilli 1991). All models were shown to be statistically significant. As shown in Tables
5 and 6 each model showed an improvement in the correct classification rate when compared with the classification by chance. The observed classification rates ranged from
71.3% to 94.0% in Table 5 and 66.5% to 88.9% in Table 6. In the following section, the study addresses the significant results in each model.
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Table 5: Logistic Regression Estimation Results (Episode 1: initial service failure)
Independent Variables Dependent variables: Cognitive Appraisals (Threat to...) Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Initial service failure types Economic resource Self-esteem Justice (fairness) Control Core service failure 1.18** -0.32 -0.37 -0.10 Unresponsive behaviour -.93** -0.11 1.07** -0.03 Inappropriate behaviour -0.26 5.97*** -0.51 -0.25 Slow speed of service 1.88*** -17.10 -0.43 0.32 Unethical behaviour -0.15 1.56 3.13*** -44.76 Control Variables Criticality 1.06** -0.28 -0.29 0.59 Strength of relationship 0.01 0.20 -0.05 -0.22 Country -1.46* 1.08 0.10 -1.03 Age 0.00 -0.05 0.00 0.02 Gender -.31* 0.01 0.02 -0.58* Interaction Variables Country*Core service failure 0.68 -0.34 -0.24 0.19 Country*Unresponsive behaviour 0.49 -0.97 -0.27 1.96** Country*Inappropriate behaviour -1.93* -2.46** -0.89 0.94 Country*Speed of service -0.16 14.05 0.24 -0.09 Country*Unethical behaviour -1.18 -1.68 -0.95 -62.23
Criticality*Core service failure -1.27*** 0.36 .89*** -0.80 Criticality*Unresponsive behaviour -.78** -0.49 0.20 0.23 Criticality*Inappropriate behaviour -0.44 -0.38 0.45 -0.28 Criticality*Speed of recovery -1.41*** -0.11 0.35 -0.57 Criticality*Unethical behaviour -1.36** 0.24 0.00 -31.72
Model Statistics X2 (df) 131.60***(20) 146.82***(20) 112.64***(20) 36.96***(20) -2log likelihood 447.77 142.53 486.9 220.88 Nagelkerke R2 .37 .62 .31 .20 Correct classification rate 74.50% 94.00% 71.30% 91.30% Correct classification by chance 52.70% 81.45% 50.40% 84.05% 2-tailed test:* < .1, ** < .05, *** < .01
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Table 6: Logistic Regression Estimation Results (Episode 2: ineffective service recovery following a customer complaint)
Independent variables Dependent variables: Cognitive Appraisals (Threat, harm/loss to...) Model 5 Model 6 Model 7 Model 8 Ineffective service recovery types Economic resource Self-esteem Justice (fairness) Control Unresponsive response 1.28** 0.16 .65** 1.23*** Inappropriate response .88** 2.41*** -0.36 0.03 Slow speed of service recovery 1.09* 0.76 0.61 -0.07 Unethical response 0.88 -0.06 .97** 0.89 Control Variables Criticality 0.54 -0.23 0.15 1.13*** Strength of relationship -0.15 0.07 0.04 -0.15 Country -1.18 0.41 -0.46 -2.02*** Age 0.02 -0.02 0.00 0.01 Gender -.68** 0.57** -0.19 -.50** Interaction Variables Country*Unresponsive response 0.33 -.87* 1.01** 0.57 Country*Inappropriate response -18.38 0.08 0.52 0.79 Country*Speed or recovery 2.01* -19.87 0.74 1.65 Country*Unethical response -18.17 0.61 20.76 -19.64
Criticality*Unresponsive response -0.06 -0.08 -0.17 -0.82* Criticality*Inappropriate response -0.13 0.06 -0.01 -0.26 Criticality*Speed of recovery -0.36 -0.55 0.25 -0.06 Criticality*Unethical response -0.17 0.43 -0.35 -1.08**
Model Statistics X2 66.28***(17) 116.42***(17) 52.78***(17) 67.46***(17) -2log likelihood 231.01 348.66 517.64 347.87 Nagelkerke R2 .30 .37 .32 .25 Correct classification rate 88.90% 80.20% 66.50% 80.20% Correct classification by chance 79.54% 62.68% 50.58% 68.00% 2-tailed test:* < .1, ** < .05, *** < .01 37
Cognitive appraisal process during an initial service failure (Episode 1)
I first look at the relationship between types of initial service failure and a threat to fundamental human needs. The results of each model in Table 5 will be reported in turn. It is not surprising that in Model 1 a perceived threat to economic resources is statistically significant associated with core service failure (b = 1.18, p < .05) and (slow) speed of service (b = 1.88, p < .01). Turning now to the effect of control variables, only criticality of transaction appears to have a significantly positive relationship with a threat to economic resources. The higher the criticality of consumption occasion (b = 1.06, p < .05), the more likely the customer will appraise an initial service failure as a threat to economic resource.
For the impact of country, US customers (b = -1.46, p < .1) are more likely than Thai customers to appraise initial service failure as a threat to economic resource. Considering interaction effects, it should be noted for Table 5 that a number of interactions (mostly associated with criticality of the consumption) are significant. To illustrate, the results show the impact of a core service failure as a threat to loss of economic resources will be greater under condition of weaker (rather than stronger) criticality (b = -1.27, p < .01).
In Model 2 in an initial service failure situation, threat to self-esteem is only influenced by employee inappropriate behaviour (b = 5.97, p < .01). Only one interaction effect LVVLJQLILFDQWʊLHcountry moderated the relationship between employee inappropriate behaviour and threats to self-esteem. US customers (b = -2.46, p < .05) are more likely to appraise or interpret an initial service failure (Episode1) caused by an inappropriate employee behaviour as a threat to self-esteem. Turning to Model 3, a threat to sense of justice is likely to occur when front-line employees are either unresponsive (b =
1.07, p < .05) or exhibit unethical behaviour (b = 3.13, p < .01). The interaction of 38 criticality with core service failure has a significant effect on threats to fairness. In other words, the greater the criticality of the consumption, the more likely that the customer will appraise core service failure in Episode 1(b = .89, p < .01) as a threat to sense of justice.
For the last model in Table 5, each type of initial service failure has an insignificant effect on a threat to control needs. Only the interaction of country with unresponsive employee behaviour is significant. Thai customers (b = 1.96, p < .05) are more likely than US customers to appraise an unresponsive employee behaviour as a threat to control needs.
Cognitive appraisal process during an ineffective service recovery (Episode 2)
Table 6 shows the factors that influence each fundamental human need following an ineffective service recovery (Episode 2). First, an economic resource (Model 5) is significantly influenced by all types of ineffective service recovery except unethical response. The interaction of country with slow speed of service is marginally significant.
Turning to Model 6, a threat to self-esteem is only influenced by inappropriate employee response to customer complaints (b = 2.41, p < .01). The interaction effects show the interaction of country with employee unresponsive response is marginally significant.
In Model 7, threats to fairness needs are likely to occur when ineffective service recovery is attributed to employees’ unresponsive response (b = .65, p < .05) or employees’ unethical responses (b = .97, p < .05). For interaction effects, Thai customers (b = 1.01, p <
.05) who reported unresponsive staff are more likely to appraise the situation as a threat to sense of justice than their US counterparts. For the last model in Table 6, a sense of control is likely to be under threat when an employee is unresponsive to customers’ complaints (b
= 1.23, p < .01). Regarding control variables, the higher the criticality of consumption, the
39 more likely customers will appraise an ineffective service recovery as a threat to control (b
= 1.13, p < .01). For the effect of country, US customers (b = -2.02, p < .01) are more likely than Thai customers to appraise an ineffective service recovery as a threat to control. In
Model 8, only the interaction of criticality with unresponsive response and unethical response are significant. In other words, the greater the criticality of consumption, the less likely that the customer will appraise an unresponsive employee response (b = -.82, p < .1) or an unethical employee response (b = -1.08, p < .05) as a threat to sense of control.
Discussion and managerial implications
This research is the first to explore the relationship between types of service failures and customers’ cognitive appraisal that ultimately trigger rage incidents in both Western and Eastern contexts. The findings expand an understanding of the cognitive appraisal process following an initial service failure followed by ineffective service recovery. In particular, the results provide interesting insights into what fundamental human needs are at risk when each different type of failed service encounters occurs. Furthermore, the results demonstrate that culture seems to have a moderating influence on customers’ cognitive appraisal process. In this section, the study discusses key findings from the content analysis and logistic regression.
The descriptive results from Tables 1 and 2 illustrate the types of failed service encounters that involve rage incidents at Episodes 1 and 2. In Episode 1 (initial failure) it is perhaps not surprising that core service failure was most prominent with 49.4% of responses, although an unresponsive employee was mentioned by 27.4%. At Episode 2 results indicate that the process of service (how the service is delivered), particularly
40 employees’ behaviours (i.e., unresponsiveness, inappropriateness, unethical) is the main reason causing customers to voice their concerns. Perhaps, this is a result of emotion contagion following the initial service failure. Dallimore et al. (2007) explained that an angry outburst by a customer can trigger the emotional contagion process in which the anger is transferred to the front-line employee. As a result of encountering an angry customer, the employee might not respond to the customer in an appropriate manner, but instead respond with negative verbal or nonverbal expressions, or even avoid responding.
To avoid a ripple effect of emotion contagion in the service encounter, a manager or supervisor not directly involved in the original encounter should intervene. This finding also implies a challenge for service organizations to manage the standard of their customer service and make sure that their employees are aware of the results of their actions which are seen and evaluated at every moment during all service encounters. Service employees must demonstrate a high level of professionalism by being constantly attentive, creating a friendly impression, and showing willingness to assist customers, especially in a service recovery situation where the zone of tolerance is smaller.
Next, the content analysis results (Tables 3 and 4) showed five fundamental human needs ʊSK\VLFDOZHOO-being (safety), self-esteem, economic resources, justice (fairness) and the need for control being threatened or violated in rage incidents. In both Episodes 1 and 2, customers mostly reported a threat to their sense of justice (45.5% and 55.4%, respectively) as a result of failed service encounters. Perhaps, it is not a surprising result because a service failure that is perceived as a threat to justice frequently evokes more intense negative emotions than those that is not related to sense of justice (Seiders and
Berry 1998; Skarlicki et al. 1999). Customers also deal with a service organization with an
41 implicit ‘psychological’ contract and thus expect to be treated fairly. Seiders and Berry
(1998) explained that in a service transaction, customers heavily rely on an implicit sense of justice prior to purchase because the service is intangible and often difficult to evaluate.
At Episode 1 threat to one’s economic resources was also prominent (38.4% of respondents) while at Episode 2 (recovery situation) threats to self-esteem and a need for control were prominent (24.8% and 20%, respectively)
Perhaps the most interesting insights lie with the relationships between the violation of fundamental human needs and types of failed service encounters. Tables 7 and 8 summarize the main significant results of logistic regression. First, during Episode 1 (Table
7) both core service failure and speed of service are positively associated with a threat to economic resource. The result is consistent with the previous study by Smith et al. (1999).
They suggested that a core service failure could imply a potential loss of money and time because a bought service does not provide the basic outcome (e.g., a hotel room is unavailable due to overbooking). For speed of service (in Table 8), it is also associated with a threat to economic resources in Episode 2. This result reflects the fact that customers perceived that they are wasting time on a slow speed of service such as a long wait in a queue (to be served or for service recovery) or multiple call transfers. Second, the study found that inappropriate manner of employees, specifically, an employee being rude or impolite is likely to damage customers’ self-esteem in both Episodes 1 and 2 (Tables 7 and
8). This result is consistent with previous research that the quality of customer-employee interaction is the key influent factor for customers’ sense of self-worth (Patterson et al.
2009).
42
Table 7: Summary of Significant Results (Episode 1)
Threat to ... Initial service failure types Economic resource Self-esteem Justice Control Core service failure + Unresponsive behaviour -+ Inappropriate behaviour + Slow speed of service + Unethical behaviour +
Table 8: Summary of Significant Results (Episode 2)
Threat to ... Ineffective service recovery types Economic resource Self-esteem Justice Control Unresponsive response +++ Inappropriate response ++ Slow speed of service recovery + Unethical recovery +
Note: The sign (+, -) refers to positive or negative coefficients significant at p RUOHVV
43
Thirdly, in Episodes 1 and 2, unresponsive and unethical employees are positively associated with threat to sense of justice. Employees exhibiting responsive and ethical behaviour are central to building customers’ perception of justice in the process of delivering the service or rectifying the problem (Folger and Bies 1989; Sparks and McColl-
Kennedy 2001). However, when customers encounter employees who intend to take an advantage of them (e.g., deception, hidden agenda) and when there is a lack of accountability (e.g., denying responsibility, providing frequent service error), perceptions of injustice can arise (Seiders and Berry 1998). The finding shows that a consequence of perceived threat to customer’s sense of fairness extends beyond cognitive evaluation to an extreme emotional and behavioural response, such as customer rage.
Fourthly, a threat to control is only associated with unresponsive response in
Episode 2 but not related to any initial service failure in Episode 1. This is perhaps not a surprising result because in Episode 1 many customers still believe that they can control the situation. They expect that an employee would take responsibility for the failure and fix the problem after receiving a complaint. However, when service employees deny their responsibility, offer no explanation of why the problem occurs, and leave customers with no choice but to accept the failure, having sense of control under threat customers feel helpless with the organization. Such thought could drive the customer to extreme and express their intense anger out in public.
Interestingly, when I compare cognitive appraisal patterns across two time periods, customers perceived more loss in Episode 2. In Table 7 (Episode 1) each initial service failure is likely to violate one specific fundamental need whereas in Table 8 (Episode 2) half of ineffective service recovery types are associated with more than one violation of 44 fundamental needs. To illustrate (Table 8), an inappropriate response is associated with not only a threat to self-esteem but also a threat to economic resources. When organizations fail to provide an effective service recovery (Episode 2) (i.e., unresponsiveness, inappropriate response, and slow speed of recovery), in almost all situations customers tend to display a concern for a loss of economic resources such as time spent on the unresolved problem or wasting money on the poor service performance. Furthermore, in a double deviation situation (failed service encounter followed by inadequate or inappropriate service recovery) a customer is likely to experience strong negative emotions (Priluck and Lala
2009) and subsequently is likely to retaliate or demand reparation from the offending organization (Grégoire and Fisher 2008). The results from this study explain why customers respond more negatively and want compensation after an ineffective service recovery as their fundamental needs are repeatedly under threat.
Cultural differences exist in cognitive appraisal process. In Western society, there is more emphasis on the economic resources than in Eastern society. The data in Table 5 shows that US customers are more likely than Thais to appraise an initial service failure as a threat to their economic need. From Table 3, an economic resource has been reported by
US (47.5%) and Thai (28.8%) customers during an initial service failure (Episode 1).
Hofstede (1983) noted that in a ‘masculine’ society such as the US tends to emphasize one’s performance, money (wealth), and achievement whereas a ‘feminine’ society, such as
Thailand tends to put greater focus on relationships with other people rather than economic gain and tend not to flaunt their wealth. Another difference between the two samples lies with the violation of physical well-being. From Table 3, threat to physical well-being is more commonly reported by Thai consumers (17.9%) than the US (5.4%). This result
45 reflects a safety standard of service organization in both countries. Thailand is a developing country where the enforcement of consumer protection laws and regulations is much less effective than in the US. Hence, there is a higher chance for Thai customers to experience a service failure that has a threat to their physical well-being such as unhygienic foods being served in restaurants or substandard mass transportation that could put their lives at risk.
Next, US customers are more likely than Thais to appraise an ineffective service recovery as a threat to a sense of control (Table 6). From Table 4, a violation of control has been reported by 32% of US and only 8% of Thai customers during an ineffective service recovery. This difference may be explained by the individualist characteristic of the US sample. An individualist society emphasizes more on autonomy with people encouraged to be independent and pursue their own goals (Sastry and Ross 1998). Thus, US customers are likely to require a sense of control when something has gone wrong so that they can manage a solution to the problem. In contrast, Thais living in a high power distance and collectivist society (Hofstede 1983) tend to rely on service providers whose duty is to get the service right and solve the problem and hence they are less sensitive to a loss of control.
In fact, the study by Sastry and Ross (1998) showed that Asians have a lower need for sense of control than non-Asians and the sense of control appears to have less impact on psychological distress among Asians.
Managerial implications
These findings provide important directions to help service organizations prevent the onset of customer rage. As suggested by Smith et al. (1999), service organizations could provide an effective service recovery by offering a recovery embedded with a value that
46 matches customers’ psychological and economic loss in a service failure. Generally, service strategies (e.g., offering compensation, replacement, or apology) that are adopted by service organizations offer a distinct value. For example, the psychological value that links to the compensation and replacement strategy is economic resources (Smith et al. 1999) while a self-esteem could be enhanced by offering an apology and being courteous (e.g., sincerely listening to a customer’s problem and being supportive) (Goodwin 1988; Smith et al.
1999). In another example, offering customer with justification and referential explanations can help restore customer’s sense of justice (Sparks and Fredline 2007). Particularly, referential explanation (e.g., informing customers that they do not have to wait as long as other customers for a product or service replacement) can help lower customer expectation and is more appropriate in a severe service failure.
However customers’ psychological state or cognitive appraisal process is not easily observable. Thus, the study findings are useful as they link type of failed encounters to specific damaged fundamental needs. These typologies (referring to Tables 7 and 8) can be used as a situational cue for frontline employees to be alert to potential damage to customers’ fundamental needs and how to respond appropriately. For example, customers who complain about core service failure or slow speed of service tend to have a perception that their economic resource is under threat. Front-line employees could prevent customers’ emotions from escalating beyond surprise, embarrassment, or disappointment and reaching boiling point by quickly providing solutions to the problems or offering reasonable compensation.
47
Limitations and future research directions
Like all scholarly research, there are several limitations with this study. First, while the study focuses on a set of fundamental needs which have been threatened in rage incidents; it may be useful to examine customers’ emotional and behavioural reactions when these needs are enhanced. Identifying human core needs that could enhance positive consequences and prevent negative repercussions can be beneficial to frontline employees and firms. Second, it may be useful to study the relationships of types of failed service encounters, cognitive appraisal process, and service recovery strategies in low, moderate, and high intensity negative emotions. The comparison will provide service organizations with a complete picture of what service recovery strategies would be suitable for different levels of customers’ negative emotions. Third the researcher relies on retrospective self- report data which could be fallible. Respondents may not remember all details of the incident. Future research might overcome this by using other methods such as direct observation of customer behaviour, quasi-experiments, and physiological assessment.
