Falk, T.

Hammerschmidt, M.

Scheer, L.

Schepers, J.J.L.

English

Hammerschmidt, M

Falk, T

Schepers, JJL Jeroen

Scheer, L

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Exploring spillover effects of post-sale services in vertical service delivery networks

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 Exploring spillover effects of post-sale services in verticalservice delivery networksCitation for published version (APA):Hammerschmidt, M., Falk, T., Schepers, J. J. L., & Scheer, L. (2011). Exploring spillover effects of post-saleservices in vertical service delivery networks. In R. Srinivasan, & L. McAlistar (Eds.), AMA Winter Educators'Conference 2011 : marketing theory and applications, 18-20 Februari 2011, Austin, Texas (pp. 310-311). (AMAEducators Proceedings; Vol. 22). Curran Associates.Document status and date:Published: 01/01/2011Document Version:Publisher’s PDF, also known as Version of Record (includes final page, issue and volume numbers)Please check the document version of this publication:• A submitted manuscript is the version of the article upon submission and before peer-review. There can beimportant differences between the submitted version and the official published version of record. Peopleinterested in the research are advised to contact the author for the final version of the publication, or visit theDOI to the publisher's website.• The final author version and the galley proof are versions of the publication after peer review.• The final published version features the final layout of the paper including the volume, issue and pagenumbers.Link to publicationGeneral rightsCopyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright ownersand it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights.            • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research.            • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain            • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal.If the publication is distributed under the terms of Article 25fa of the Dutch Copyright Act, indicated by the “Taverne” license above, pleasefollow below link for the End User Agreement:www.tue.nl/taverneTake down policyIf you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us at:openaccess@tue.nlproviding details and we will investigate your claim.Download date: 05. Oct. 2023310 American Marketing Association / Winter 2011EXPLORING SPILLOVER EFFECTS OF POST-SALE SERVICES INVERTICAL SERVICE DELIVERY NETWORKSMaik Hammerschmidt, University of Goettingen, GermanyTomas Falk, European Business School, GermanyJeroen J.L. Schepers, Eindhoven University of Technology, The NetherlandsLisa K. Scheer, University of Missouri, ColumbiaSUMMARYProviding post-sales service is an important elementof a manufacturer’s customer relationship strategy as ithelps tie customers to the manufacturer and its offerings.In order to provide higher service quality and realize costsavings, manufacturers increasingly outsource the provi-sion of post-sale services to a network of designatedchannel service partners – independent specialists thatprovide services to buyers of the firm’s products. Forinstance, in the automobile and other industries, manufac-turers assemble a network of dealers who function as theprimary point of customer contact when post-sales serviceis requested.In such service systems, customers transact businesswith, form relationships with, and hold attitudes towardboth the manufacturer and its channel service partners.Because the customer interacts more frequently and moredirectly with the downstream service partner than with themanufacturer, a manufacturer that establishes such anetwork of service partners cedes considerable controlover customer relationships to those partners. Conse-quently, the manufacturer-customer relationship becomeshighly dependent on service partners’ strategies and tac-tics, leading to significant interdependence between themanufacturer and service partners.Although such service partners are extremely impor-tant to the firm’s ability to serve and satisfy its customers,little is known about how the actions of a downstreamservice partner can impact the manufacturer-customerrelationship. For example, if a customer receives greatpost-sales service and attributes that service to themanufacturer’s policies and influence over the serviceprovider, customer loyalty to the manufacturer will bebolstered. On the other hand, if the customer credits onlythe service partner for that quality service, customerloyalty to the manufacturer could be severely under-mined.Surprisingly, firms often focus predominantly ontheir sales relationship with the customer, neglecting orplacing less emphasis on managing the customer-servicepartner relationship. In this paper, we focus on spillovereffects – the effects on customer relationships with themanufacturer that arise from the strategies and tactics ofthe manufacturer’s downstream service partners. Thetype and magnitude of spillover effects are important, forthey significantly affect the success of customer relation-ship management.In a natural experiment based on data from trackingstudy of 40,000 automobile owners spanning a large set ofpremium and volume automobile brands, we find a positivespillover effect of service initiatives provided by a down-stream service partner on relationship quality between amanufacturer and its customers. To control for confoundingfactors which may arise in natural experiments due to thelack of random assignment, we apply propensity scorematching to develop matched sets for comparison acrossexperimental conditions.In addition to testing the spillover main effect, wealso examine moderating factors that could enhance orinhibit the upstream spillover of service partner efforts onmanufacturer-customer relationships. We detect a positiveinteraction between system entitativity and spillover. Inother words, if customers perceive that the manufacturerand service partner operate as a cohesive entity, spilloveris reinforced. Moreover, we also find a negative interactionbetween brand equity and upstream spillover. Brand equitysignificantly inflates customer expectations regardingservice performance, so as brand equity increases itbecomes progressively more difficult to exceed customerexpectations, thereby suppressing the spillover effect.Finally, we examine the impact of service in a productfailure situation. Consistent with research demonstratinga service recovery paradox, upstream spillover of post-sales service is greater when service is provided in responseto product failure than when service is provided in routine,non-failure situations.Our study offers important managerial implications,providing guidance as to whether and under what circum-stances channel service partners are perceived as represent-atives of the manufacturer. Our findings suggest thatpromoting system entitativity by exclusive dealing, jointmanufacturer-service partner promotions or co-brandingpromotes spillover effects between the manufacturer andthe downstream service partner. Moreover, manufac-turers of low-equity brands reap the greatest “bang for theAmerican Marketing Association / Winter 2011 311buck” if service partners deliver high-level services.Finally, we offer new insights for resource allocation inservice delivery networks, as our results indicate thatspillover effects of a partner’s service efforts can beleveraged when they are provided in response to a productfailure situation. Specifically, when high-level serviceefforts are provided in a recovery episode, their positivespillover effect on the manufacturer is increased by one-fourth over the impact of high-level service provided in aroutine service context.For further information contact:Maik HammerschmidtUniversity of GoettingenPlatz der Goettinger Sieben 337073 GoettingenGermanyPhone: +49.551.39.20061Fax: +49.551.39.20062E-Mail: maik.hammerschmidt@wiwi.uni-goettingen.de

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Exploring spillover effects of post-sale services in vertical service delivery networks

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