Doan T. Nguyen

Diffusing Customer Anger in Service Recovery: A Conceptual Framework

Knowing how to handle angry customers following a service failure is an important aspect of a service provider’s work role. This paper presents a conceptual framework to help better understand: (1) how customer anger is provoked by a service failure; (2) how it may be reduced through specific service recovery attempts by service providers. Specifically, we propose a two phase conceptual model incorporating pre-service recovery (Phase 1) and service recovery (Phase 2). We argue that in Phase 1, an external cause produces anger and that cognitive appraisal in terms of: (a) goal relevance; (b) goal incongruence; and (c) ego-involvement moderates the intensity of anger experience by the customer. In Phase 2, we argue that customer anger can be reduced by the service provider doing the following: (a) listening; (b) blame displacement; and (c) apology.

Pro bono service sheds new light into commercial friendship

Providers of professional services, such as management consultants, marketing communication, and legal service firms recognize the importance of fostering long-term relationships between consultants and their clients. At a more sophisticated level, the relationship could be examined via the notion of ‘commercial friendships’. The notion suggests that both parties may derive the non-commercial value from a relationship formed for commercial reasons. However, how a non-commercial value of a business relationship is perceived by both the service providers and the clients is not well understood. In a professional service setting, providing skilled services at a reduced rate or free of charge for a client is considered a pro bono work. The value of these services remains unexplored in marketing literature. To address this gap, we conducted exploratory, qualitative research that examined the consultant–client relationship from the perspective of both individuals in a context of pro bono service.

Charity appeal story with a tribal stigma anti-climax twist – consequences of revealing unanticipated information in storytelling

Most charity service organizations have inspiring tales to tell; therefore, they utilize storytelling techniques to communicate stories and engage with potential donors. However, not all stories result in positive outcomes. Specifically, when a story introduces an anti-climax plot and unanticipated information is presented that does not draw from a stock plot, it runs the risk of disengaging the audience from the story. This might subsequently drive potential donors away from the charity organization. Building on storytelling literature, this current research contributes to marketing communication literature and practice in philanthropy in several areas. This research uses foreign charity appeals as the context of an anti-climax plot in a charity appeal story, and examines whether charity donors respond differently to names of foreign countries revealed at the climax point of a charity appeal story. An experimental design uses video stimuli to narrate a charity appeal story to 243 consumers. The results suggest that the charity donors vary their behavior depending on whether they are exposed to the name of a rich or a poor country.

To give or not to give professional services to non-paying clients: Professionals’ giving backstory

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explicate professionals’ giving backstory, identifying what motivates and hinders professionals’ undertaking of pro bono service activities. Examples are provided of different pro bono giving styles, as professionals struggle to resolve inter-institutional tensions, thus addressing this little understood yet vital form of giving, and meeting an important research priority. Design/methodology/approach – Using a discovery-oriented grounded theory approach, this paper draws on narratives from interviews with 31 professionals to explicate, from the professional’s point of view, the backstory of pro bono service. Findings – The authors provide an integrative institutional logics-based framework for understanding the backstory to professionals’ giving. Three distinct pro bono giving styles are revealed: first, an individual logic (self-centric), an “I” logic; second, an organizational logic (organization-centric), “We” logic; and third, a societal “All” logic (where the...