Fourth, the current study only focuses on the relationships between type of service failure and cognitive appraisal that eventually leads to customer rage. To further understand cognitive appraisal processes in extreme positive service experiences, future research might examine the relationships between types of service encounter and cognitive appraisal that leads to customer extreme positive emotions or customer advocacy. Lastly, exploring both employees and customers’ opinions on the causes of customer rage may provide a more complete understanding of rage incidents.
In summary, the study contends that organizations cannot truly understand emotionally charged customer reactions such as rage unless they first consider customers’ 48 fundamental psychological needs (e.g., economic resources, self-esteem, sense of justice, sense of control, and physical well-being). Frontline employees and their supervisors need to have a mindset that customers are first and foremost people who seek a set of psychological needs from service encounters. This means that they need to understand and avert the circumstances of failed service encounters that may trigger a violation of fundamental human needs. Learning from past experiences, observing various cues, and responding quickly and effectively could prevent and recover customers from experiencing extreme anger and other violent behavioural consequences. The overriding aim should be to put out the small fire before it becomes a blaze.
49
CHAPTER 3
MODELING CUSTOMER COGNITIVE APPRAISALS TO RAGE EMOTIONS
FOLLOWING A SERVICE FAILRUE
Abstract
This study examines the central role of customer cognitive appraisals (i.e. what is at stake or what need is being threatened) as a trigger of rage emotions following a series of dissatisfactory service experiences. Customer experiences were examined across three time
SHULRGVʊDQLQLWLDOVHUYLFHIDLOXUHIROORZHGE\XSWRWZRLQHIIHFWLYHVHUYLFHUHFRYHULHV
Using multinomial regression, the results from data collected in two diverse cultures (USA and Thailand) show that a violation of, or threat to, fundamental human needs (e.g., self- esteem, justice, sense of control, and physical well-being) could set customers off to rage, but not immediately. This study demonstrates that negative emotions provoked by a violation of fundamental human needs in the initial service failure are likely to escalate to anger and ultimately rage when the original failure remains unsolved after several attempts by the customer to rectify the situation. Important differences were found in emotional responses between US and Thai customers.
50
Introduction
“The lawyer was retained to represent me in court … . After paying the retainer ($1000), he was never available for counsel ... . When I tried to contact him again…, he still would not return my calls. By this time, I was getting angry… . I finally left one more message and I told him how incompetent he has been … . I would be filing a complaint of abandonment … . (I was) extremely angry with his representation. I felt like he deserved to be punished. …I ended up yelling, screaming and, then crying and told him I was going to try to have him disbarred.” (female, 36, U.S.A, legal service)
This example illustrates how service failures can trigger negatively valenced emotions and drive customers to an extreme level of anger and subsequent rage. Customer rage is defined as an extreme negative emotion (e.g. outrage, hate, disgust) accompanied by an expression (physical, verbal, nonverbal) and potentially harmful behaviours (e.g. exit, negative word of mouth, and even revenge) toward the organization following a series of dissatisfactory service experiences (McColl-Kennedy et al. 2009). The consequences of rage incidents can be devastating to service employees, organizations, and other customers who may be present (McGovern and Moon 2007). Service employees in particular are a key target of customer intimidation and aggression; dealing with rage incidents can be distressing to front-line personnel (van Jaarsveld et al. 2010; Walsh 2010). Customer rage appears to be an escalating phenomenon and companies are at a loss on how to manage effectively (McGregor 2008).
Understanding the antecedents that trigger customer extreme emotional responses is clearly warranted for service organizations aiming to design effective service actions that can prevent, or at least prepare employees for such incidents. However, previous studies in marketing literature have tended to focus on low to moderate levels of negative emotions such as disappointment, annoyance and anger. These emotions can be evoked frequently
51 but may not always lead to destructive responses (Spelman 1989). Only when the level is intense or turns to rage, it is likely to result in harmful behaviours such as verbal abuse, vandalism, and even physical injury to one’s self and/or to others (McColl-Kennedy and
Smith 2006; Richins 1997). Prior studies in marketing and management (e.g. Patterson et al. 2009; Schneider and Bowen 1999) indicate that a highly intense negative emotion is likely to be a consequence of any violation of, or threat to, core human psychological needs
(e.g., self-esteem, sense of fairness, need for control, etc). Furthermore, another interesting characteristic of extreme anger or rage is that it does not manifest immediately; rather, it evolves over time (Patterson et al. 2009). These key insights, however, have not been supported by empirical work nor sufficiently explained to date.
The study therefore employs the theory of stress and coping (Lazarus and Folkman
1984), the concept of emotion regulation (Thompson 1994), and excitation transfer theory
(Zillmann 1971) to examine the process by which customers’ cognitive appraisal of a service failure (and subsequent ineffective recovery) lead to escalating negative emotions, culminating in rage. This study proposes that the appraisal of a threat or harm to customers’ fundamental human needs which originate from a service failure coupled with an ineffective recovery effort will trigger and intensify negative emotional responses.
Furthermore, this study proposes that instead of an immediate rage response to the initial service failure, some customers are able to regulate their emotions and delay any rage emotional reaction. However, negative emotions provoked by a violation of fundamental human needs in the initial service failure are likely to escalate to anger and rage when the original complaint (service failure) remains unsolved after several attempts by the customer
52 to have the problem resolved. Figure 1 presents a conceptual framework of the current study.
53
Figure 1: Dynamic Process of Cognitive Appraisals and Emotions
Note: In Episode 1, cognitive appraisal is triggered by the initial service failure.
For Episodes 2 and 3, ineffective (or nonexistent) service recoveries trigger reappraisal process and more intense negative emotions.
54
This research makes several contributions. First, using the theory of stress and coping (Lazarus and Folkman 1984), this is the only large scale empirical study to examine the association between customers’ cognitive appraisals and negative emotions following a dissatisfactory service experience. Second, this study examines the dynamic process of cognitive appraisal (and reappraisal) over three time periods (i.e., initial service failure and two subsequent ineffective service recovery episodes) in which each episode may be separated by an interval of a few minutes to a several weeks. Specifically, the study identifies the nature of the cognitive appraisals that are triggered by the initial failure
(Episode 1), the first ineffective (or non-existent) service recovery (Episode 2), and the second ineffective (or non-existent) service recovery (Episode 3) and then examine the nature and strength of association between appraisals and rage in each episode. For example, is threat to self-esteem more or less likely than threat to sense of justice, to trigger rage emotions? Third, the study assesses the impact of negative emotion in one episode carrying over to subsequent negative emotions in the next episode. Finally, the current study examines the extent to which national culture (U.S. and Thai) impacts the likelihood of reacting with a rage emotion. I now define some fundamental concepts within the research framework.
Theoretical background and research hypotheses
Cognitive appraisal process and negative emotional responses
Emotion has been explained by numerous cognitive psychologists (e.g., Frijda
1987; Lazarus 1982; Roseman et al. 1996) as the outcome state of humans’ psychological process or the result of how people appraise (interpret) situations. Emotion is also known to
55 be episodic, that is, it occurs and guides individuals’ behaviours in response to a particular stimulus or event (Dallimore et al. 2007). The theory of stress and coping proposed by
Lazarus and Folkman (1984) LGHQWLILHVWZRNH\SV\FKRORJLFDOSURFHVVHVʊQDPHO\
FRJQLWLYHDSSUDLVDODQGFRSLQJʊWKDWH[SODLn an individual’s emotional and behavioural responses to a stressful environment. At the cognitive appraisal stage, a person evaluates whether a particular (stressful) encounter with the environment (e.g., dissatisfactory service encounter) is relevant to his or her well-being and, if so, whether it is likely to be harmful or beneficial. If it perceived as a threat, or harm to, or loss of personal significance such as values or needs, negative emotions can be expected. Cognitive appraisals together with negative emotions then drive the person to respond to the situation. This mechanism is known as the coping process. At the coping stage, people deal with stressful situations through several coping strategies of which there are two broad categories: problem-focused coping (attempting to change or alleviate the sources of stress such as planning to solve the problem and confronting the cause) and emotion-focused coping (attempting to make one feel better such as telling friends, seeking family support, and venting emotions). Coping and emotion are conjoined in nature and there is a bidirectional relationship between the two (Lazarus 1999). Coping operates in an emotional context and is influenced by emotions
(e.g., being fearful may lead to a form of coping strategy called escape-avoidance). At the same time, coping could also affect emotion because one of the tasks of coping is to reduce the level of negative emotions. However, several studies in psychology (e.g., Ellsworth and
Scherer 2003b; Lazarus 1982; Scherer 1997) tend to emphasize the relationships between cognitive appraisal processes and emotional responses. Therefore, in the current study, I
56 focus on the cognitive appraisal stage (what psychological needs are at stake or being threatened) and accompanying emotional responses, rather than on the coping processes.
Service recovery
Many studies in the service literature have examined customers’ emotional responses to service failure but only a few focus on their emotional reactions after experiencing an ineffective service recovery (McColl-Kennedy and Sparks 2003). In service recovery situations, customers pay greater attention to details in service recovery process and could be more anxious towards the outcome (e.g., product replacement, money compensation) than in a situation where they only face a typical service encounter (Chebat
2002). Furthermore, customers who experience anger as a result of a service failure will have a greater concern on needs for justice than those who experience no emotion (Smith and Bolton 2002). When a company failed to respond appropriately and speedily after the first service failure, the situation is termed a ‘double deviation’ (initial service failure followed by ineffective service recovery) (Bitner et al. 1990a). In a double deviation situation (failed service encounter followed by inadequate or inappropriate service recovery) a customer is likely to experience strong negative emotions (Priluck and Lala
2009) and subsequently is likely to retaliate or demand reparation from the offending organization (Grégoire and Fisher 2008).
Emotion regulation
When encountering a negative emotion–provoking situation, individuals are capable of altering or even removing the immediate emotional or behavioural responses
(Baumeister and Leary 1995). This is a result of emotion regulation mechanism through
57 which the intensity of negative emotions is dampened or suppressed (Thompson 1994).
Emotion regulation is part of social competence and prosocial behaviour that children are taught directly or indirectly by parents, caretakers, and peers (Eisenberg et al. 1996). It is a critical function to support the adaptation process and to facilitate strategic behavioural responses to deal with a changing environment (Thompson 1994). There are certain rules and regulations that govern the expression of emotion, many of which are learned during the child’s development process (Eisenberg et al. 1996). Social norms of displaying emotions are parts of the learned emotion regulation that may vary from one culture to another. In Thai society for example (and other eastern cultures), open, public displays of extreme emotion is considered a social taboo (Mattila and Patterson 2004c; Tremlett 2006).
Drawing on the emotion regulation mechanism, when customers first experience a threat to personal significance (e.g., self-esteem) in service failures, they may attempt to regulate their negative emotional experience and control their behavioural responses in order to delay the display of strong emotions. Although, most customers are able to regulate their emotions and responses appropriately to an extent, a strong and continued emotion- provoking arousal may weaken the emotion regulation function. Expressing extreme anger and associated harmful behaviours are sometimes unavoidable because the capacity to delay emotion and expression is overcome by powerful and unstoppable forces (Baumeister and Heatherton 1996). As such, when a customer is forced to endure repeated failure (e.g., continued threat to self-esteem), they may exhaust their capacity to control their expressions to comply with social norms. Therefore, the author of the study hypothesizes that:
58
H1. In the majority of service failure incidents, rage emotions tend not to manifest immediately after an initial service failure (Episode 1). Rather they unfold over time (after repeated ineffective or nonexistence service recovery efforts by the organization).
In the next section, I identify and explain factors that may weaken the emotion regulation function and eventually result in customers losing control and reacting aggressively during the service recovery process.
Threats to fundamental human needs
Needs are defined by Murray (1938) as “… a construct that stands for a force (the physic-chemical nature of which is unknown) in the brain region, a force that organizes perception, apperception, intellection, conation and action in such a way as to transform in a certain direction an existing, unsatisfying situation” (p. 123-124). Fundamental human needs are intrinsic motivations in human behaviours and inspirations in the person- environment interaction (Markus and Wurf 1987). People continually strive to satisfy their needs. When the paths to obtaining needs are blocked, people are persistent in trying to find new ways to satisfy them.
A continual violation of fundamental human needs could give rise to severe behavioural responses to such an extent that the person is unable to control. Because fundamental human needs are deeply ingrained in one’s psyche and are part of one’s internal attributes which contribute to a construal of self (Markus and Kitayama 1991), a mismatch of the meaning in the situation and the internal meaning of self could result in immense distress (Burke 1991). A loss of self-esteem, for example, could result in
59 depression (Hirschfeld et al. 1976), anxiety (Solomon et al. 1991), anger (Averill 1982), and even aggression (Kuppens and Van Mechelen 2007). Furthermore as noted by
Patterson et al (2009) “…psychological needs (such as self-esteem, need for control, and fairness (justice) sense of belonging, and security) are so central to a person’s core well- being that failure to gratify them can result in extreme negative emotions and vengeful behaviours” (p. 8). In an extreme case, a deprivation of fundamental human needs can induce a person to behave harmfully in order to regain the needs or even result in negative mental health (Deci and Ryan 2000).
The author therefore proposes that negative emotions including rage are driven by the cognitive appraisal process in which customers appraise a dissatisfactory service encounter as a threat to their fundamental human needs for economic resources, self- esteem, justice, control, and physical well-being (safety). As suggested by the conceptual work of Schneider and Bowen (1999), the needs for security (physical well-being and economic well-being) and esteem are drawn from Maslow’s needs hierarchy and need for justice was derived from considerable research in philosophy and psychology. The need for control emerged from a review of literature in marketing and psychology (e.g., Hui and
Bateson 1991; Langer and Rodin 1976). The following section discusses each fundamental human need within a service context.
Economic needs refer to a need to protect one’s economic well-being (Schneider and Bowen 1999). People are constantly concerned about their financial security, the effective use of their time, and whether money is well spent for purchased products or services. Economic need such as time convenience are the source of value (benefits) customers seek in a service experience (Kleijnen et al. 2007; Smith et al. 1999). When 60 customers pay for a product or service, they expect companies to value their financial commitment and protect their economic well-being (e.g., providing reasonable service quality, offering reliable service that meet expectation on various attributes within a reasonable time). Generally, a core service failure is likely to create a loss to a customer’s economic well-being (Smith et al. 1999) that can potentially lead to customer switching behaviour (Keaveney 1995).
Self-esteem refers to a person’s sense of self-worth (Rosenberg 1965). People have a need to protect or enhance their self-image. Feeling good about oneself is so important that it has a positive impact on mental well-being (Caplan 1974). In marketing, it is well accepted that self-esteem is an important value that promotes consumption of services and products (Sirgy 1982). Customers are driven by their self-esteem needs in purchasing and selecting services that could complement or even enhance their self-worth. Any consumption that represents a potential threat to self-esteem is avoided. A loss of self- esteem typically involves feeling inferior, loss of self-respect, or a feeling of dissatisfaction with self (Shamir 1986). In service businesses, customers’ esteem is maintained and enhanced through the quality of interpersonal interactions of service employees (Patterson et al. 2009). For example, service organizations can show respect (and thus boost self- esteem) by providing excellent quality delivery (i.e., being courtesy, friendly, and efficient) including training their frontline employees to address customers by name and remember some of their purchase preferences. Starbucks for example is one company that understands the importance of boosting self-HVWHHPʊLWH[SHFWVIURQW-line employees to remember the names of up to one hundred regular customers. All of these efforts have the ultimate goal of
61 making customers feel a sense of importance, belonging and being valued, and thus enhancing their self-esteem.
Justice or fairness refers to a sense that one should receive no less than what one thought one deserves (Lerner 2003). People derive a sense of justice from an implicit psychological contract with others and with society in general (Tyler 1989). In a commercial relationship, there is also an implicit promise between service providers and customers of fair treatment (Seiders and Berry 1998). Customers form their sense of justice with a particular business through prior experiences with firms, word-of-mouth recommendation, and firm’s marketing communication. In addition, they seek justice in three main components: benefits or outcomes (distributive justice), process elements
(procedural justice), and interpersonal treatment (interactional justice) (Tax et al. 1998).
When a sense of justice is damaged, it involves a perception of being cheated (Dunn et al.
1995) and can result in negative emotions, and a desire to punish the source of injustice
(Lerner 2003).
A sense of control refers to a belief that one has an ability to achieve a goal, deal with a problem, or control a situation (White 1959). It is a basic psychological need that involves a feeling of being capable of making one’s own decisions (Langer and Rodin
1976; Skinner 1996). Customers also need a sense of control in a satisfying relationship with serviFHSURYLGHUV3HUFHLYHGFRQWUROFDQEHHQKDQFHGLQWKUHHDVSHFWVʊWKURXJK behavioural control, cognitive control, and decisional control (Averill 1973). Behavioural control refers to one’s ability to respond to the environment. Cognitive control refers to the ability to anticipate or reinterpret a situation. Finally, decisional control refers to having a choice for alternative actions open to an individual. For example, facilitating customers’ 62 decision-making process (e.g., providing options [decisional control] or providing relevant information [cognitive control]) instead of forcing customers to follow a company-fixed procedure could influence customers’ perceived control and subsequently enhance positive emotional responses (Hui and Bateson 1991). However, when a customer perceives themselves as being powerless over a situation or having a lack of control over a situation, a negative emotion will likely be triggered and behavioural outcome such as withdrawal or maladaptive behaviours can be expected (Bowen and Johnston 1999).
Physical well-being refers to a need to be free from physical harm. It is the most basic in Maslow’s (1943) hierarchy of needs and it is a prerequisite that must be gratified before other needs. Customers cannot be satisfied with service encounters unless they are first in a secure situation. During SARS outbreaks, for example, people minimized their travels by plane and generally avoided being confined in a closed space. Customers expect companies to provide measures that help protect their physical well-being (e.g., screening out passengers who have certain symptoms). Individuals may become enraged if a life- threatening situation is preventable but it occurs because an organization failed to provide basic security. For example, recently the public became irate at McDonald’s lack of security that allowed a 6-year-old girl to be injured by a needle in one of their playgrounds
(Webster 2010).
