Concepción Varela-Neira

Explaining customer satisfaction with complaint handling

Purpose – Due to the importance of understanding what circumstances make customer recovery programmes successful, this paper aims to study the effects of different cognitive evaluations (disconfirmation of expectations and perceived justice) and affective responses (positive and negative emotions) on satisfaction with complaint handling.Design/methodology/approach – The sample used in this study consists of 679 subjects who, over the last six months, had experienced service failures and had afterwards complained. The data were collected via personal interviews using a structured survey.Findings – The results of the study support the model and highlight the importance of the emotions experienced as a result of the complaint handling. Although these emotions have been underrepresented in the service recovery literature, our investigation shows that these emotions not only have an independent effect on customer satisfaction, after accounting for the effects of the cognitive evaluations of complaint handling,...

Service recovery, satisfaction and behaviour intentions: analysis of compensation and social comparison communication strategies.

In the marketing literature, there is a great interest in learning how companies should behave after a service failure. From this perspective, different service recovery strategies have been proposed. This experimental study of the airline industry deals with this topic, indicating the benefits of carrying out, after a service failure, a financial compensation and/or an explanation based on social comparison. The results indicate when financial compensation and social comparison increase satisfaction and when they have a positive impact on different behaviour intentions (repurchase intentions, positive or negative word of mouth communication, and complaints to the company and/or third parties). There predictions on the effects of the service recovery strategies are developed on the basis of failure stability and the emotions (anger) brought on by it.

Lack of preferential treatment: effects on dissatisfaction after a service failure

Purpose – Preferential treatment of selected customers is one of the strategies employed by companies seeking to implement relationship marketing. However, it remains unclear whether or not this policy negatively affects relationships with customers not receiving the above‐mentioned preferential treatment, as existing literature focuses, for the most part, on the beneficiaries. The purpose of this paper is to study whether or not the perception of lack of preferential treatment has a positive impact on dissatisfaction following a service failure, after accounting for the effects of attribution.Design/methodology/approach – The sample used in this paper consists of 344 subjects who, over the last six months, have experienced service failures. The data are collected via personal interviews using a structured survey. Structural equation modelling is employed in order to test the relationship between lack of preferential treatment and dissatisfaction.Findings – The results of this investigation indicate that ...

High-performance work systems and job satisfaction: a multilevel model

Purpose – The purpose of this investigation is to analyze the role of perceived organizational support (POS) and intrinsic motivation in the relationship between high-performance work systems (HPWS) and job satisfaction. Design/methodology/approach – The sample used in this study consists of 180 engineers from 25 companies. The model entails a cross-level moderated mediation process that was tested using multilevel structural equation modeling. Findings – This research shows that the effect of HPWS via POS on job satisfaction is stronger among engineers with low intrinsic motivation than engineers with high intrinsic motivation. Practical implications – Given the findings of this paper, organizations are advised to consider the importance of HPWS perceptions and intrinsic motivation to help strengthen engineer satisfaction. Originality/value – This is the first study to provide evidence for the mediating effect of POS in the relationship between employees’ shared perceptions of the HPWS implemented at the...

Why didn’t it work out? The effects of attributions on the efficacy of recovery strategies

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyze the effects of attributions on the efficacy of service recovery strategies in preventing customer defection following a service failure. Design/methodology/approach – The empirical investigation is carried out on the retail banking industry with a final sample of 448 real cases of customer retention or defection after a service failure. Findings – The results of the study not only highlight the relevance of intentionality as an additional factor in explaining customer defection, but also show the effects of some attributional dimensions (intentionality and controllability) on the efficacy of some recovery strategies (redress, apology and explanation) applied by companies to prevent post-complaint customer defection. Practical implications – The efficacy of the recovery strategies depends on the causal attributions that the customer makes about the service failure. Originality/value – This study analyzes not only the effects of traditional dimensions of att...

Intentionality attributions and humiliation

Purpose – This paper aims to determine whether intentionality attributions have an effect on the customer’s complaint and switching behavior after a service failure, after accounting for the effects of the traditional dimensions of attribution (stability and controllability), and to examine whether intentionality attributions give rise to humiliation and to what degree this negative emotion enables us to understand the customer’s complaint and switching behavior after a service failure. Design/methodology/approach – A contribution of this investigation is that it studies real complaint and switching behaviors, as the few studies that focus on understanding customers’ complaint and defection behaviors mostly analyze customers’ intentions. Findings – The results of the study indicate that intentionality attributions have an effect on the customer’s switching behavior after a service failure, in addition to the impact of the traditional dimensions of attribution. The findings also show that humiliation is th...

The Effect of Political Skill on Work Role Performance and Intention to Leave: A Moderated Mediation Model:

Although political skill has received extensive and growing attention over the past decade, to date most research has focused on its direct relationship with individual outcomes. Only recently, a few researchers have begun to investigate the intermediate linkages between political skill and its outcomes. Based on social support and resources conservation theories, the current study explores the mediating role of perceived organizational support (POS) in the relationships between political skill and two relevant outcomes: work role performance (data provide by two different sources) and intention to leave. Moreover, it examines the moderating role of political skill in the relationships POS-work role performance and POS-intention to leave. Results, in a sample of engineers, support the proposed relationship except for the moderating role of political skill in the relationship POS-intention to leave. This research contributes to the political skill and POS literatures and, hopefully, it will stimulate more interest in these important areas of inquiry.