There\u27s a fly in my soup : the influence of service guarantees and personal requests on customer voice

Anecdotal evidence suggests that service guarantees and personal requests by service workers encourage customers to voice following failure. However, empirical support for these tactics in facilitating complaints to the organisation is limited. To address this deficiency, a 3 (guarantee treatment: none, unconditional or combined) x 2 (personal request to voice: yes or no) x 2 (failure severity: minor or major) full factorial, between subjects experiment was conducted in a restaurant context. Findings suggest that offering a service guarantee, regardless of whether it is unconditional or combined, can encourage voice. Severity of the failure was also found to be associated with voice. Surprisingly, however, a personal request to voice was not related to customers&rsquo; voice intentions. Implications of the findings are discussed.<br /

Self-service technology complaint channel choice : exploring consumers\u27 motives

Purpose &ndash; This study aims to explore consumers\u27 motives for their choice of complaint channel in the context of self-service technology (SST) failure. Traditional and evolving communication channels are considered.Design/methodology/approach &ndash; Qualitative self-report data from consumers who had recently experienced dissatisfaction with SSTs were collected via an open-ended survey question. Three independent coders used a deductive and inductive iterative process to code the data.Findings &ndash; The findings suggest that both consumer complaint behaviour (CCB) theory and media richness theory (MRT) help to explain consumers\u27 motivation for channel choice. However, consumers\u27 choice appears to be motivated to a greater degree by convenience rather than task-medium fit.Research limitations/implications &ndash; This study was set solely in the SST context and explored consumers\u27 hypothetical complaint channel choice, not actual channel use. Future research could examine the actual performance of complaint channels as perceived by consumers. Consumers\u27 motivation to choose other emerging electronic complaint channels, such as complaint blogs and forums, could also be explored.Practical implications &ndash; Understanding consumers\u27 complaint channel choice is important for organisations to enable them to provide effective and efficient ways for consumers to complain. As complaint channels proliferate, it is difficult for organisations to know which channels to offer.Originality/value &ndash; Choosing an appropriate channel for resolving a complaint is an important consumer decision, which the study of CCB needs to be broadened to include. The current study addresses this gap by, for the first time, integrating CCB theory and MRT. This is valuable because it is common for consumers not to voice their complaints to organisations. To facilitate voiced complaints, organisations need to determine which complaint channels will be most effective and efficient and in which situations.<br /

Self-service technologies and voice intentions : an empirical investigation

Consumer dissatisfaction with self-service technologies (SSTs) has become prevalent. Although consumers&rsquo; voice has been studied in the interpersonal services context, in the context of SSTs it has been subject to very little conceptual or empirical scrutiny. To fill this void, this study tests empirically a model of the antecedents of consumers&rsquo; voice intentions in the context of unsatisfactory SST encounters. The findings suggest the need to integrate both &ldquo;new&rdquo; and &ldquo;conventional&rdquo; complaint behaviour management in the SST setting.<br /

Consumer complaint channel choice in self-service technology encounters

Consumers&rsquo; choice of channel to communicate complaints, following the decision to voice to the organisation, has received very little research attention. This study contributes to filling this gap by exploring the drivers of consumers&rsquo; choice of complaint channel in the self-service technology (SST) context. Surprisingly, in this context, consumers have often chosen interpersonal complaint channels over electronic channels, resulting in some of the value of using SSTs being lost for consumers and organisations alike. Preliminary findings indicate that the perceived ease of use, the likelihood of organisational response, the desire for social interaction and the source of the SST-related complaint, might provide some clues as to the organisational strategies that can be used to encourage greater utilisation of technology-based complaint channels.<br /

Consumer dissatisfaction with self-service technologies : an empirical exploration of its antecedents

Self-service technologies (SSTs) are commonplace for consumers\u27 use, which is reflected in the growing body of literature that pertains to SSTs. The bulk of this literature has focussed on the adoption of SSTs, while relatively little attention has been given to consumers\u27 consumption and evaluation of SSTs. Arguably, this is an area worthy of exploration in the light of frequent reports of consumers\u27 dissatisfaction with SSTs. Therefore, this paper examines the antecedents of consumers\u27 overall dissatisfaction with an SST encounter, and finds that consumers\u27 dissatisfaction with the attributes of the SST and consumers\u27 perceptions of causal controllability explain 50 per cent of the variance in consumers\u27 overall dissatisfaction with the SST Insights into removing the causes of SST dissatisfaction are offered to managers, which are, arguably, important for consumer retention.<br /