To summarize, an organization that threatens (or violates) the fundamental human needs of its customers should be prepared to deal with customers’ negative emotional responses such as annoyance, anger, resentment and ultimately rage. Therefore, the author hypothesizes that:
63
H2. Following a dissatisfy service encounter, cognitive appraisals that are perceived as a threat to a customer’s fundamental human needs will be associated with negatively valanced emotions at Episodes 1 (initial failure), 2, and 3 (ineffective recovery efforts).
Dynamic process of cognitive appraisal and residual emotion
Cognitive appraisal is a dynamic process, meaning that an evaluation or reappraisal always occurs whenever new information is presented (Lazarus 1999). Hence, emotions recur as long as a situation is appraised and then reappraised in light of a new event.
Consider a passenger who is initially annoyed to find that a flight is delayed, and later becomes angry when no explanation is offered, and then is infuriated when frontline staff is unwilling to assist in finding an alternative flight. In one transaction which often consists of a series of interactions between a customer and a service provider, a customer often experiences a range and sequence of emotions or satisfaction levels (Danaher and Mattsson
1994; Ruth et al. 2002). When encountering an initial service failure followed by an ineffective service recovery known as a “double deviation” situation, customers experience a series of negative emotions in which the intensity tends to increase as the situation unfolds (proceeding from disappointment to anger to being outrageous over the three episodes) (Bougie et al. 2003; Goldberg et al. 1999). This phenomenon of emotion escalation or emotional transfer has been well studied in communication and emotion research over three decades and the most well-known theory explaining its mechanisms is excitation transfer theory (Zillmann 1971). The theory originated from research area which aimed at explaining the effect of exposure to communications with aggressive content on subsequent behavior and emotions of viewers (Bryant et al. 2003). Excitation transfer 64 theory has established that an escalation in the negative emotional intensity occurs partly because of the distinct characteristic of negative emotions, which tend to dissipate slowly.
The residual emotion which occurred earlier will act as an additional emotion arousal in a subsequent emotion-provoking event and heighten the intensity of emotion responses.
Based on excitation transfer theory (Zillmann 1971), escalation in the intensity of negative emotion occurs because emotions such as anger dissipate slowly and a person tends to carry that emotional state (residual anger) over to a subsequent episode. For example, in a double deviation situation, the first negative emotion from the initial event or residual emotion
(e.g., annoyance from the first encounter) will be carried over and act as an additional arousal mechanism that can intensify the negative emotion reactions in a following event.
Therefore, the author hypothesizes that:
H3. In the case of ineffective (or nonexistent) service recovery, residual negative emotion from the previous episode (e.g., initial failure incident) will carry over and be associated with heightened negative emotions in the subsequent episode.
Effects of national culture
National culture is important here because there is evidence suggesting that emotional expressions of individuals from collectivist and individualist countries are different. In collectivist societies such as Thailand and China negative emotions (e.g., anger or frustration) are reported as less intense, less frequent, or of shorter duration than in individualist societies such as the United States or Australia (Grimm et al. 1999; Markus and Kitayama 1991). Individuals from collectivist societies also have a distinctive way of dealing with stressful situation. They are characterized by high fatalistic tendencies—belief
65 in fate or luck and as a result they tend to use fatalistic ideas such as “It is my unlucky day” to explain an unfavourable event and alleviate discontent emotion (Chan et al. 2009;
Yau 1988). Collectivist societies also emphasize the views of the in-group over those of the individual, whereas individualist societies focus on the unique individual beliefs (Triandis
1995). Consequently, it tends to be more acceptable in individualist societies to express negative emotions, to a certain extent in public, whereas collectivist societies tend to avoid such expression, which could decrease the harmony of the in-group (Gudykunst and Ting-
Toomey 1988). Due to different characteristics between collectivist and individualist societies, Thai customers are more likely than their American counterparts to control the onset of strong negative emotions and deescalate the extreme negative emotion resulting in a shorter duration of rage expression. Therefore, the author hypothesizes that:
H4. In each episode, Thai customers are less likely than their U.S counterparts to express rage emotions.
Personality traits and emotion reaction
Individuals have different levels of tolerance to emotion-provoking events. Some individuals tend to quickly express intense emotions, both positive and negative, on a regular basis even though the events in which they encounter only provoke mild emotion for most of other people (Larsen et al. 1987). State-trait anger theory (Spielberger et al.
1983) explains that individual differences in anger proneness are due to fundamental personality traits. A temperament related to high trait anger includes being a ‘hotheaded’ person, getting angry easily, getting angry often, and being quick-tempered. High trait anger individuals tend to respond with more frequent (i.e., become angry easily) and more
66 intense anger whenever they encounter negative emotion–provoking events. Therefore, the author hypothesizes that:
H5. Customers with a higher trait anger personality are more likely to be associated with rage after an initial service failure (Episode 1) and ineffective or nonexistence service recoveries (Episodes 2 and 3) than those with low trait anger personalities.
Control variables
There is some evidence supporting the view that displays of negative emotions are influenced by the criticality of the transaction, strength of relationship, attribution of blame, and gender. Although the study does not make formal hypotheses about such statistical associations, it captures the potential influence of each variable to control for such effects.
First, criticality of transaction may have a positive impact on customers’ ability to regulate and delay rage expression. When an outcome of a transaction is perceived as important, an individual has a greater incentive to subdue the intense negative emotions or aggressions
(Anderson and Bushman 2003) and to act strategically in order to get the problem resolved.
Second, for attribution of blame, there is an abundance of psychology and marketing literature suggesting that the perceived cause of product or service failure can influence customers’ emotional and behavioural reactions (e.g., Bitner 1990; Folkes 1984; Weiner
1985). Third, the strength of a relationship has been found to have a positive impact on customers’ attitude toward a firm’s performance (Crosby and Stephens 1987) and it propels customers to become more tolerant to service failure (Hess et al. 2003). Finally, gender differences in negative emotion expression have been suggested by previous research in
67 psychology. Women tend to be more emotional and experience higher negative emotions than men (Fujita et al. 1991). Therefore attribution of blame, criticality of transaction, strength of relationship, and gender have been included in the analysis. Inclusion of these control variables is designed to provide robust tests of the hypotheses.
Methodology
This study employs critical incident technique (CIT) to examine customers’ cognitive appraisal process and associated negative emotional responses. This technique provides a set of procedures for collecting the events that lead to a specific outcome
(Flanagan 1954). CIT has been used successfully in a number of studies related to cognitive appraisal and emotion elicitation process (e.g., Ruth et al. 2002; Weiner et al.
1979). CIT is an appropriate method for this study because the phenomenon of customer rage and its psychological antecedents are relatively unexplored. This method helps to gain insights from respondents’ narratives of their own thoughts (cognitive appraisal) and emotion responses to each episode of failed service encounters and to avoid forcing respondents to evaluate the thoughts and emotions that otherwise might not have occurred.
In addition, negative emotion–provoking situations such as initial service failure followed by ineffective service recoveries is a suitable circumstance to study customers’ cognitive appraisal process because it facilitates respondents sharing their stories and talking about their thoughts and negative emotions (Deci and Ryan 2000).
The author defines critical incidents as a series of failed service encounters (i.e., initial failure followed by one or more ineffective or non-existent service recoveries) between the customer and an organization (or its service employees) that ultimately lead to
68 customers’ extreme emotional reaction (e.g., extreme anger, outrage, rage) accompanied by potentially harmful expressions (physical, verbal, nonverbal, displaced). To be included in the sample of this study, the incident was required to meet the following criteria of (1) involving rage emotions (i.e., intense emotions such as extreme anger, hate, rage) accompanied by its expression (e.g., yelling, slamming the telephone, cursing), (2) related to a dissatisfying service experience/s that were caused by the organization rather than by other customers, and (3) occurring in the past 6 months.
Data collection
A self-administered questionnaire with open-ended and close-ended questions was developed based on the cognition and emotion literature (e.g., Folkman and Lazarus 1980) and an initial exploratory stage of twenty four in-depth interviews (twelve in each country,
Thailand and the US). To ensure meaning equivalence of both English and Thai questions, the English-version questionnaire was translated into the Thai language by a bilingual person whose mother language is Thai and then back-translated into English by another bilingual person who was equally fluent in both Thai and English. The responses were collected by professional market research companies in Thailand and the United States. The principal investigator gave field work researchers detailed training on the research background, key information needed for the questionnaire, and the meaning of each of the questions asked. The following information was solicited from all respondents, using open- ended questions.
x The situational context (e.g., retail, health care service, restaurant)
69
x The specific circumstances surrounding the incident (the respondent’s story of what
triggered negative emotions and how the situation worsened over time)
x Thoughts (appraisal process) and emotions after the initial service failure
x Thoughts (appraisal process) and emotions following the organization’s ineffective
recoveries
Note that respondents were not asked to identify the underlying causes of rage but rather to describe a specific instance that gave rise to negative emotions. Setting questions in this way is something that most people can answer easily (Bitner et al. 1990a).
A total of 435 usable questionnaires (223 in the United States and 212 in Thailand) were used in the final analysis. Thirteen of the questionnaires were excluded due to the irrelevance to the employee (or organization)–customer relationship or insufficient details of the incident. The most common types of organizations reported on this study were retail stores, retail banks, supermarket, boutiques, restaurants, hotels, health care providers, utilities, and airlines. Modes of encounters are in person (71.6%), over the telephone
(27.4%), and online (1%). The average age of respondents was 36 years old (Thai 30.8 years old; U.S. 41.1 years old) with 54.5% being female (Thai 51.4% female; U.S. 57.4% female).
Once the data was collected, the study analysed the data, using content analysis to test H1 and H4, and multinomial logistic regression to test H2 to H5. The following section describes the application of each method in detail.
70
Content analysis and coding
Content analysis is a systematic technique for analysing and sorting (quantifying) message content into a set of categories based on defined rules of coding (Kassarjian 1977).
Measuring cognitive appraisals and/or emotions using content analysis of open-ended responses is a method that has been successfully employed by other researchers in the social sciences (e.g., Ellsworth and Scherer 2003a; Levine 1996; Smith and Ruth 2002; van
Dolen et al. 2001). In the present study, the classification scheme of cognitive appraisal
(what was at stake or being threatened in the encounter) was derived from previous work
(e.g., Ellsworth and Smith 1988; Folkman et al. 1986) and the exploratory in-depth interviews in an early stage. Emotion words were grouped on the basis of the Shaver et al.
(1987) categorization of negative emotions and Richins’ (1997) Consumption Emotion Set
(CES). Furthermore, the author made some adjustment on the negative emotion categories to suit the context and purpose of this current study.
Three judges were provided with instructions and the coding scheme of emotions
(i.e., rage, anger, low negative emotions) and cognitive appraisals (i.e., threats, harm/loss to economic resource, self-esteem, justice, control, and physical well-being). The classification scheme is included in Appendix 3. One of the judges is an author of this study. Despite a priori classification scheme, judges were encouraged to develop new categories, if necessary, with an objective of making the data useful for answering the research questions. All judges independently read and sorted the incidents. Once the judges finished, they compared their classifications and resolved disagreements through a discussion. Using the ratio of coding agreements to the total number of coding decisions, the interjudge reliability was 92%, which exceeded the accepted benchmark of 80% 71
(Latham and Saari 1984). Unresolved disputes were sent to the fourth judge, who made a final decision.
Multinomial logistic regression analysis
The study uses multinomial logistic regression for testing H2 to H5. A multinomial logistic regression is used to estimate the impact of the independent variables (cognitive appraisals, residual negative emotion, national culture, and trait anger personality) on the probability that each of the three negative emotional states (i.e., rage, anger, and low negative emotion) would be elicited at Episode 1 (initial failure), Episode 2 (first ineffective or no recovery), and Episode 3 (second ineffective or no recovery). This analytical procedural is appropriate because the determinants of rage could differ from those of other negative emotions. Also, the categorical response variable with more than two categories makes the multinomial regression a suitable method for the data analysis.
When the multinomial regression model is estimated, one category of negative emotions must be used as a reference category because once j-1 alternative probabilities are identified, the jth is then known (Klein et al. 1990; Tarling 2008). In the current study, rage emotion is set as the base category. The elicitations of other negative emotions (i.e., low negative emotion and anger) were estimated and interpreted with reference to the base
FDWHJRU\ʊUDJHHPRWLRQ)RUWKHLQGHSHQGHQWYDULDEOHVGXPP\YDULDEOHVZHUHXVHGIRU each category of cognitive appraisals (0 = present, 1 = absent). Country was coded 0 for the
US and 1 for Thailand. Residual anger and low negative emotion were coded 0 for present and 1 for absent. For trait anger-temperament, six items used to measure this construct are adopted from Spielberger et al. (1983) and were measured on 5-point Likert scales. Table 1
72 shows the trait anger-WHPSHUDPHQWVFDOH Į DQd factor loadings. Bartlett test of sphericity is significant at .000 (see Appendix 6). The items were summed and averaged to obtain a composite score for trait anger-temperament.
In addition, attribution of blame, the criticality of transaction, gender, and the strength of an existing relationship were included as control variables (measured on 5 point rating scales) to provide a more robust test of the models. Gender was coded as 1 for females and 0 for males.
73
Table 1: Trait Anger-Temperament SFDOH Į= .91)
Scale Item Eigen value Factor loading Variance explained
Trait anger-temperament I have a fiery temperament. 4.15 0.78 69.09 %
I am a hot-headed person. 0.84
I get angry very easily. 0.89
I tend to fly off the handle. 0.82
I am quick-tempered. 0.86
I often feel angry. 0.79
74
Analysis and results
Content analysis results: Cognitive appraisals and negative emotions
This section describes the types of cognitive appraisal and negative emotion, which are the result of content analysis. The study begins by reporting cognitive appraisal categories and subsequently negative emotion categories. There were 435 critical incidents in Episode 1 but the numbers were reduced to 415 and 223 in Episodes 2 and 3, respectively, because some incidents had limited details for coding and some had reported the problem to be resolved at the end of Episode 2. Some respondents (n=32) reported the experience of several ineffective service recoveries (more than two times) before reaching rage. However, the author limited the coding to a maximum of three episodes (i.e., initial failure, first ineffective recovery, attempt and second ineffective recovery attempt).
Classification of cognitive appraisal
Figure 2 shows descriptive results of cognitive appraisals that trigger negative emotions at each episode. The bar charts show the pattern of cognitive appraisals that trigger negative emotions after the initial service failure (Episode 1) and ineffective service recovery attempts (Episodes 2 and 3). When examining the data over the three time periods several interesting trends are apparent. First, violations of justice (fairness) display by far the highest incidence in all three episodes. Further when the problem is not resolved in
Episode 1, the incidence of threats to justice increases from 45% (Episode 1) to 55% in
Episode 2 and remain high at 52% in Episode 3. Next threats to self-esteem increase dramatically from 10% (Episode 1) to 25% and 18% in Episodes 2 and 3, respectively. The most noticeable increase in frequency is threat to a sense of control which almost jumps
75 significantly from 9% (Episode 1) to 20% and 32% in Episodes 2 and 3, respectively. The only dramatically declining category is threat to one’s economic well-being dropping from
38% to 11% and 12% over the observation periods. Overall, threat to physical well-being is a small category being reported by only 11.5% and 2.9% in Episodes 1 and 2 respectively, and not at all present in Episode 3.
The descriptive results imply that most of customers tend to appraise an initial service failure as a threat to economic well-being and sense of justice. However, when organizations ignore or neglect to fix the initial failure, instead of concerning about their money and effective use of time many customers viewed what they experienced as unfair
(threat to fairness); they are forced to accept the failure (threat to control); they are not important or worth nothing for the organizations to bother about their problems (threat to self-esteem). In the next section, the author describes and provides illustrate quotations of threats to each fundamental human need.
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Figure 2: Cognitive Appraisals that Trigger Negative Emotions at Each Episode
% of total n % of total n % of total n
Note: (1) Percentages do not sum to 100% because multiple responds allowed (2) Threats to physical well-being are not included in Episodes 2 and 3 because it is only 3.4% of respondents in Episode 2 whereas in Episode 3 no respondent mentioned it.
77
Threat to economic well-being In this category, customers experienced threats to economic well-being when failed service encounters were perceived as (1) inefficient
(time-consuming) service experience (“…I was trying to find a sales assistant to find this
[bathroom item for refurbishment] and get their opinion … . But I could not find one …
[until] 20 minutes later …”), (2) inconvenience (“…the store is quite far from my place … I have to drive all the way back … to change the CD [which has some scratches on]…”), or
(3) unexpected payment (“I was surprised that I need to pay extra money for this medication [which I thought should be covered by the insurance]…”).
Threat to self-esteem needs Threat to self-esteem needs involved a failed service encounter that made customers feel (1) unimportant (“I asked the person for a help … .
They were chatting with each other and I could tell from their face that they didn’t want to help… . I felt like I was unimportant to them…”), (2) insulted (“I asked the nurse when I can see the doctor ... she scolded me and told me to wait … I felt that I was treated like a dog.), or (3) humiliated in public (“[at] the water service office … I had one document missing so I asked the frontline employee whether I can submit the application first and then come back tomorrow with the other documents. The employee yelled at me in front of everyone … It was embarrassing…”).
Threat to justice (fairness) needs This category involves situations in which customers viewed what they receive as unjust or considered that service providers were trying to take advantage of them. Customers often described a threat to their justice
(fairness) needs when they felt that they were (1) cheated (“I was cheated by the dealer. I was told they would sell me the car at a price [XXX] … Later, they admitted they couldn't sell me the car at that price.”), (2) told a lie (“They installed a satellite on my house and 78 said we had 3 months of free premium channels and we didn't. … We had been lied to...”), or (3) treated unfairly–service providers deliberately tried to break the implicit or explicit promise (“This is unfair … the mobile phone company changes my service plan without informing me”).
Threat to control needs Threat to control needs refers to customers’ concern over a lack of choice or freedom in making their own decision or finding a solution to the problem. Customers often described a situation as one in which they felt (1) helpless
(“They [auto repair shop] made a mistake … my [VW] car is forever broken … I really don’t know what to do next … . I felt helpless”), (2) powerless (“I did not understand why I had several overdraft charges … they [the bank] would not do anything. (I felt) powerless... nothing I could do to get rid of the charges …”), or (3) no control or no way out of the problem (“I keep receiving calls from a debt collector … I told them that I made a payment already but they still keep calling… . I really don’t know what to do …”).
Threat to physical well-being The threat to physical well-being (safety) category included situations in which customers perceived that there is a potential harm to their life
(or loved one), health, or general physical well-being. This type of appraisal was found only in specific service contexts (i.e., hospital, restaurant, public transportation) that might represent a potential health hazard to customers. Customers felt that (1) their security or that of their loved ones is in serious health condition (“My mom was sick … . We needed a doctor now but the nurse… just told me to wait…) or (2) their health is at risk (“The waitress served us the stir fry that has some hair on [it] … it was disgusting.).
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Classification of negative emotions
In this section, the author identifies negative emotions evoked over the three episodes. Table 2 lists the negative emotion categories for coding. The author classified emotion words from the customers’ written text. In each episode, only the most intense emotion word was extracted and sorted into seven emotion categories (i.e., rage, anger, disappointment, embarrassment, worry, fear, and surprise) because they should have the greatest impact on the respondents’ cognitive appraisal process at the time. Also, the multinomial logistic regression only allows the dependent variables to have mutually exclusive categories. The last five emotion groups were collapsed into low level of negative emotion category. In total, there are three main categories of negative emotions: rage, anger, and low negative emotion.
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Table 2: Negative Emotional Reactions Coding Categories
Negative emotion Rage Anger Low negative emotion categories
Emotion groups Rage Anger Disappointment Embarrassment Worry Fear Surprise
Emotion words Rage Frustration Disappointment Embarrassment Worry Fear Surprise
Outrage Anger Displeasure Shame Nervous Scared
Fury Irritation Humiliation Uneasiness Afraid
Hate Annoyance
Vengefulness Upset
Very angry
Disgust
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Figure 3: Negative Emotional Responses of Customers at Each Episode
% of total n % of total n % of total n
82
Figures 4: Negative Emotional Responses by Country
Note: TH = Thailand, US = USA
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Figure 3 shows frequency of occurrence of customers’ negative emotions at each episode. It will be noted rage is the smallest category in Episode 1 (13.6% of respondents) but jumps dramatically in Episodes 2 and 3 to 70% and 71%, respectively. On the other hand, low level negative emotions (54%) was the largest category in Episode 1 but drastically declined in Episodes 2 and 3 to 7% and 10%, respectively. This result supports
+ʊLHUDJHWHQGVQRWWRPDQLIHVt immediately after an initial service failure; rather it unfolds over time. In other words, customers start off with low level emotion following the initial service failure (“I was worried that the [taxi] driver would take me to a longer route…”) but can reach extreme emotions after several attempts to get the issues resolved
(“I repeatedly told the driver to go another direction … . [the driver] did not listen and argued with me … . I became extremely angry. I yelled at him and banged his seat several times...”). In terms of cultural differences (see Figure 4), in all three episodes rage was reported by US customers at a higher percentage than Thais whereas low level of negative emotions was reported more by Thais than US customers. As predicted, Thai customers have a greater tolerance for rage-provoking events (i.e., violations of fundamental human needs) and put greater effort in subduing extreme emotions than US customers, so that they express less intensity of negative emotions and experience rage at shorter duration than US customers. The content analysis results, thus, provide support for H4.
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Table 3: Multinomial Logistic Regression Results
Pre-complaint episode following an initial First ineffective recovery episode (n=415) Second ineffective recovery episode (n=223) service failure (n=435)
Model 1: Comparison with rage (Episode 1) Model 2: Comparison with rage (Episode 2) Model 3: Comparison with rage (Episode 3) Main Effects Low level Wald Anger Wald Low level Wald Anger Wald Low level Wald Anger Wald of negative of negative of negative emotion emotion emotion Intercept 3.4 22.44 2.25 9.38 1.97 3.00 -0.56 0.65 0.43 0.15 -0.17 0.04 Threat to economic resource 0.32 0.42 0.27 0.31 -0.35 2.42 -0.03 0.11 -1.67** 7.08 -0.38 0.47 Threat to self-esteem -2.28*** 16.02 -1.77*** 8.89 -2.93*** 16.16 -.95** 7.02 -3.6*** 12.18 -1.65*** 10.43 Threat to fairness -1.81*** 11.73 -.97** 3.32 -0.10 7.84 .67** 6.42 -2.52*** 9.50 -0.17 0.27 Threat to control -1.19** 3.46 0.27 0.20 0.33 3.18 -0.30 1.39 -3.99*** 15.47 -1.22** 4.15 Threat to physical well-being -0.28 0.17 0.15 0.04 -0.15 0.72 -0.53 0.65 Other main effect variables Country -.77*** 4.80 -0.04 0.01 -1.09** 3.33 -0.06 0.04 -0.74 1.25 -1.09*** 9.49 Residual anger -- -- -1.5*** 9.77 -1.09*** 7.87 -0.78 1.57 -2.37*** 12.74 Residual low-negative emotion -- -- -0.35 1.39 0.28 0.04 0.06 0.00 -0.34 0.17 Trait anger-temperament -0.02 0.17 -.22* 1.92 -0.17 0.99 -0.01 0.00 0.34 1.61 0.18 0.79 Control Variables Strength of relationship -0.08 0.38 0.02 0.02 .46** 4.80 -0.07 0.32 -0.03 0.00 0.4*** 5.26 Criticality of transaction 0.08 0.27 .2* 1.60 -.32* 2.69 0.15 0.40 -0.13 0.27 0.28 1.38 Attribution of blame -0.02 0.03 -0.07 0.36 -0.17 0.89 0.05 0.21 -.26* 1.78 -0.16 0.89 Gender -0.34 1.17 -0.23 0.50 0.45 1.82 0.15 0.21 0.33 0.31 .63* 2.12 -2 Log likelihood 745.65 553.89 275.38 Chi-squre (df) 76.17***(22) 83.01***(26) 76.97***(24) Pseudo R2 (Nagelkerke) 0.19 0.28 0.37 Correct classification rate 58.60% 71.1.% 74.40% Correct by chance 41.48% 54.78% 55.02% Note that threat to physical well-being is excluded in Model 3 due to its absence in Episode 3.
2-tailed test * p <.1, **p <.05, ***p <.01
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In summary, the above sections identify and quantify the frequency of occurrence of the five categories of cognitive appraisals and three categories of negative emotions in
Episodes 1, 2, and 3. The following section outlines the results of tests of association between cognitive appraisal and each negative emotions category using multinomial logistic regression in the initial service failure (Episode 1) and in each ineffective service recovery episodes (Episodes 2 and 3).
Results of multinomial logistic regression
Table 3 summarizes the results of a series of multinomial logistic regression models where the dependent variable in each model is negative emotions that occur during initial service failure (Model 1), first ineffective (or no) service recovery (Model 2), and second ineffective (or no) service recovery (Model 3). The chi-squared statistic is the difference in the -2 log likelihood between the final model and the intercept model. All models were shown to be statistically significant beyond the .01 level. The correct classification rates ranged from 58.6% to 74.4% and in every case were significantly better than the chance classification rates.
The results in Table 3 (Models 1 to 3), by and large, support H2—i.e., a perceived threat to fundamental human needs will be positively associated with negative emotions at each episode. In Model 1, threats to self-esteem, justice, and sense of control are significant predictors of rage. As threats to self-esteem occur, the probability of reacting with rage increases in relation to the probability of reacting with low negative emotion (b = -2.28, p <
.01) or with anger (b = -1.77, p < .01). A threat to justice (fairness) is related positively to the probability of reacting with rage in relation to the probability of reacting with low
86 negative emotion (b = -1.81, p < .01) or with anger (b = -.97, p < .05). When the cognitive appraisal is a threat to control, the probability of reacting with rage increases in relation to the probability of reacting with low negative emotion (b = -1.19, p < .05). In Model 2 (i.e., first ineffective recovery), self-esteem is the dominant appraisal. Threat to self-esteem is positively related to the probability of reacting with rage in relation to the probability of reacting with low negative emotion (b = -2.93, p < .01) or anger (b = -.95, p < .05). Unlike the previous episode (initial service failure), a threat to fairness in Episode 2 is surprisingly positively related to the probability of reacting with anger (b = .67, p < .05) in relation to the probability of reacting rage. Interestingly, in Model 3, all threats were significant in predicting the likelihood of rage versus lower negative emotions but only perceived threats to self-esteem (b = -1.65, p < .01) and sense of control (b = -1.22, p < .01) are significant in explaining rage from the anger condition. In sum, these results suggest that only a violation of self-esteem is likely to immediately provoke rage whereas other fundamental needs, if under threat, can be endurable to a certain extent.
Mixed support is found for H3 which predicts the positive relationships between residual emotions and negative emotions in the subsequent episode. The results only support the positive relationship between residual anger and the probability of reacting with rage. When anger occurs and carries over to the next episode, the probability of reacting with rage increases in relation to the probability of reacting with anger in both Model 2 (b =
-1.09, p < .01) and Model 3 (b = -2.37, p < .01). However, residual low-negative emotion shows insignificant relationship with emotional reactions in the subsequent period (both
Models 2 and 3), implying that low negative emotion does not carry over to induce rage in the subsequent episode.
87
The multinomial logistic regression results also support H4 in that US customers are more likely than Thai customers to exhibit rage in Episodes 1 to 3. It is clear that US customers are more likely to immediately express rage rather than low level negative emotions at Episode 1 (b = -.77, p < .01) and Episode 2 (b = -1.09, p < .05). In addition, when comparing the probability of expressing anger or rage, the result (b = -1.09, p < .01) in Model 3 is significant, suggesting US customers are more likely than Thais to express rage after experiencing a second failed service recovery. This result in Model 3 suggests that some Thai customers who had previously experienced rage (in Episodes 1 or 2) may subdue rage emotions and instead exhibit anger or low level of negative emotion. In contrast, outraged US customers appear to still hold on to their rage emotions until Episode
3. This result is consistent with previous cross-cultural studies in that, people from collectivist society tend to experience negative emotions at less intense or shorter duration than individuals in individualist societies (Grimm et al. 1999; Markus and Kitayama 1991).
Turning to H5 that personality trait (trait anger-temperament) is positively associated with rage; results do not support this hypothesis. Trait anger-temperament is not significant associated with rage state in Models 2 and 3 and only marginally significant in
Model 1 (b = -.22, p < .1). This finding suggests the importance of cognitive appraisal over personality trait as a key driver of negative emotion. This finding is consistent with several studies in cognitive psychology studies (e.g., Ellsworth and Scherer 2003a; Frijda 1993) which have found cognitive appraisal to be the dominant predictor of emotion elicitation.
For control variables, strength of relationship is significant in Models 2 and 3. The results suggest that strength of relationship can partially act as a buffer in reducing the intensity of anger or restraining rage during ineffective (or nonexistent) service recovery. 88
As shown in Models 2 and 3, customers with a strong relationship with the offending service organization tend to control their emotion and respond with low-negative emotion
(b = .46, p < .05) after the first ineffective recovery and only exhibit anger (b = .4, p < .01) rather than rage after experiencing two consecutive ineffective recovery attempts.
Criticality of transaction is marginally significant showing a positive relationship with anger in Model 1, and negative relationship with low-negative emotion in Model 2.
Criticality can act as an incentive for customers to regulate their emotions and delay rage expression only at an initial service failure. Finally, attribution of blame and gender are marginally significant only in Model 3.
Discussion and managerial implications
This study has highlighted the psychological antecedents that trigger extreme negative emotions. The study investigated rage emotional response in a service context in
ZKLFKFXVWRPHUVHQFRXQWHUD³GRXEOHGHYLDWLRQ´ʊLHLQLWLDOVHUYLFHIDLOXUH (SLVRGH and ineffective (or nonexistent) service recovery (Episodes 2 and 3). Interestingly, the results suggest that rage does not manifest immediately (as shown in Figure 3, where only
13.6% of respondents reported rage emotion following the initial failure). Perhaps, the delay of rage emotional responses is the outcome of emotion regulation mechanism which customers try to conform their emotional expressions to social norms. However, there is often a limit to how long a customer can suppress a strong negative emotional reaction. The results suggest that rage only occurs when customers have encountered continual threats to their fundamental needs. The results also provide insights into cross-cultural differences between US and Thai customers and show a number of significant relationships between cognitive appraisals (i.e., threats to economic resource, self-esteem, justice, sense of 89 control, and physical well-being) and negative emotions (i.e., low level of negative emotion, anger, and rage). Several important findings are worthy of further elaboration.
First, regarding the relationships between threats to each fundamental human need and negative emotions, results (Table 3) suggest that some threats tend to have a strong impact on extreme emotional responses whereas the others are bearable to a certain extent and only result in low to moderate level of negative emotions at early episodes. The most sensitive is customers’ self-esteem in that whenever it is under threat, it can weaken the emotion regulation mechanism and easily set customers off into rage, instantly. This result is consistent with previous research in social psychology which has shown that individuals are prepared to go to great lengths to protect their self-esteem (Branscombe and Wann
1994) including engaging in violent activities (Kohut and Wolf 1978) or behaving aggressively to the esteem-damaging source (Kuppens and Van Mechelen 2007).
While threat to self-esteem is the most dominant cognitive appraisal triggering rage, other appraisals such as threat to economic resource only drive rage emotions after customers repeatedly receiving threats or experiencing failed service encounters several times (see Model 3). Customers might be motivated to put great effort into controlling their emotions if they perceive benefit in doing so (Thompson 1994). For example, needs for physical well-being and economic resources should greatly motivate customers to suppress their strong emotionVEHFDXVHWKHLUOLIHLVLQWKHKDQGRIVHUYLFHSURYLGHUVʊRUWKHLUPRQH\ and time that have been invested in this particular service provider could be lost all at once.
By suppressing their negative emotion, most customers try to cope with the service failure strategically in order to get the desired outcome (e.g., have the problem resolved, get their
90 money back). However, customers were not able to sustain this after several repeated threats that deplete their emotion regulation mechanism and subsequently displayed rage.
Next, this study is the first to reveal and theoretically explain emotion escalation in rage incidents. When the individual begins to feel angry, the anger tends not to go away quickly and continues to have an impact on the emotional experience even in the subsequent episode. The results in Models 2 and 3 indicate that anger (but not low-negative emotion) has a significant carryover effect and is in part responsible for provoking rage in a subsequent episode. The impact of residual anger which contributes to emotion escalation can be explained by excitation transfer theory (Zillmann 1971). The theory has established that an escalation in the negative emotional intensity occurs partly because of the distinct characteristic of negative emotions, which tend to dissipate slowly. The residual emotion which occurred earlier will act as an additional emotion arousal in a subsequent emotion- provoking event and heighten the intensity of emotion responses. For example, when a customer perceives a threat to fundamental human needs and becomes angry at a service failure and continues to experience threats in situations, such as uncaring and ineffective recovery by organization, the situation is likely to escalate into rage. On the other hand, the insignificance of low-negative emotion in the following event may be explained by the transient nature of emotion, such that when customers experience an emotion during a service encounter, the influence of emotion on customer evaluation process tends to deteriorate overtime (Liljander and Mattsson 2002). Hence, less intense emotion may be more influenced by the passage of time than the extreme intense emotion.
Third, from a cross cultural perspective, the findings support the view that customers in collectivist societies such as Thailand tend to emphasize social harmony 91
(Triandis 1995), and social norms of keeping emotions in check (Patterson and Smith
2003). As shown in Figure 4, Thai customers have a greater tolerance on rage-provoking event (resulting in a higher percentage of low level of negative emotion and a lower percentage of rage in Episodes 1 to 3) than customers from individualist societies such as the US, whose culture emphasizes individual differences and views the expression of emotion in public to a certain extent, as more acceptable. In addition, the result in Model 3 shows that (in Episode 3) Thai customers are less likely to express rage over anger after multiple failed service recovery experiences. This is consistent with previous research (e.g.,
Grimm et al. 1999; Markus and Kitayama 1991) which suggest a greater possibility of people from collectivist society to experience negative emotions at less intense or shorter duration than in individualist societies. Perhaps, some Thai customers may experience rage after Episode 3 or experience rage in only one episode and after that might subdue rage emotions and instead exhibit low level of negative emotion or anger in Episode 3.
Last and interestingly, high trait anger-temperament does not contribute to rage expression. This result emphasizes the importance of appraisal of the violation of fundamental human needs and residual emotions as the key factors that provoke strong negative emotion. More specifically, this implies that a customer, regardless of personality trait, are likely to go into rage if a company continuously threatens or violates fundamental human needs (especially the need for self-esteem) and keeps denying its responsibility to provide a satisfying and fair resolution to the service failure.
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Managerial implications
The findings suggest a number of important managerial implications. First, the study findings clearly demonstrate that customer rage is preventable if an organization takes action during the early stages of a rage incident. After an initial service failure, customers can still control their emotions and by voicing their complaint give an opportunity to the service organizations to resolve the problem. Frontline employees must be empowered to solve the problem quickly at the first opportunity. Indeed, behaviours of service employees have a great influence on customer’s emotional responses (van Dolen et al. 2001). Hence, service employees should aim to prevent customers’ emotions from escalating beyond surprise, annoyance, worry, embarrassment, or disappointment and reaching boiling point. The findings also suggest that service organizations need to make sure that frontline employees are trained to avoid violation of the most sensitive fundamental needs, i.e., self-esteem, and even take effort to restore through courteous treatment, or by offering a sincere apology and showing empathy. It is important for organizations to emphasize treating the customer as a person first and a consumer second, meaning that frontline employees should view a customer as a person who possess a set of fundamental human needs (e.g., self-esteem, justice, control, physical well-being)
(Schneider and Bowen 1999). For example, at the service recovery phase, explaining about what caused the failure and how it can be fixed and providing them with alternatives to the solutions could dampen customers’ negative emotions and help restore the customer’s sense of control. Alternatively, providing some compensation and acting quickly to solve the problem could be an effective recovery strategy to replace customers’ loss of economic due to an initial service failure. Another important issue for service organizations is that
93 frontline employees need to be aware of the cultural differences in emotion expression.
Although Asian customers who come from a collectivist society are more reluctant to express their negative emotion, it is a mistake to assume that they will never behave in a harmful or aggressive manner. In fact, Asian customers may resist expressing strong emotion at the beginning, but if they continue to experience bad service, they may respond as violently as Western customers at a later stage.