The dimensions of self-service technologies and the relation to \u27self\u27

This paper assesses the &ldquo;behavioural&rdquo; notion of &ldquo;self&rdquo; across the various dimensions of self-service technologies (SSTs). In the context of SSTs, it is acknowledged that the customer role is extended to include that of &ldquo;service employee&rdquo;. Therefore, the authors propose the need to explore this new role, from the customer&rsquo;s perspective, across a diverse range of SSTs. This proposition is supported in that prior research has looked generally across a broad range of SSTs, as opposed to drawing comparisons across the different types of SSTs. In bringing together two classification schemes of SSTs, which does not appear to have been done previously, the authors draw on past research and industry examples to explore the customer experience across different categories of SSTs. It is proposed that the dimensions of SSTs, including level of customer participation as influenced by the purpose of the SST, location of the SST, and type of technology employed, will uniquely influence the notion of &ldquo;self&rdquo;, and thus the customer&rsquo;s SST experience. These propositions have implications for both future research and practice. Future research is needed to study empirically the characteristics of specific SSTs, and compare the many different types of SSTs, and how their unique characteristics influence the customer&rsquo;s production/consumption experience. When marketers gain a better understanding of the dimensions of individual SSTs, and their influence on the customer, more effective management and use of SSTs will result.<br /

The need to vent and dissatisfactory self-service technology encounters

Reports of customer dissatisfaction with self-service technologies (SSTs) are becoming increasingly common. The SST context is characterised by customer participation in service production and delivery, independently of service personnel. With no opportunity for humanto- human interaction, feelings of customer irritation and frustration can have a tendency to build-up in dissatisfactory SST encounters. If SSTs do not perform as promised, customers can become angry and frustrated, and do not have the security or reassurance of human service personnel. With this in mind, it is argued that customers&rsquo; &ldquo;need to vent&rdquo; will be an important predictor of customers&rsquo; complaint behaviours (CCBs), i.e., voice, negative word of mouth, negative &ldquo;word of mouse&rdquo;, third party action, false loyalty and exit, in dissatisfactory SST encounters. The &ldquo;need to vent&rdquo; is defined as the need, when one has a problem, to seek relief by expressing one&rsquo;s problem / &ldquo;getting it off one&rsquo;s chest&rdquo;. This construct has been subject to little conceptual or empirical scrutiny, and to the researchers&rsquo; knowledge, has not been previously operationalised or measured. This paper begins to address this gap by presenting a conceptual model and hypotheses depicting the relationships between the need to vent and CCBs in the context of SSTs.<br /

What\u27s wrong with me? Concerns about online medical self-diagnosis

Self-service technologies (SSTs) are becoming increasingly commonplace in healthcare. However, research on the customer (patient) experience in this context is rare. This paper focuses on online medical self-diagnosis, a type of e-health service. This SST can provide customers with benefits such as greater convenience and control, yet we argue that this form of do-it-yourself doctoring also raises concerns for customers. This paper contributes to the service domain by presenting research propositions on the potential negative implications for customers, and their antecedents, of online medical self-diagnosis. We propose that this form of self-diagnosis is related to harms, such as customer anxiety, customer willingness to bypass healthcare professionals, and self-medication. Future research opportunities are discussed, along with implications for policy and practice.<br /

Antecedents and consequences of customer satisfaction with interactive voice response

The aim of this study was to empirically test a model of antecedents and consequences of customers&rsquo; satisfaction with interactive voice response (IVR). IVR is a commonplace selfservice technology, yet it has seldom been the focus of academic research. As customers&rsquo; frustration with IVR is apparent, understanding how customers evaluate IVR and their subsequent behavioural intentions is important. Findings of a study of Australian Football League members who were users of its IVR system indicated that customer satisfaction resulted when it was easy to use, offered fast service and provided customers with feelings of control. Overall satisfaction with the IVR system was related to customers&rsquo; intentions to reuse it and their trust in the AFL. Managerial implications of the findings are discussed.<br /

The measurement of attribution of blame in the self-service technology context

It is argued that attribution of blame (AoB) will differ in the Self-Service Technology (SST) context versus the interpersonal services context, due to the inherent elements of the SST environment, thereby making it a construct worthy of further research in the SST setting. This paper presents a first step in this pursuit by validating a multiple-item instrument of AoB in the SST context, which, to the researchers&rsquo; knowledge, has not been done previously. The paper comments on the surprising lack of valid, unidimensional instruments to measure each of the dimensions of AoB (locus, controllability and stability), even in the interpersonal services context. Preliminary results of a pre-test and pilot study support a three-dimensional measurement model of attribution of blame, in the SST setting.<br /