Limitations of research and issues for future research
This section points out the key limitations and directions for future research. First, although the critical incident technique offers advantages in collecting details of the experience, this method relies on memory, which may be less accurate with the passage of time. Future research might replicate this study with the use of quasi-experiments in order to avoid memory bias. Last, this study only examines the nature of extreme negative emotion (i.e., customer rage). Future research should look into the psychological antecedents of extreme positive emotion. A complete picture of what determines extreme negative emotions and positive emotions will benefit service organizations in training their frontline employees on what should be avoided and/or enhanced in order to minimize negative consequence and maximize customer delight.
In sum, service recovery is a critical moment of truth, and if provided effectively can avoid rage incidents and resurrect or even enhance the customer relationship (Smith and Ruth 2002). It is important that frontline employees constantly observe customer emotions to ensure that the onset of customer rage will not escalate.
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CHAPTER 4
A STUDY OF ANTECEDENTS AND OUTCOMES OF CUSTOMER
COPING STRATEGIES IN RAGE INCIDENTS: A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY
Abstract
The present study examines how outraged customers deal with dissatisfactory service encounters, the variables that influence the coping reactions, and the impact of different coping strategies on satisfaction with service recovery. Five coping strategies that customers used are planful problem-solving, confrontive, distancing, seeking social support, and escape-avoidance. A correlation analysis reveals that customers’ main coping strategies tend to vary depending on what fundamental human needs are being threatened and cultural background. The results from multiple regression analysis showed that coping strategies marginally explained the variance in the dependent variable, service recovery satisfaction. Next, using hierarchical regression analysis, the author adds disconfirmation of service recovery expectation into the models. The incremental gain in R2 is significant.
Furthermore, similarities and differences were found across two diverse cultures –USA
(Western, individualistic culture) and Thailand (Eastern, collectivist culture).
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Introduction
Customer rage episodes are occurring in store, online, over the telephone, and in the air with potentially serious consequences for the front-line employee facing the brunt of the outburst, the brand, even other customers, such that these episodes incur significant economic and social costs (Patterson et al. 2009). When customers experience extreme negative emotion, they have a tendency to react with potential violence such as physical aggression and/or verbal abuse (McColl-Kennedy et al. 2009). At the post-purchase stage, these customers could still hurt the organization through negative word of mouth (WOM), exiting, or even revenge seeking behaviour. Despite the fact that many service companies now face a growing threat of customer rage, they are ill-prepared and unable to manage the incidents effectively (McGregor 2008). Understanding how customers cope with extreme negative emotion would prove invaluable for service organizations aiming to design effective actions that prevent, or at least dilute, potentially dangerous situations (Godwin et al. 1999).
Human coping mechanisms have long been the subject of interest to social psychology researchers. Based on theory of stress and coping (Lazarus and Folkman 1984), coping (along with negative emotion) is the outcome of individuals’ cognitive appraisal of what fundamental human needs are at stake or being threatened in a stressful situation.
Coping refers to cognitive and behavioural efforts by which individuals try to manage the stressful situation and their distress emotions. Some forms of coping in general life events have been found to be related to alleviating the levels of stress, depression, psychological symptoms, and somatic illness (Folkman et al. 1986). Recent consumer research has begun to examine how customers cope with negative emotions in areas such as medical services 96
(Kahn and Luce 2003), stress related to shopping experiences (Viswanathan et al. 2005), and unwanted service situations (Miller et al. 2008). Understanding customer coping responses to stressful events helps service providers design marketing strategies or tactics and a service environment that facilitate customers’ coping processes. For example, a study by Viswanathan et al. (2005) found that a price reduction promotion based on a percentage discount tends to create confusion (and cause stress) amongst illiterate consumers, who then avoid the stressful aspect of calculating the discount and instead purchase another brand that has a clearly marked price. An easy pictorial illustration of the price discount is suggested to help consumers calculate the reduction accurately.
Despite the rich insights from prior research, there is limited knowledge about the actual coping processes of an outraged customer, the variables that influence them, and their relation to overall service recovery satisfaction. In addition, the influence of national culture on individuals’ coping responses has been neglected in stress and coping research even though culture plays a significant role in shaping the ways people act and think (Chun et al. 2006). Therefore, in this study, the author employs stress and coping theory (Lazarus and Folkman 1984) as a foundation theory to examine, in both collectivist (Thai) and individualist (US) societies, antecedents and consequences of customer coping strategies in customer rage incidents. More specific, the aims of this study are threefold:
1. Examine the associations between cognitive appraisal and coping strategies in
customer rage situations.
2. Explore how coping strategies differ across two national groups (USA and
Thailand).
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3. Explore the extent to which coping and disconfirmation of expectation explain
variations in customer satisfaction with overall service recovery.
To address the research objectives, the author analyses a sample of Thai and US consumers who recently experienced a highly dissatisfactory service experience which resulted in extreme negative emotions accompanied by some form of rage behaviour
(yelling, threatening, etc.). In doing so, the study contributes in two important ways. First, it is the only empirical study of customer rage that examines the link between cognitive appraisal (threats to physical well-being, self-esteem, fairness, and control) and coping strategies (planful problem-solving, confrontive, social support, distancing, and escape- avoidance). Second, culture is an important factor in explaining individual differences in cognition, emotion, and behaviour (Chun et al. 2006). However, studies of cross-cultural variations in antecedents of coping and the consequences of coping processes have received scant attention. Thus a second contribution is to demonstrate similarity and difference of customers’ coping patterns in relation to cognitive appraisal across Western-Eastern cultures.
The remainder of this paper is organized in four sections. In the first section, the author reviews the theory of stress and coping and other key concepts which form the theoretical foundations of the study. Next, the author reviews the research methodology including questionnaire development, scales, and data collection method. In the third section, the author presents the results of correlation and hierarchical regression analysis.
Finally, the author discusses the findings, managerial implications, and directions for future research.
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Conceptual development
Stress and coping theory
The theory of stress and coping—alternatively known as cognitive appraisal theory—was developed by Lazarus and his colleagues over a number of years (e.g.,
DeLongis et al. 1988; Lazarus and Folkman 1987; Lazarus and Folkman 1984). In social psychology, this theory has been used extensively for analysing individual responses to stressful life events (Hammermeister and Burton 2001). The theory identifies two key processes: cognitive appraisal and coping. Appraisal refers to a person’s subjective evaluation of what might be at stake or being threatened during an interaction with the environment (Lazarus and Folkman 1987). In other words, during an appraisal process, an individual assesses whether a particular encounter represents a threat to, potential harm, or loss of one’s well-being, or values. Research in social psychology suggests the type of threat that could lead to an extreme negative emotion or potential harmful behaviours includes a threat to self-esteem, sense of justice, and physical well-being (Baumeister et al.
1996; Greenberg and Barling 1999; Schneider and Bowen 1999). When there is a perceived threat or harm, people then experience a psychological state of disequilibrium and are driven to return to their normal state through coping responses.
Coping refers to “cognitive and behavioural efforts to manage specific external and/or internal demands that are appraised as taxing or exceeding the resources of the person” (Folkman and Lazarus 1988, p.310). Overall, there are two broad and widely recognized categories of coping strategies. First, problem-focused coping is an attempt to solve the problem or to change or alleviate the sources of stress. Second, emotion-focused
99 coping refers to cognitive or behavioural efforts that aim to reduce or manage the emotional distress. Several strategies of problem- and emotion-focused coping have been identified in previous research including planful problem-solving, confrontive coping, escape- avoidance, and distancing. Usually, people employ multiple coping strategies to manage a stressful situation. Both problem- and emotion-focused coping generally co-occur and one can complement another—that is, emotion-focused coping can reduce some distress while the person is trying to focus on solving the problem (Carver and Scheier 1994). In addition, some coping responses such as seeking social support and displaying anger
(confrontive coping) are considered as relevant to both problem- and emotion-focused coping (Carver and Scheier 1994; Stanton et al. 2000).
Key characteristics of coping
There are three key characteristics of coping. First, it is process oriented, meaning the coping strategies that a person adopts tend to vary from one situation to another depending on a cognitive appraisal of the perceived threat or harm (Healy and McKay
2000). Second, there is no ‘good’ or ‘bad’ coping; it is simply the way people manage stressful situations (Folkman et al. 1986). Third, coping and emotion are conjoined in nature and there is a bidirectional relationship between the two (Lazarus 1999). Appraisal of threats, harms, or loss is a driver of the coping process as well as a source of negative emotions. As a result, coping operates in an emotional context and is influenced by emotions (e.g., being fearful may lead to a form of coping strategy called escape- avoidance). At the same time, coping could also affect emotion because one of the tasks of coping is to reduce the level of negative emotions. Several studies in psychology (e.g.,
Folkman and Lazarus 1988; Herrald and Tomaka 2002; Parkes 1984), however, tend to 100 emphasize only cognitive appraisal as the main driver of the coping process because the influence of emotions is already incorporated in appraisal dimensions.
Impact of coping strategies on customer satisfaction
It has been suggested that coping which usually involves multiple thoughts and acts is related to satisfactory-unsatisfactory judgments of a stressful encounter outcome
(Folkman et al. 1986). As mentioned earlier, some coping strategies involve managing the problem, while others aim at regulating negative emotions. These coping orientations could lead to a problem resolution or a diminishing level of negative emotions that subsequently impact on satisfaction evaluation. Prior research in social psychology suggests that some coping strategies, particularly emotion-focused coping, can facilitate a person’s likelihood to forgive, which represents reductions in anger, avoidance, and need for revenge against the transgressor and even seeking reconciliation (Konstam et al. 2003). It is important to note that customer satisfaction judgment with service recovery is influenced by both a successful problem resolution and the person’s emotional state (Oliver 1993; Smith and
Bolton 2002). Therefore, some coping strategies during and after rage incidents that lead to problem resolution or promote a reduction of extreme anger may have a positive impact on customers’ evaluation of the service recovery effort.
Role of culture in coping process
Culture is defined as the norms, beliefs, values, and self-definition that are learned and shared by a social group (Triandis 1996). While many dimensions of culture have been identified to capture the shared elements of various cultures, individualism and collectivism have received widespread interest from cross-cultural psychologists (Chun et al. 2006; Kim
101 et al. 1994). Values, norms, and beliefs in individualist and collectivist societies are greatly influenced by different levels of the self and in-group (Hofstede 1980). Individualist societies such as the United States, the United Kingdom, or Australia are characterized by loose ties among individuals (Hofstede 1983). People from individualist societies tend to look after only themselves and their immediate families. They put a high value on the self; as a result, autonomy, individual rights, and self-fulfilment are highly emphasized. In contrast, collectivist societies such as Thailand, China, or Indonesia are defined as a strong and cohesive in-group: everyone is expected to have an unquestioning loyalty toward the society. People from collectivist societies believe in conformation amongst the group.
Because norms, beliefs, and values are prescriptions for both cognitions and behaviours, people from individualist and collectivist societies tend to have different ways of coping with stressful situations. McCarty et al. (1999) showed that Thai youths are more likely than American youths to employ covert coping strategies (not outwardly visible behaviour) when dealing with a stressful situation or problem caused by an adult. This kind of coping that regulates internal psychological states is common among individuals in collectivist societies, who tend to select coping strategies that could protect interpersonal relationships and conform to the society (Wong and Ujimoto 1998). In contrast, coping strategies that confront and modify external stressors (problem-focused coping) are more common in individualist societies (Chun et al. 2006). Hence, the author proposes that coping strategies during and after failed service encounters by extremely angry customers from a collectivist background such as Thailand may be different from those of US customers.
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Methodology
The following section provides details on questionnaire development, scale, exploratory factor analysis and construct validation, and data collection procedures employed to answer the research objectives.
Cross-cultural considerations and Questionnaire development
An initial exploratory stage was conducted through 24 in-depth interviews in
Thailand and the US (12 in each country) to gain a deeper understanding of the rage phenomena and particularly the coping process during and after an incident. At this stage, the author followed a combined etic-emic approach developed by Berry (1989) in order to understand psychological phenomena within a single culture and enable cross-cultural comparisons. With this approach, the author first began the research in the Western culture
– USA (emic) to gain an understanding about the meanings and the relationships of key constructs. The constructs were assumed by the author to be a valid basis for studying and comparing the phenomenon in other cultures. The author then applied the constructs to another culture (imposed etic) and discover the meaning and relationships of the key construct in that that culture (Thailand) (emic). A comparison of findings from two different cultures (USA and Thailand) is possible when there is some communality (the derived etic) and only shared features are compared. The communality findings suggested functional equivalence of key constructs in this study. In addition, the information from this stage was then used as a part of the questionnaire development. As a result, some minor modifications of the variables (e.g., cognitive appraisals and coping strategies) were made with an aim to retain the concepts that are shared by Thai as well as by US culture.
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To ensure equivalence in construct operationalization and item meaning of both
English and Thai questions, the English-version questionnaire was translated into the Thai language by a bilingual person whose mother language was Thai and then back-translated into English by another bilingual person who was equally fluent in both Thai and English
(Hui and Triandis 1985). The Thai language questionnaire was pretested with 10 respondents to ensure the English meanings of various concepts, phrases, and words were equivalent in the Thai language. Some further modifications were necessary as some words or phrases had no exact comparable Thai translation (Brislin 1980). A final questionnaire was decided upon after pretesting.
Scales
Scales for key constructs of cognitive appraisals, coping strategies, disconfirmation of expectations, and customer satisfaction with service recovery were sourced from the literature and qualitative interviews. The 20 items capturing ‘coping’ were based on
Folkman et al. (1986), while 19 items capturing ‘cognitive appraisal’ were based on several sources such as Folkman et al. (1986) and Ellsworth and Smith (1988) (see Appendices 7 and 8). Customer satisfaction with service recovery and disconfirmation were each measured with a single item. The use of single-item for these constructs is shown in prior studies in marketing and service management (e.g., Smith and Bolton 1998; Smith et al.
1999).
Exploratory factor analysis and scale validation
Using the aggregated data from both samples (n=435), the author first performed an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) with principal components analysis and oblimin rotation
104 to identify underlying dimensions of cognitive appraisal and coping. EFA is appropriate in this study given that the scales used for cognitive appraisal and coping strategies have not previously been adapted to service failure and service recovery context. There are two main reasons that EFA is more favourable than CFA in this study. First, the items in cognitive appraisal factors were derived from various sources. Second, there is an ambiguity of model specification of coping scales. The items used in cognitive appraisal factors are derived from various studies and some items are modified or added as a result of qualitative work in a preliminary stage. For the coping scale, reviews of literature (Carver and Scheier
1994; Stanton et al. 2000) suggested that some coping responses can be considered as relevant to both problem-focused coping and emotion-focused coping (as mentioned in page...). For example, the item ‘I asked a relative or friend whom I respected for advice’ could be related to both planful problem-solving coping and seeking social support coping.
Hence, in this study I think EFA is more appropriate because it does not restrict the items to load on a particular factor but allows all items to load on all factors. The Bartlett test of sphericity was significant at the .00 level in both cognitive appraisal and coping construct confirming that factor analysis was appropriate (Hair et al. 1998). Criteria for the number of factors to extract were based on scree test and a priori theory. Appendices 9 and 10 show the results of factor analysis for cognitive appraisal and coping. Four factors were retained from the analysis of 16 items of cognitive appraisal. Based on item content, the factors are labelled as threat to control, threat to physical well-being, threat to self-esteem, and threat to sense of justice. Cronbach’s alpha coefficients range from .70 to .83. For coping construct, five factors were extracted from the analysis of 15 items. They are labelled as planful problem-solving (e.g., made a plan of action and tried to get the company to rectify
105 the problem), distancing (e.g., refused to think about it too much and tried to forget), escape-avoidance (e.g., made myself feel better by eating, drinking, smoking, or taking medication), seeking social support (e.g., talked to family or friends about what happened), and confrontive (e.g., expressed anger to the person who handled the problem). Cronbach’s alpha coefficients range from .54 to .80. The variable compositions and factors of the coping construct are consistent with the study of Folkman et al. (1986). It should be noted that three items of cognitive appraisals and five items of copings were removed due to cross loadings or poor fit to the factor solution.
In addition, equality of factor structure and related loadings is necessary to ensure that relationships between constructs can be compared across national cultures (Styles et al.
2008). The author tested for measurement equivalence by running EFA with principal components analysis and oblimin rotation separately for US and Thai data. Similar factor structures and item loadings were found in the two national samples (see Appendices 11 and 12), thus allowing the comparison of the two national samples (Anderson and
Engledow 1977).
Furthermore, the author assess problems of common method variance using the procedure suggested by Podsakoff and Organ (1986). The EFA results of coping and cognitive appraisal showed that the explained variance of the first factor of each construct only accounted for 25.6% and 36.2% of the total variance, respectively, suggesting that common method variance was not a problem for the study.
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Sampling and data collection
The population of interest was customers who have experienced an extreme form of negative emotion accompanied by some form of rage behaviour (yelling, slamming the telephone, threatening, etc.) following a service failure in the past 6 months. An explanation of intense emotions (e.g., anger, fury, wrath, rage, etc.) was given in the instructions to the questionnaire. The responses were collected by professional market research companies in Thailand and the US. A total of 435 usable questionnaires (223 in the United States and 212 in Thailand) were used in the final analysis. Thirteen of the questionnaires were excluded due to insufficient details of the incident or incomplete data.
The most common types of organizations reported as the sites of service failure and rage incidents were retail stores, retail banks, supermarket, boutiques, restaurants, hotels, health care providers, utilities, telephone companies, and airlines. Modes of encounters were in person (71.6%), over the telephone (27.4%), and online (1%). The average age of respondents was 36 years old (Thai 30.8 years old; US 41.1 years old) with 54.5% being female (Thai 51.4% female; US 57.4% female).
Analysis and results
To examine the research objectives outlined at the beginning of this paper, the author conducted bivariate correlation and hierarchical regression analysis. The following section reports the results of correlation analysis between appraisal and coping, mean differences in coping scales between Thai and US samples, correlations between coping and recovery satisfaction, and hierarchical regression analysis to understand the extent to
107 which customer coping strategies and disconfirmation of expectation can predict service recovery satisfaction.
Correlations between appraisal and coping. Tables 1 and 2 contain the correlations between the appraisal types and coping strategies for the US and Thai sample, respectively.
Overall, the results show a consistent pattern of low to moderate correlation coefficients, implying that various coping strategies were used when there was a threat to physical well- being, self-esteem, fairness, or control. In the US sample (Table 1), all significant correlations are positive with coefficients ranging from 0.15 to 0.34. Interestingly, however, distancing as a coping strategy was not significantly correlated with any appraisal categories in the US sample. The first thing to note from Table 1 is that each cognitive appraisal category is significantly associated with not one, but various coping strategies.
This result is consistent with prior research in social psychology that when confronted by a stressful situation, people typically use more than one form of coping. The strongest associations in Table is between threats of physical well-being (as an appraisal) and escape- avoidance as a way of coping (r = .34, p < .01). For a threat to self-esteem, the main coping strategies are seeking social support coping (r = .29, p < .01), escape-avoidance coping (r =
.24, p < .01), and confrontive coping (r = .22, p < .01). A threat to fairness is primarily associated with planful problem-solving coping (r = .32, p < .01), seeking social support (r
= .29, p < .01), and confrontive coping (r = .23, p < .01). Last, the coping strategies employed when one’s sense of control is under threat are confrontive coping (r = .28, p <
.01), seeking social support coping (r = .24, p < .01), and escape-avoidance coping (r = .24, p < .01).
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In the Thai sample (Table 2), almost all correlation coefficients are significant and positive with values ranging from .24 to .54. The only exception is escape-avoidance coping, which is adversely associated with a threat to self-esteem (r = –.18, p < .01).
Threats to physical well-being and sense of control seem to have moderate correlation coefficients (ranging from .32 to .47) with all coping strategies except escape-avoidance.
On the other hand, threats to self-esteem and sense of fairness have high-moderate correlations (ranging from .44 to .54) with planful problem-solving, confrontive, and seeking social support. It is noted in general that the correlations are consistently stronger in the Thai versus US sample. Once again the results support the view that customers used both problem focused as well as emotion focused coping strategies when confronted with a stressful service encounter.
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Table 1: Correlation Matrix and Descriptive Statistics: Cognitive Appraisal and Coping (US data)
Descriptive Correlations US Data x SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1. Coping: Planful problem- solving 3.64 .97 1 2. Coping: Confrontive 3.67 .97 .20 1 3. Coping: Seeking social support 3.33 1.14 .29** .27** 1 4. Coping: Distancing 2.14 .96 -.05 -.18** .00 1 5. Coping: Escape-avoidance 1.71 .99 -.02 .19** .18** .21** 1
6. Threat to physical well-being 2.03 1.24 .15* .18** .17* .02 .34** 1 7. Threat to self-esteem 3.76 .95 .17* .22** .29** -.04 .24** .35** 1 8. Threat to fairness 4.16 .88 .32** .23** .29** -.08 .16* .20** .42** 1 9. Threat to control 3.59 1.07 .15* .28** .24** -.09 .24** .41** .42** .46** 1 Note: ** p < .01, * p < .05
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Table 2: Correlation Matrix and Descriptive Statistics: Cognitive Appraisal and Coping (Thai data)
Descriptive Correlations THAI Data x SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1. Coping: Planful problem- solving 2.75 .78 1 2. Coping: Confrontive 2.78 .99 .55** 1 3. Coping: Seeking social support 3.13 .97 .51** .52** 1 4. Coping: Distancing 2.80 .79 .34** .28** .47** 1 5. Coping: Escape-avoidance 1.71 .75 .09 .06 -.02 .02 1
6. Threat to physical well-being 2.38 1.03 .32** .36** .34** .33** .13 1 7. Threat to self-esteem 3.33 .92 .44** .48** .53** .28** -.18** .38** 1 8. Threat to fairness 3.10 .99 .54** .45** .50** .24** -.11 .33** .64** 1 9. Threat to control 2.96 .94 .39** .39** .47** .33** .00 .51** .54** .54** 1 Note: ** p < .01, * p < .05
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Cultural difference in coping. Means and standard deviations for coping scales are shown in Table 1 for the US sample and Table 2 for the Thai sample. The most prominent form of coping amongst US consumers following a rage incident was confrontive ( x =
3.67) and planful problem-solving ( x = 3.64). Escape avoidance was the least likely to be used ( x = 1.71). Thai customers on the other hand were most likely to use the seeking of social support ( x = 3.13) as the main form of coping. As with Thai and US customers, escape-avoidance was the least used ( x = 1.71). In comparing across countries, there were several significant differences between the means of some coping strategies in the two samples. US customers have a greater tendency to employ problem-focused coping strategies — planful problem-solving (¨ x = .89, p < .01), and confrontive coping (¨ x =
.89, p < .01) — than do their Thai counterparts. In contrast, Thais are more likely than
Americans to employ distancing (¨ x = .66, p < .01) as a way of coping.
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Table 3: Correlation Matrix and Descriptive Statistics: Coping and Encounter Evaluations (US data)
Descriptive Correlations USA Data x SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 1. Coping: Planful problem-solving 3.64 .97 1 2. Coping: Confrontive 3.67 .97 .20 1 3. Coping: Seeking social support 3.33 1.14 .29** .27** 1 4. Coping: Distancing 2.14 .96 -.05 -.18* .00 1 5. Coping: Escape-avoidance 1.71 .99 -.02 .19** .18** .21** 1 6. Satisfaction with service recovery 1.74 1.15 .16** -.10 -.16** .14* .04 1 Note: ** p < .01, * p < .05
Table 4: Correlation Matrix and Descriptive Statistics: Coping and Encounter Evaluations (Thai data)
Descriptive Correlations THAI Data x SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 1. Coping: Planful problem-solving 2.75 .78 1 2. Coping: Confrontive 2.78 .99 .55** 1 3. Coping: Seeking social support 3.13 .97 .51** .51** 1 4. Coping: Distancing 2.80 .79 .34** -.17* .47** 1 5. Coping: Escape-avoidance 1.71 .75 .09 .06 -.02 .02 1 6. Satisfaction with service recovery 2.13 1.12 -.26** -.32** -.37** -.23** .21** 1
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Correlations between coping and recovery satisfaction. The results of associations between coping and service recovery satisfaction (dissatisfaction) are shown in Tables 3 and 4 for US and Thai data, respectively. Generally and as might be expected, most of the significant correlations in both Tables 3 and4 are negative. For the US data (Table 3), satisfaction/dissatisfaction with service recovery is negatively associated with seeking social support coping (r = –.16, p < .01) and positively influenced by planful problem- solving (r = .16, p < .01) and distancing (r = .14, p < .05). For Thai data (Table 4), customer satisfaction judgments is negatively impacted by planful problem-solving, confrontive, seeking social support coping, and distancing with moderate coefficients ranging from –.26 to –.37. Interestingly, escape-avoidance coping has a significantly positive association with customer satisfaction (r = .21, p < .01). Overall, it should also be noted again that the associations are considerable stronger for the Thai sample.
Results of hierarchical regression analysis. The author then conducted hierarchical regression analysis to examine the overall impact of coping and the incremental effect of disconfirmation of service recovery expectations on satisfaction with service recovery. The disconfirmation construct has been demonstrated in various literatures to be a useful predictor of customer satisfaction judgment (Anderson and Sullivan 1993; Mittal et al.
1998; Oliver 1980; Patterson 1993). For each model in Table 5, the first column employs only coping strategies as explanatory variables. The second column includes the disconfirmation variable in a hierarchical regression procedure to assess the incremental change in variance explained in each of the models.
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Table 5: Regression Models
USA (Model 1) THAI (Model 2) Satisfaction with service Satisfaction with service recovery recovery
Excluded1 Included2 Excluded Included ɴ Sig. ɴ Sig. ɴ Sig. ɴ Sig. Constant 1.36 (00) ns 3.36 (00) .67 (01)
Coping strategies
Planful problem-solving .28 (00) ns ns ns
Confrontive ns ns -.19 (03) ns
Distancing ns ns ns ns
Seeking social support -.21 (00) ns -.26 (00) ns
Escape-avoidance ns ns .33 (00) .15 (01)
Disconfirmation .82 (00) .86 (00)
F statistic 4.7 (00) 11.1 (00) Adjusted R2 (%) 7.7 19.4
New F statistic 99.7 (00) 80.8 (00) New adjusted R2 (%) 72.7 69.4
ѐ Z2 65.0 50.0 ѐ F (sig.) Yes Yes
Sample size (n) 223 212
Note 1: Disconfirmation is not included in model Note 2: Disconfirmation is included in the model
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In both models 1 and 2 (excluding disconfirmation) only a small variance is explained by coping strategies alone. The total R2 are 7.7% and 19.4% for Models 1 and 2, respectively. For factors (excluding disconfirmation) that influence overall satisfaction
(Models 1 and 2), seeking social support has a negative influence on customer overall satisfaction judgment for both US (ȕ = –.21, p = .00) and Thai (ȕ = –.26, p = .00) customers. Not surprisingly perhaps, confrontive coping has a negative relationship with service recovery satisfaction in the Thai sample (ȕ = –.19, p = .03). The positive influence on customer satisfaction with service recovery is led by planful problem-solving (ȕ = .28, p
= 00) for the US sample and escape-avoidance (ȕ = .33, p = .00) for the Thai sample.
Finally, when the standardized regression coefficients are examined after inclusion of the disconfirmation construct into each model, a powerful explanation of encounter evaluations emerged. In all models, a large amount of variance is explained by disconfirmation. The incremental change in R2 was large and statistically significant as assessed by the change in F ratio. The R2 change is 65.0% and 50.0% for Models 1 and 2, respectively. In each model, the disconfirmation construct has the highest beta coefficient of all explanatory variables (ȕ = .82 and ȕ = .86 for Models 1 and 2, respectively), whereas almost all coping variables are now not significant. Therefore, the low variance explained collectively by the coping alone suggests that it represent a less important dimension than disconfirmation in explaining and predicting customer satisfaction with service recovery.
These findings are further discussed in the ‘Discussion’ section that follows.
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Discussions and managerial implications
The study has brought to light the coping patterns of an outraged customer in both
Western (USA) and Asian (Thailand) contexts, the variables that influence them, and their relation to customer satisfaction with the organization service recovery efforts. The study also reveals some similarities and importance differences in coping patterns between US and Thai customers. All five coping strategies—planful problem-solving, confrontive, seeking social support, distancing, and escape-avoidance—are employed when extreme anger is experienced by customers from both countries. The results (Tables 1 and 2) show most coping strategies are positively associated with an array of cognitive appraisals
(threats to physical well-being, self-esteem, fairness, and control). Overall, these correlations reveal consistent results with previous studies in social psychology (Carver et al. 1989; Chun et al. 2006) in that people employ multiple strategies—both problem- focused and emotion-focused coping—in dealing with a stressful situation.
However, some coping strategies are more common in one culture than in another.
The significant mean differences show that problem-focused coping (i.e., planful problem- solving and confrontive) tends to be practiced more by the US customers, while distancing, which is an emotion-focused coping type, is more commonly used among Thai customers.
These coping differences are likely the outcome of value orientation of individualism and collectivism. Cross-cultural studies have revealed that persons from individualist societies such as the US tend to have a strong sense of internal locus of control and independent self- construal, meaning that they want to take control over their destiny typically through
117 changing or controlling an external environment (Chun et al. 2006). On the other hand, collectivistic persons with interdependent self-construal tend to target the control at themselves first (e.g., changing their emotions, thoughts, and behaviours) when coping with stress caused by another party, in order to avoid social disharmony (Mattila and Patterson
2004b). Thais, a collectivist society, in particular are influenced by social norms that dictate open display of emotions and open conflict should be avoided at all cost (Matsumoto
1993). As a result, it is not surprising to find that more US customers choose to cope with service failures by planning what must be done to get the problem solved or directly confronting employees, whereas Thai customers typically try to distance themselves from the problem (e.g., changing thoughts and emotion) and move on with their life.
Nonetheless, it would be incorrect to assume that Thai customers will not exert influence on service employees in order to get their problems resolved. The results seem to suggest that Thai customers also use planful problem-solving and confrontive copings but to a lesser extent than US counterparts. Perhaps, a more accurate view may be that Thai customers could be less tolerant in regulating their behaviours when dealing with persons with less authority. As quoted in the study of Gardiner (1968), a young Thai student commented on the expression of their feelings around people with different social status:
“When I know the people who make me angry are my parents or another I respect, I will complain softly. But when I know that it is my younger brother or sister, I will be louder and louder …” (as cited in McCarty et al. 1999, p.810).
In addition, the study also found a subtle difference in the main type of coping strategies associated with cognitive appraisals. Thai customers tend to have a broad set of coping strategies with similar patterns (i.e., planful problem-solving, confrontive, seeking 118 social support, and distancing) regardless of whichever threat occurs, while US customers tend to adopt a few coping strategies with slightly changing coping patterns in relation to each threat. To illustrate, when the US customers face a threat to physical well-being, they mainly cope by confrontation and escape-avoidance. If the service failures involve a threat to self-esteem, then they tend to adopt seeking social support as well as confrontive and escape-avoidance coping. Another interesting coping pattern for the US customers is that planful problem-solving tends to be a less prominent type of coping strategy when a service failure involves a threat to sense of control. This is consistent with previous research
(Folkman and Lazarus 1980; Scheier et al. 1986) showing that when a stressful situation is perceived as unchangeable (threat to sense of control), a person tends to give up his or her actions in solving the problem and instead engages in alternative coping strategies such as seeking social support or distancing
The results in Tables 3 and 4 depict that most of significant correlations between coping strategies and recovery satisfaction are negative. Perhaps this is not a surprising result given that customers have been enraged with the service employee and organization.
Only a few forms of coping showed a positive impact on customer satisfaction with service recovery. For the US customers, planful problem-solving and distancing are marginally positively associated with customer satisfaction with service recovery. On the other hand,
Thai customers who use escape-avoidance coping tend to have a greater overall satisfaction than those who adopt other strategies. However, the relative weakness of correlation coefficients seems to suggest that coping strategies may have only a small influence on encounter evaluations, especially for the US customers. The results from the regression analysis in Table 5 show the extent of the impact that coping strategies have on the
119 variation of service recovery satisfaction. Both the US and Thai regression models
(excluding disconfirmation) are significant but with small adjusted R2 values of 7.7% and
19.4%, respectively and the significant coefficients were quite low. Although these results indicate a weak influence of coping, the sign of significant correlations reveals some interesting insights.
In Table 5 across two models (excluding disconfirmation), seeking social support showed a negative influence on satisfaction for both Thai and US data. It appears that when customers tell other people, such as their friends and family, about how poorly a company or employee behaved (seeking social support coping), this conversation could refresh the customer’s memory of the failed service situation and even reignite their negative emotions. Reliving the situation could stir up extreme anger (and dissatisfaction) that might otherwise have diminished through the passage of time. In addition, the results in Model 2 indicated that a confrontive coping strategy is negatively related to customer satisfaction with service recovery in the Thai data. The result is consistent with previous study of
Folkman et al. (1986) that a confrontive approach such as expressing anger could worsen the situation and tends to be associated with an unsatisfactory outcome. When angry customers vent their emotions on frontline employees (e.g., verbal or physical attack), the situation could get out of control (e.g., employees losing temper and argue back) creating the ripple effect of emotion contagion (Dallimore et al. 2007). In fact, some forms of anger expression, such as verbal assault and facial expression, could result in intensifying distress
(Rodriguez and Green 1997). However, in the US sample, the confrontive coping is not significantly related to customer satisfaction. It is well known that American tends to “wear their heart on their sleeve”, and it appears that once a US consumer has had the opportunity
120 to vent their dissatisfaction they then move on and view the firm service recovery effort in a different light.
Turning to a positive influence of coping on encounter evaluations, Model 1 in
Table 5 reveals that when US customers employ planful problem-solving (e.g., made a plan of what needs to be done, concentrate on finding way to solve the problem), there tends to be a positive influence on customer satisfaction judgment. The positive effect might be explained by the fact that when the US customers are persistent in getting the problem solved, they probably feel that the situation could be changed in their favor. Or perhaps, the organization may start to notice the problem and try to rectify it. This finding provides an opportunity for a service organization to restore a relationship with customers. A service organization can promote planful problem-solving behaviours by providing a channel for customers to complain and then assuring them that there will be a resolution by having a staff member providing an update about the situation (i.e., empowering the customer through information provision), explain what went wrong, and detail what the company will do to solve the problem.
For Thai customers (Model 2 in Table 5), when they choose to deal with their thoughts and emotions by adopting escape-avoidance coping (e.g., pretending it didn’t happen and trying to make oneself feel better by drinking or eating), it tends to have a positive influence on customer satisfaction. This result is unlike prior studies in that a maladaptive type of coping such as escape-avoidance is likely to result in a negative outcomes such as a high level of distress (Carver and Scheier 1994; Rohde et al. 1990).
Perhaps, as explained by Folkman et al. (1986), it cannot be assumed that one coping strategy will always lead to positive or negative outcomes. Often the consequence depends 121 on the demands and the constraints of the person who encounters with the stressful situation. Here, in this case, a problem may be viewed as unchangeable (e.g., a service provider refused to provide any help), and taking the anger out on other people or drinking might make Thai customers feel less distress with the service failure and ineffective service recovery.
Lastly, the findings compare the effects of coping and disconfirmation on customer satisfaction. Disconfirmation was a very robust predictor of encounter evaluations and far more so than was any aspect of coping by itself. This is not a surprising result because the effect of disconfirmation on customer satisfaction has been evidenced in several studies
(e.g., Mittal et al. 1998; Oliver 1980; Patterson 1993; Smith et al. 1999). In fact, a strong influence of disconfirmation of service recovery expectation reflects an opportunity for an organization. Service organizations can mitigate the negative impact of coping strategies or customer extreme anger by focusing on superior service recovery. As suggested by Mattila
(2001), in order to restore customer relationships, companies need to offer customized service recovery strategies, which are determined by types of service operation and the severity of failures. Companies also need to avoid generic recovery strategies, which tend to be ineffective. For example, a tangible compensation and an apology would yield a favorable recovery outcome for a type of service that involves high customer contact and customization such as a hair care service (Mattila 2001). To ensure customization of service recovery, staff must be empowered by company policy so that the decision making process is driven by the customer requests and circumstances. In fact, when fully empowered employees address the complaints with empathy and helpfulness, it can result in higher level of customer satisfaction (Sparks et al. 1997). A successful service recovery may even
122 yield a “service recovery paradox”—a higher level of customer satisfaction with service companies than that in the prefailure phase (Smith and Bolton 1998). However, if the company fails to provide effective recovery after an initial service failure, known as a
“double deviation” situation , it could intensify customer dissatisfaction(Bitner et al.
1990a), or could even lead up to customer rage.
Limitations and directions for future research
It would be negligent if I did not point out limitations of the present study. First, the study focuses only on coping strategies, cognitive appraisals, and encounter evaluations of customers who progressed to rage due to a failure or action on the part of the organization.
As such, the results may only concentrate on the extreme cases. Future research examining the customer coping process might consider different levels of negative emotional intensity to overcome this weakness. Second, the method of retrospective self-report to unearth the coping strategies and cognitive appraisals of extreme angry customers could contain inherently fallible data due to customers’ memory bias. Future research might overcome this by using other methods such as direct observation of customer behaviour, quasi- experiments, and physiological assessment.
Future research might also examine coping behaviours over time where the impact of copings on customers’ evaluation process could be stronger than the results of this study, which was limited to 6 months. More rigorous qualitative research needs to be conducted across a range of service failure types (e.g., outcome and process failures) to obtain a detailed understanding of exactly what threat (appraisal) is perceived, the influence of each threat on coping, and coping patterns in different types of failures. Finally, planful problem-
123 solving coping has been linked with positive encounter evaluations (Folkman et al. 1986) and this study supports the relationship in the US data. Future research might examine customer satisfaction judgment when service organizations offer service recovery strategies that facilitate a customer’s coping mechanism such as planful problem-solving (e.g., having a customer service employee calling a customer to ask for feedback and suggestion after a few days). Such a study could provide direction for service organizations in selecting the best strategy based on customers’ coping mechanism that could result in relationship restoration.
In conclusion, the present study provides a better understanding on how extremely angry customers appraise threats and potential harms and how they cope with their emotions and service failure situations. The findings of this study would be useful for service organizations aiming to design effective service recovery that prevent, or at least reduce, potentially dangerous customer rage incidents.
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CHAPTER 5
CONCLUSION
Synopsis
A rising number of customer rage incidents have been reported in the media across the globe. The incidents typically involve poor customer service experiences. Consider a call center incident where a customer is caught up in a loop of calls after a return call promise never occurs and then waits on the telephone for a long period to find out that he can only talk to a recording machine. This series of events could culminate in a customer’s extreme negative emotional responses, aggressive expressions, and potentially harmful behaviours. In some extreme cases, rage incidents might involve a physical assault and even the murder of employees. However, most organizations are ill-equipped to deal with these potentially dangerous situations because little is known about the causes and consequences of customer rage. Therefore, this dissertation addresses this important lack of knowledge by attempting to accomplish the following objectives:
1. Empirically examine over two time periods the association between types of
service failures and customers’ cognitive appraisals
2. Explore the dynamic processes of cognitive appraisals that lead to escalating
negative emotions (e.g., from anger to rage)
3. Examine customers’ coping patterns in relation to cognitive appraisal and their
influence on customer satisfaction with service recovery
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4. Examine the extent to which the relationships studied in objectives (1) to (3)
vary across East (Thailand) – West (USA) cultures
This empirical study (presented in three papers in Chapters 2, 3, and 4) was conducted to achieve the above objectives. The following section summarizes the general findings of each chapter.
Paper 1: Customer rage back-story: Linking needs-based cognitive appraisal to service failure type
Chapter 2 presents the findings of the first paper. In this study, the author explores the dynamic process of cognitive appraisal and its relationship with types of service failure over two time periods (i.e., initial service failure and ineffective service recovery). The content analysis results show that customers appraise service failures that involve rage incidents as threats to their fundamental human needs (i.e., threats to economic resources, self-esteem, sense of justice, sense of control, and physical well-being). In addition, logistic regression results show the links between each threat and types of service failures. For example, at an initial service failure (Episode 1), a threat to self-esteem is associated with inappropriate staff behaviours. As another example, a threat to economic resources is likely to incur in an initial service failure that involves a failed core service and speed of delivering service. The results show another interesting insight. Almost all types of ineffective service recovery (Episode 2) are associated with a threat to economic resources and by and large there are more fundamental human needs being violated in a given service failure type in Episode 2 than in Episode 1. This result perhaps explains why customers respond with intense dissatisfaction (Bitner et al. 1990a) and request compensation
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(Grégoire and Fisher 2008) from the offending organization after experiencing a double deviation situation—an initial service failure followed by ineffective service recovery.
The study also found that national culture has an influence on cognitive appraisal processes. The U.S. customers tend to have a stronger need for economic resources and sense of control than do Thai customers. These results reflect the unique characteristics of the two national groups. The US is characterized as a highly individualist and fairly masculine society (Hofstede 1994) in which people tend to focus on autonomy, achievement, and wealth. On the other hand, Thailand is a collectivist and feminine society where people are submissive to the society and value humbleness.
Paper 2: Modelling customer cognitive appraisals to rage emotions following a service failure
Chapter 3 presents findings from the second study. In this study, researchers examine a significant role of cognitive appraisal in evoking rage emotions following a chain of failed service experiences. The author explores customers’ emotion elicitation
SURFHVVHVRYHUWKUHHWLPHSHULRGVʊDQLQLWLDOVHUYLFHIDLOXUHIROORZHGE\RQHRUWZR ineffective service recoveries. The study reveals that rage emotion does not occur immediately after an initial service failure; rather it unfolds over time. At an initial service failure, customers would try to conform to social norms of emotional expression by subduing intense negative emotions. However, customers’ emotion regulation mechanism could weaken if they continue to experience threats to their fundamental human needs.
Hence, rage emotions tend to manifest following ineffective service recovery efforts by the offending organization. Apart from the deteriorating emotion regulation mechanism, there
127 is a carryover effect of anger from the previous time period (i.e., ineffective recovery effort by the firm) that also contributes to an elicitation of escalating rage emotions in a subsequent episode.
National culture plays a significant role in customers’ emotional expressions. The results reveal that Thai customers are less likely than their U.S. counterparts to express rage emotions at any episode of service failures. As suggested in cross-cultural studies, people from collectivist societies such as Thailand tend to experience negative emotions that are less intense and of shorter duration than those from individualist societies such as the US
(Grimm et al. 1999; Markus and Kitayama 1991). The results reflect this cultural difference suggesting that due to cultural norms, Thai customers tend to put greater effort into controlling the onset of strong negative emotions and deescalating rage emotions whenever they experience them.
Paper 3: A Study of Antecedents and outcomes of customer coping strategies in rage incidents: A Cross-Cultural Study
Chapter 4 reports findings from the third study. In this study, the author examines customers’ coping strategies, the variables that influence them, and their impacts on satisfaction with service recovery. The study reveals five coping strategies that are employed by both Thai and U.S. customers during and after rage incidents: planful problem-solving, confrontive, distancing, seeking social support, and escape-avoidance.
Multiple coping strategies are likely to be employed when a service failure situation is perceived as a threat to physical well-being, self-esteem, fairness, and control.
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The results show some differences in coping patterns of two national groups. Some forms of coping are more common in one country than in another. The U.S. customers tend to employ more problem-focused coping (i.e., planful problem-solving and confrontive), whereas Thai customers tend to use more emotion-focused coping (i.e., distancing). This result can be explained by the distinct characteristics of the two societies. Individualist societies like the United States tend to emphasize a sense of internal locus of control and independent self-construal), whereas collectivist societies such as Thailand tend to focus on interdependent self-construal (Mattila and Patterson 2004b). As a result, preferred coping strategies for U.S. customers could be actions that are directed at the external environment
(e.g., a service employee who causes the failure), and for Thai customers, they could be strategies that are oriented inward (e.g., changing their own emotions, thoughts, and behaviours). Furthermore, forms of coping that have a positive influence on customer satisfaction are different in the two national groups. For US customers, planful problem- solving tends to have a positive influence on customer satisfaction with service recovery.
On the other hand, escape-avoidance coping tends to have a positive impact on service recovery satisfaction for Thai customers.
Managerial implications
The present study provided insights into the psychological conditions or antecedents that trigger customers’ extreme emotional responses. It found that service employees’ behaviours such as being irresponsible, uncaring, impolite, unethical and ignorant are the main factor that initiates customer rage incidents. Service organizations need to understand that customers possess a set of fundamental human needs (e.g., needs for physical well- being, self-esteem, and sense of fairness). When dissatisfactory service encounters are 129 perceived as a threat to or a violation of these needs, it could drive a customer to react with rage behaviours (Patterson et al. 2009). However, customer rage is avoidable if an organization could cultivate the right attitude for service employees and prepare them to be observant on the situations that could potentially lead to customer rage.
To prevent customer rage, it is important for frontline staff to view customers as people first and foremost and as customers second. Service employees cannot simply follow a company’s service script in which each customer is treated in the same way.
Customized service is greatly important, particularly during service recovery stage (Mattila
2001; Sparks et al. 1997). Frontline employees must be empowered to solve the problem quickly at the first opportunity, which may be indicated by customers’ complaints. A high level of flexibility should be encouraged so that staff can make decisions to completely satisfy customers by providing service recovery strategies according to customers’ cognitive appraisal (Smith et al. 1999). The present findings provide a practical guide for service employees to observe the situation surrounding service failures and link it to a customer’s perceived threat. For example, customers who complain about core service failure or slow speed of service tend to have a perception that their economic resource is under threat. Frontline employees could prevent customers’ emotions from escalating beyond surprise, embarrassment, or disappointment and from reaching a boiling point by quickly providing solutions to the problems or offering reasonable compensation to restore customers’ economic resources.
Another important issue for service organizations is that staff needs to be aware of the cultural background of customers. The present study reveals that a customer who is from collectivist society such as Thailand tends to process information, express emotion, 130 and behave differently from a US customer who is from individualist society. For example, the study shows that Thai customers are more reluctant to express their negative emotions.
However, service providers cannot assume that Asian collectivist customers will never behave in a harmful or aggressive manner. In fact, they only suppress their strong emotions at the beginning, but if they repeatedly experience poor services, sooner or later they may respond as violently as Western customers.
In conclusion, frontline employees and their supervisors need to have a mindset that customers are first and foremost people who seek to have a set of psychological needs met from service encounters. Moreover, it is important that frontline staff understand the nature of customers from different cultural backgrounds and constantly observe situational cues and customers’ emotions to ensure that the onset of customer rage will not escalate.
Limitations and directions for future study
This section points out the key limitations and directions for future research. First, the present study only investigates the nature of customer rage that results from perceived threats to fundamental human needs (i.e., physical well-being, economic resources, self- esteem, justice, and control). It is not clear whether this same set of fundamental human needs, if enhanced, could lead to extreme positive emotions such as customer delight.
Future research may further explore the psychological antecedents of extreme positive emotions. A complete picture of what drives extreme negative and positive emotions could benefit service organizations in training their frontline staff on what must be avoided in order to prevent customer rage and which needs should be enhanced to create customer delight.
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Second, the present study only investigates customers’ views on the causes of customer rage. Most of the service failure situations reported by customers were the service employees’ fault, such as being rude, ignorant, uncaring and irresponsible. However, service employees might hold different views on the same specific situation and did not even realize that their actions have been viewed by customers as a threat to fundamental human needs. To provide a complete understanding of rage incidents, future research could explore both employees’ opinions and a ripple effect of emotional contagion on the causes of customer rage.
Third, although the method of retrospective self-report and critical incident technique offers great insights into details of the customer rage experience, this method relies on memory, which may be less accurate with the passage of time. The data could be inherently fallible. Future research might replicate this study and use other methods such as direct observation of customer behaviour, physiological assessment, diary-based approach or quasi-experiments in order to avoid memory bias and verify the results.
Fourth, the study revealed the influence of customers’ coping strategies on service recovery satisfaction/dissatisfaction. From this finding, service organizations can design service experiences that facilitate customers’ coping strategies that have a positive impact on customer satisfaction. However, the results indicated that only planful problem-solving and escape-avoidance coping tend to have a positive impact on customer satisfaction for
US and Thai customers, respectively. This is probably due to the fact that the study only focuses on extreme cases, that is, customer rage incident in which customer would expect to experience extremely dissatisfaction with the service providers. Future research might
132 consider examining different levels of negative emotional intensity that may reveal some variations in the impact of coping strategies on customer satisfaction.
Last, the current study focuses on customers’ coping strategies at one point in time.
A more rigorous qualitative research needs to be conducted across different episodes of service failures (e.g., initial service failure, ineffective service recovery) to obtain a detailed understanding of exactly what threat is perceived and the influence of each threat on coping patterns in each episode.
Conclusion
Using cognitive appraisal theory, the present study examines rage incidents in both
Eastern (Thailand) and Western (the US) cultures. The findings provide a better understanding on causes and consequences of customer rage following a service failure situation. In a rage incident, a simple service failure situation with either little or great perceived importance can drive customers to extreme anger as long as the failure is viewed
(or appraised) as a threat to their fundamental human needs. Threats to one’s physical wellbeing, an economic resource, a sense of justice, one’s self-esteem, and a sense of control could set customers off to rage, but not immediately. Interestingly, in most rage incidents, there is a clear pattern of emotion escalation. In most initial service failure situations, customers can still control their emotions and hence a violation of fundamental human needs at this stage is likely to provoke only low-intensity negative emotions.
However, these emotions tend to escalate to anger and ultimately rage when the original failure remains unsolved after several attempts by the customers to rectify the situation. The
133 study also found that rage emotion occurs partly due to a residual anger originated from the previous situation.
Outraged customers employed both problem-focused and emotion-focused coping strategies to manage their internal stress and a service failure situation which is perceived as a threat. Some of these coping strategies can be potentially violent. The most obvious one is a confrontative coping strategy which involves customers’ aggressive reactions such as trying to let the emotion out or expressing the anger to a service employee. In addition, the study compared the effects of coping and disconfirmation on customer satisfaction with service recovery. Disconfirmation was a very robust predictor of encounter evaluations and far more so than was any aspect of coping by itself. In fact, a strong influence of disconfirmation of service recovery expectation reflects an opportunity for an organization.
Service organizations can mitigate the negative impact of coping strategies or customer extreme anger by focusing on superior service recovery.
Cultural differences exist in the cognitive appraisal process. The finding suggested that Western (US) society places more emphasis on economic resources and a sense of control than Eastern (Thai) society. As a result, threats to economic resources and a sense of control are reported much higher by US customers than Thai customers. These findings also provide important directions to help service organizations provide an effective service recovery by offering a recovery embedded with a value that matches customers’ psychological and economic loss in a service failure. For example, a compensation and replacement strategy embedded with economic resources is a preferred recovery strategy for the US customers. In addition, the findings support the view that customers in collectivist societies such as Thailand tend to emphasize social harmony (Triandis 1995), 134 and social norms of keeping emotions in check (Patterson and Smith 2003). Thai customers have a greater tolerance on rage-provoking event (resulting in a higher percentage of low level of negative emotion and a lower percentage of rage in Episodes 1 to 3) than customers from individualist societies such as the US, whose culture emphasizes individual differences and views the expression of emotion in public to a certain extent, as more acceptable. Moreover, some coping strategies are more common in one culture than in another. A problem-focused coping (i.e., planful problem-solving and confrontive) tends to be practiced more by the US customers, while distancing, which is an emotion-focused coping type, is more commonly used among Thai customers.
In summary, the study contends that organizations cannot truly understand emotionally charged customer reactions such as rage unless they first consider customers’ fundamental psychological needs (e.g., economic resources, self-esteem, sense of justice, sense of control, and physical well-being). Frontline employees and their supervisors need to have a mindset that customers are first and foremost people who seek a set of psychological needs from service encounters. Moreover, it is important that frontline employees constantly observe customer emotions to ensure that the onset of customer rage will not escalate. Customer rage incidents are preventable if front-line employees could provide effective service recovery strategies immediately after receiving customer complaints. In fact, service recovery is a critical moment of truth, and if provided effectively would not only help an organisation avoid rage incidents but also resurrect or even enhance the customer relationship (Smith and Ruth 2002). The understanding of causes and consequences of customer rage incidents, provided in this study, can be useful
135 for service organizations aiming to design effective service recovery that prevent, or at least reduce, potentially dangerous customer rage incidents.
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CHAPTER 6
APPENDICES
Appendix 1: Interview script
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Appendix 2: Customer Rage Questionnaire
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Appendix 3: Coding Scheme
Classification instruction
Tables 1, 2, 3, and 4 are the coding categories for initial service failure, ineffective service recovery, cognitive appraisal, and emotion. Read the answer in Q14 and code (0= absent, 1 =occur) the types of initial service failure, ineffective service recovery, cognitive appraisal, and negative emotions in the excel template. If you see that respondents’ stories do not fit with the categories provided, please create another column and suggest a name of a category.
Table 1: Type of initial service failure
Type of service Column Categories Explanation for coding failure Name
Core service failures included all critical Core service incidents that were due to mistakes or CSF failure other technical problems with the service itself.
The initial failures were all attributed Employee to unresponsive behaviours of service unresponsive EUB employees (i.e., uncaring/ignorant, behaviours unresponsive, and unknowledgeable).
Employee The initial failures were all attributed inappropriate EIB to inappropriate behaviours of service Initial service behaviours employees (i.e., impolite/rude). failure The category included all critical incidents in which the customer felt Speed of service or inconvenienced by the service SS inconvenience provider's location, hours of operation, waiting time for service, or waiting time to get an appointment.
The "ethical problems" category included critical incidents that Ethical problems EP described illegal, immoral, unsafe, unhealthy, or other behaviours that deviated widely from social norms.
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Table 2: Type of ineffective service recovery
Type of service Column Categories Explanation for coding failure Name
The failures were all attributed to unresponsive behaviours of service Employee employees who failed to handle an unresponsive EUR initial service failure (i.e., response uncaring/ignorant, unresponsive, and unknowledgeable).
The failures were all attributed to Employee inappropriate behaviours of service inappropriate EIR employees who failed to handle an response initial service failure (i.e., impolite/rude). Ineffective Service Recovery The category included all critical incidents in which the customer felt Slow speed of inconvenienced by the service SSR recovery provider's location, hours of operation, waiting time for service, or waiting time to get a service recovery.
The "ethical problems" category included critical incidents that described illegal, immoral, unsafe, Ethical response ER unhealthy behaviours of service employees who handle an initial service failure.
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Table 3: Cognitive appraisal categories
Cognitive Fundamental Column Explanation for coding appraisal human needs Name
Feeling threaten to one's economic Economic EcoR resources (e.g., money, time, financial resources security)
Feeling threaten to one's self-worth Self-esteem SE (e.g., losing self respect, appearing unethical, appearing to be incompetent)
Feeling that what they receive is less Justice (fairness) JT than what they deserve (e.g., something unfair happened, feeling cheated) Threats to ... Feeling threaten to a belief in oneself of being able to achieve a goal, deal with a problem, or control a situation (e.g., felt Need for control CON helpless, powerless [unable to make one own decision or choose freely or control a situation]
Feeling threaten to one's (or loved Physical well- one's) physical well-being (e.g., PW being (safety) physical harm, health harm, safety issues)
Table 4: Emotion categories
Negative Column emotion Emotion words included in the category Name categories
rage, outrage, fury, hate, vengefulness, very angry, Zage Zage and disgust
Anger Anger frustration, anger, irritation, annoyance, and upset
disappointment, displeasure, embarrassment, shame, Low negative Low humiliation, worry, nervous, uneasiness, fear, scared, emotion afraid, and surprise
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Appendix 4: Types of Initial Service Failure/Ineffective Service Recovery
Quote Context Country Episode Sex, Age Core service failure I had made a reservation weeks prior to my arrival… when I arrived, the hotel said I didn’t. … Hotel US 1 M, 53 We were bumped from a flight without our knowledge and left stranded because flights were Airline US 1 F, 64 overbooked. … I went to the hair salon and told the hair dresser the hair style that I like. But it turned out to be Hair saloon TH 1 M, 20 really bad. I looked ugly. … I went to pick up my clothes...and found out that some items were lost. Laundry service TH 1 F, 28 Unresponsive behaviour/response The home that I am renting had some plumbing problems. The rental agency sent out a plumber Home US 1 F, 29 who seemed to be very incompetent. He bust a whole in my hall closet ... refurbishment … After much explanation and questions, I was told the problem was taken care of ...When I Online retailer US 2 F, 48 checked back hours later (on-line), the problem had not been taken care of... We went out for dinner at one restaurant. I wanted to order but the waitress did not care to give Zestaurant TH 1 F, 23 us service. … I asked the airline staff why the flight delay...she could not explain to me. Airline TH 2 M, 27 Inappropriate behaviour/response I had made my payment to them through the online website/company that was listed on the bill. I Finance got a phone call 2 weeks later telling me that I was delinquent and I quote--"a deadbeat". The man US 1 F, 48 company on the phone was rude My family and I went to Burger King for supper and I placed the order. The order taker gave me the Fast-food US 2 F, 40 wrong size ... I told her it should be the next size. She snappily replied, "NO! It's this size." restaurant The bus driver talked very badly and had rude manner... Bus TH 1 F, 35 I needed some help from the staff but the person shouted at me: 'DIDN’T YOU SEE WHAT TIME IS Zetail store TH 1 M, 34 IT NOW?' I was stunned
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Quote Context Country Episode Sex, Age Slow speed of service/recovery I dropped off the prescription, they said it'd be about 30-45 minutes, and I went to get a couple things we needed anyhow.... At 45 minutes passed the time I was given, I went to collect the Pharmacy US 1 F, 36 medication so that we could leave. … But it wasn’t ready yet. … Slow speed of service/recovery I was told they would assess the situation and let me know an estimate regarding time to repair the Car service US 2 F, 38 vehicle. Two days later, I still could not get a response... It is my first time using this low cost airline. The flight delay 1/2 a day... Airline TH 1 M, 27 Other table had the food served already but we haven't got anything. ...We wait for another 15-20 Zestaurant TH 2 F, 21 minutes, the food was not served yet. Unethical behaviour/response ...the company lied to me about a program that they offered and I signed up for and then they Credit card US 1 F, 42 dropped the program without notifying me, which cost me a lot of money. company When I called Discover Card I requested that my account be closed...the customer service person Credit card told me that would not be a good idea... This went on for about 15 min...They would not stop US 2 F, 45 company trying to talk me out of closing my account. The taxi driver uses the longer route because he wanted to chart me more.... Taxi TH 1 M, 31 I deposited 400 Thai Baht for developing picture service but the staff only wrote 300 Thai Baht. I told her the written amount of money was incorrect and asked her to change. The person insisted Zetail store TH 2 F, 35 that I only gave her 300 Thai Baht and refused to change anything ...
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Appendix 5: A Violation of Fundamental Human Needs
Quote Context Country Episode Sex, Age Threat to economic resources ...I needed to get my pain pill prescription filled at the Walgreens in Arizona where I was staying on Pharmacy US 1 F, 25 vacation and they said I had to pay full price for the medication ... I didn't expect this ... … We entered the terminal we saw that our flight was delayed... Shortly after that, our flight was delayed an hour and we were told that the crew got in late the night before and had not yet arrived.... Airline US 1 M, 50 About 20 minutes later our flight was cancelled due to mechanical problems with the plane. DSL connection was not working. I called tech support. Was on hold for over 15 minutes. Tech support Internet person would not fully hear my problem. When I asked to speak to a manager/supervisor I was hung up service US 2 M, 47 on. (I) called back spent another 15 minutes on hold (again)... provider The company sent a telephone bill that costs me much more than what I used. (This is annoying) So I Telecom TH 1 F, 21 contacted the company... I ordered the food at ... and I had to wait for so long... Fast-food TH 1 M, 25 (contacting bank for credit card payment) I was waiting on the phone to talk to a staff. It was too long and I have no more patients to wait so I hang up the phone. I called again but it took me several times Bank TH 2 F, 36 to get the line connected. The staff told me to wait again... Threat to self-esteem (I) was trying to use coupons and they acted like I was worthless, kept rolling their eyes, huffing and Hypermar US 1 F, 24 puffing...(I felt) humiliated ket I went to Home Hardware. ...I was trying to find a sales helper to find the item and get his/her opinion Hardware to what was best for my situation. But I could not find one after looking all over the store... (I felt not) US 1 M, 58 retail important, not wanted. ... I was already out in public when the shoes broke (which is just bought) ... I [could] show them the Departme faulty product for an exchange. … The lady at the exchange department was just as rude and US 2 F, 24 nt store unconcerned as the first time. She shows no respect ...
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Quote Context Country Episode Sex, Age Threat to self-esteem The doctor talked to me in an impolite way...I felt like a dog...He made an angry face to me... Hospital TH 1 F, 29 I was looking at some clothes and the staff just keeps following me. I felt like the staff looked down Department TH 1 F, 19 at me... store I was waiting in the line and then somebody cut cue. So I told the staff that this is not right. This Bank TH 2 M, 30 staff gave me a look. I felt that she is looking down at me or I have to beg to get the service. … Threat to sense of justice (fairness) (I) was cheated by the dealer. I was told they would sell me the car at a price...they ... offered me a Car dealer US 1 F, 44 finance plan. However, the total amount of the plan didn't add up to the price they promised. When I signed up [for a travel agency], I was told I could cancel at any time. I spend $340.00. ... Online When I called to cancel, I was told that I have to wait 2 years! (I was) robbed, lied to and totally US 1 F, 44 travel agent scammed. ... I was considering buying a game for my son ... the clerk told me I could return it if he didn't like it. ... [the next day I wanted to return but] they wouldn't let me return it ... I was told by an employee it Game store US 2 M, 36 was returnable but (they) wouldn't accept the responsibility for the actions of the workers... (I) had been lied to...... The price of the product was only THB 82 but the lady at the cashier asks me to pay THB 182. I Convenienc told her this is not right and she should look at the price tag. ... She ignored my complaint and TH 2 M, 31 e insisted that the product costs BHT 182. ... I felt cheated... I was not feeling well and waiting to see the doctor. ... While I was waiting, I saw another patient Hospital TH 2 M, 23 who just came but got to see the doctor before me. ... This is really not FAIZ! ... I always got to this hair salon for coloring. ... She [the hair dresser] was chatting and doing several other things while coloring my hair....After she finished, ... I was really mad because I did not expect Hair Saloon TH 1 M, 39 to see myself like this. ... I looked worst than before... Threat to sense of control I am a DirecTV customer and subscribe to NFL Sunday Ticket. ... I switched to the NFL Sunday Ticket Satellite TV channel that was supposed to air my team's game but it had been blacked out... so I called DirecTV US 1 M, 44 company customer service..., she reiterated that there was nothing they could do. (I felt) totally helpless...
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Quote Context Country Episode Sex, Age Threat to sense of control ... … to purchase the engine. It was very expensive… . It took over 1 month for the shop to complete the install and return my Van… . I drove the Van under 5 miles before it shut down. I had it towed to another shop and I was told they did not put oil into my new motor and it is now forever Car service US 2 F, 37 broken. … (I was) furious and helpless...
…I got several overdraft charges. ... I told the bank [that this is incorrect] but they insisted on the charge and would not do anything. … (I felt) powerless…there was nothing I could do about the Bank US 2 F, 58 situation. I went to a repair shop and told them to fix a few things. When I went back to pick up the car, I was very angry. They fixed so many things without asking me and just force me to pay the big amount of Car service TH 1 M, 39 money. I was not sure of the procedure for setting up the electricity meter for a new home … I was angry at Utility the officers. One officer had told me to do one thing but another one said what I did was wrong. … I TH 2 M, 38 service really didn’t know what to do I just bought a second hand phone ..., it turned out that the screen was broken. ... They were very Mobile rude and insist that I cannot change. ... We had an argument but finally I gave up. (I felt like) I TH 2 M, 24 phone retail cannot do anything about it... Threat to physical well-being … I took a bite out of mine [burger] and thought I saw hair sticking out, I opened it and found it was Fast food US 1 F, 26 not hair but was actually the antennae of a cockroach … I felt disgusted … It was gross restaurant ... (I) boarded our family dog with the vet... Our pet was on numerous medications ... I explained very carefully to the assistant ...When I picked the dog up, there were several pills remaining. Animal US 1 F, 60 Considering the dog had a severe heart condition, this was not a good thing... They placed my dog in hospital a dangerous situation. ... I have 2-broke legs and they would not fill my subscription ... (I went to another one) they also Pharmacy US 2 F, 40 would not fill... the medicine is (needed) for my Pain...
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Quote Context Country Episode Sex, Age Threat to physical well-being My mom was very sick. We went to the hospital....People there were not helpful. She was crying ... Hospital TH 1 F, 27 I felt very sad she was not well...... I found a hair on my food. I felt that the food here is not clean and I might get sick because of Zestaurant TH 1 M, 26 this...... The taxi driver drove me to a place that I was not familiar. I asked him but he just said that this is the road that going to the destination. I was afraid that he would take me to other places and took Taxi TH 2 M, 31 all my money or hurt me...
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Appendix 6: Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity
KMO and Bartlett's Test
Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy. .912 Bartlett's Test of Sphericity Approx. Chi-Square 1591.632
df 15
Sig. .000
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Appendix 7: Coping scale
Include in or remove Scale Item wording from the Original Item Source final construct I expressed anger to the person who handled the problem Include I expressed anger to the person(s) who caused the problem I didn't let it get to me; refused to think about it too much Include Didn't let it get to me; refused to think about it too much I tried to keep my feelings to myself Remove I tried to keep my feelings to myself I asked a relative or fried whom I respected for advice Include I asked a relative or friend I respected for advice I wished the situation would go away or somehow be over Wished that the situation would go away or somehow be over Remove with with I refused to believe that this situation happened. Remove Refused to believe that it had happened. I made a plan of action and followed it. Include I made a plan of action and followed it. I try to get the company to rectify the problem Include Tried to get the person responsible to change his or her mind I went on as if nothing had happened Include Went on as if nothing had happened I tried to keep my feelings from interfering with other I tried to keep my feelings from interfering with other things Remove things too much too much. (Folkman et Coping I talked to family or friends about what happened. Include Talked to someone about how I was feeling. al. 1986) I took it out on other people. Include Took it out on other people. I just concentrated on what I had to do next, the next step. Include Just concentrated on what I had to do next-the next step. I let my feelings out somehow. Include I let my feelings out somehow I tried to forget the whole thing. Include Tried to forget the whole thing I did not tell others how bad things were. Remove Kept others from knowing how bad things were I talked to someone about how I was feeling. Include Talked to someone about how I was feeling.
I tried to make myself feel better by eating, drinking, Tried to make myself feel better by eating, drinking, smoking, Include smoking or taking medication. using drugs or medication, and so forth.
I knew what had to be done, so I doubled my efforts to I knew what had to be done, so I doubled my efforts to make Include make things happen. things work. I went over in my mind what I would say and do. Include I went over in my mind what I would say or do
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Appendix 8: Cognitive appraisal scale
Include in or Cognitive remove from Item wordings Original items Source appraisal the final construct I felt helpless Include I often feel helpless in dealing with the problems of life (Pearlin and I was left with no options. Include There is really no way I can solve the problems I Schooler have 1978) Threat to I felt I had no control over what was happening. Include control I have little control over the things that happen to me I felt trapped Include This item was derived from qualitative work I felt a sense of desperation. Include This item was derived from qualitative work They broke the trust I had in them Remove This item was derived from qualitative work Threat to The health or well-being of my loved one(s) was Include Harm to loved one's health, safety, or physical well- physical threatened. being (Folkman et al well- My emotional well-being was threatened Remove Harm to a loved one’s emotional well-being 1986) being My health or physical well-being was threatened. Include Harm to your health, safety, or physical well-being I felt I was losing self respect. Include (Folkman et al Losing yourself respect 1986) Threat to I felt they were looking down on me. Include Appearing to be incompetent (Folkman et al self- I was made to feel like an idiot Include Appearing to be incompetent 1986) and esteem They showed me no respect. Include Losing the approval or respect of someone important qualitative to you work I was made to feel like I was not important. Include This item was derived from qualitative work I felt cheated. Include To what extent did you feel cheated or wronged in (Ellsworth and this situation? Smith 1988) Threat to What happened to me was simply not fair. Include How fair did you think what happened to you in this (Ellsworth and sense of situation? Smith 1988) justice I felt betrayed. Include This item was derived from qualitative work Given what I paid this should not have happened Include This item was derived from qualitative work
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Appendix 9: Factor Analysis of Cognitive Appraisal
Factors and items Factor Eigenvalue Explained Cronbach's alpha loading variance (%)
Factor 1: Threat to control 5.79 36.18 0.83 I felt helpless 0.89 I felt trapped 0.78 I was left with no options. 0.77 I felt I had no control over what was happening. 0.66 I felt a sense of desperation. 0.65 Factor 2: Threat to physical well- 1.84 11.5 0.70 being The health or well-being of my loved one(s) was threatened. 0.79 My health or physical well-being was threatened. 0.72 Factor 3: Threat to self-esteem 1.48 9.27 0.77 I felt they were looking down on me. 0.86 I felt I was losing self respect. 0.76 They showed me no respect. 0.65 I was made to feel like I was not important. 0.51 I was made to feel like an idiot 0.48 Factor 4: Threat to sense of justice 0.91 5.68 0.76 I felt cheated. 0.93 Given what I paid this should not have happened 0.69 I felt betrayed. 0.58 What happened to me was simply not fair. 0.44
Total variance explained 62.62
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Appendix 10: Factor Analysis of Coping
Factors and items Factor Eigenvalue Explained Cronbach's alpha loading variance (%) Factor 1: Planful problem-solving 3.84 25.62 0.80 I made a plan of action and followed 0.74 it. I tried to get the company to rectify 0.51 the problem. I just concentrated on what I had to 0.84 do next, the next step. I knew what had to be done, so I doubled my efforts to make things 0.76 happen. I went over in my mind what I 0.66 would say and do. Factor 2: Distancing 2.11 14.05 0.66 I didn't let it get to me; refused to 0.70 think about it too much I went on as if nothing had 0.71 happened. I tried to forget the whole thing. 0.86 Factor 3: Escape-avoidance 1.44 9.58 0.55 I took it out on other people. .78 I tried to make myself feel better by eating, drinking, smoking or taking 0.85 medication. Factor 4: Seeking social support 1.26 8.43 0.68 I asked a relative or friend whom I respected for advice. -0.78 I talked to family or friends about what happened. -0.73 I talked to someone about how I was feeling. -0.77 Factor 5: Confrontive 0.88 5.87 0.54 I expressed anger to the person(s) 0.80 who handled the problem I let my feelings out somehow. 0.56
Total variance explained 63.56
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Appendix 11: Factor Analysis of Cognitive Appraisal: USA and Thai
Factors and items Factor Factor loading loading (USA) (Thai) Factor 1: Threat to control I felt helpless .86 .83 I felt trapped .64 .87 I was left with no options. .75 .59 I felt I had no control over what was happening. .78 .68 I felt a sense of desperation. .62 .47 Factor 2: Threat to physical well- being The health or well-being of my loved one(s) was threatened. .75 .76 My health or physical well-being was threatened. .74 .59 Factor 3: Threat to self-esteem I felt they were looking down on me. .79 .77 I felt I was losing self respect. .52 .76 They showed me no respect. .81 .77 I was made to feel like I was not important. .73 .57 I was made to feel like an idiot .63 Factor 4: Threat to sense of justice I felt cheated. .75 .91 Given what I paid this should not have happened .81 I felt betrayed. .53 What happened to me was simply not fair. .31 .34
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Appendix 12: Factor Analysis of Coping: USA and Thai
Factors and items Factor Factor loading loading (USA) (Thai) Factor 1: Planful problem-solving I made a plan of action and followed .68 .72 it. I tried to get the company to rectify .53 .89 the problem. I just concentrated on what I had to .82 .44 do next, the next step. I knew what had to be done, so I doubled my efforts to make things .81 happen. I went over in my mind what I .57 .33 would say and do. Factor 2: Distancing I didn't let it get to me; refused to .57 -.46 think about it too much I went on as if nothing had .73 -.77 happened. I tried to forget the whole thing. .80 -.81 Factor 3: Escape-avoidance I took it out on other people. -.39 .77 I tried to make myself feel better by eating, drinking, smoking or taking -.81 .82 medication. Factor 4: Seeking social support I asked a relative or friend whom I -.62 .73 respected for advice. I talked to family or friends about -.87 .42 what happened. I talked to someone about how I -.82 .49 was feeling. Factor 5: Confrontive I expressed anger to the person(s) -.87 .32 who handled the problem I let my feelings out somehow. -.43 .63
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