Service Failures and Recovery in Tourism and Hospitality: A Practical Manual Erdogan Koc

Chapter 6 Customer Attribution in Service Failures and Recovery

Learning Outcomes Understand the underlying reasons why people make causal attributions. Understand the basic tenets of attribution theory. Understand and explain the causal dimensions of customer attribution. Understand and explain the role and influence of customer participation on customer service failure perceptions and attribution. Identify the factors influencing customer attribution: severity of failures, customer participation, cultural factors, online and off-line service failures. Discuss the outcomes of service failure and customer attribution.

Attribution Theory Attribution refers to the effect of ascribing a particular source or cause (Jolibert & Peterson, 1976). When customers interpret the causes of service failures, these are recognized as attribution (Priluck & Wisenblit, 2009). Attribution theory was originally introduced by Fritz Heider (1958) with a book entitled Psychology of Interpersonal Relations (Weiner, 2000).

Antecedents of causal inferences (Kelley & Michela, 1980) Information Motivation

Attribution Causal Dimensions Stability Locus of causality Controllability

Attribution Causal Dimensions Stability refers to whether the perceived cause of failure is attributed to the degree of permanence in time (likelihood of recurrence), i.e. whether it is temporary (fluctuates over time) or permanent (stable over time).

Attribution Causal Dimensions Locus of causality refers to whether cause of failure is located in the customer himself or his decisions (internal attribution), or located in a company which offers services (external attribution), or located in unexpected environmental effects (situational attribution). Controllability is the degree of subject alteration and when the outcome could have been different.

Factors Affecting Customer Attribution in Response to Service Failure Severity of failures Customer participation Online and off-line service failure Cultural factors

Severity of Failures Severity of failures relates to the responsibility attribution (locus) as well as appropriateness of compensation for satisfaction of service recovery.

Severity of Failures Less severe failure Highly severe failure Restaurant responsible Customer responsible Customer responsible Moderate involvement Gift Discount Credit Refund High involvement Table 1.1: Appropriateness of different types of tangible compensation Adopted from: Bambauer-Sachse & Rabeson, 2015

Customer Participation Customers who participate in the service are more likely to care less about the negative outcomes of a service failure (Koc et al., 2017). When customers participate in service, they evaluate the attributions differently on the three attribution dimensions; they tend not to make external attributions blaming the service providers.

Customer Participation Customer citizenship behaviour (CCB) is the extra-role behaviour which is extended to customers who participate in service delivery (Groth, 2005). Extra-role behaviour is the time and effort (support or assistance) contributed by customers beyond their required rules in service delivery. There are three dimensions of CCB, including: provision of feedback to organizations help offered to other customers and recommendations of business to others (Groth, 2005).

Online and Offline Service Failure Online services involve customer participation in the service processes. Online customers are more likely to blame themselves for service failures; they are more willing to recover for themselves, in which case companies might save some costs (Harris et al., 2006).

Cultural Factors Culture, in fact, has become one of the significant factors affecting customer attribution. Culture has a substantial influence on the perception of quality, perceived equity as well as problem attribution (Chang, 2008).

Outcomes of Service Failure and Customer Attribution Service recovery actions Customer emotions and behavioural intentions Perceived quality and customer satisfaction

Service Recovery Actions Customers tend to be more tolerant if the service or product failures are customer-related; they think of themselves as less deserving of any refunds or apologies compared to company-related failures (Folkes, 1984). If the failure incidents happen due to unstable causes which are beyond the control of companies, customers are more willing to accept an exchange than if it was due to a stable cause (Folkes, 1984).

Customer Emotions and Behavioural Intentions Depending on customer attributions, customers tend to respond differently in terms of their emotions and behavioural outcomes, such as repurchase intention and negative WOM (Harrison-Walker, 2012).

Customer Emotions and Behavioural Intentions Attribution Success Failure Ability Confidence Competence Incompetence Effort Relaxation Guilt (shame) Others Gratitude Anger Luck Surprise Table 1.2 Relations between causal attributions and feelings. Source: Adapted from Weiner (1980)

Customer Emotions and Behavioral Intentions Locus of Causality Success Failure Internal Pride Confidence Competence Satisfaction Guilt External Grateful Thankful Anger Surprise Table 1.3 Relations between locus of causality and feelings. Source: Adapted from Weiner (1980)

Customer Emotions and Behavioral Intentions Customer-Attributed Responsibilities Evaluation of Service Experiences Service employee What is delivered (outcome quality) Management/manager How the service is delivered (process quality) Service employee and manager (equally) Physical environment (servicescape quality) Table 1.4: Relations between customer attributed responsibilities and evaluation of service experiences. Source: Swanson & Davis, 2003

Perceived Quality and Customer Satisfaction Service attribution has an impact on customer-perceived service quality (Chebat et al., 1995; Iglesias, 2009). The role of employee-customer interactions could reduce the effects of customer attributions during service failures on customer satisfaction (Anderson et al., 2009).

Perceived Quality and Customer Satisfaction Attribution also demonstrates direct effects on satisfaction (Iglesias, 2009). Satisfaction level is low when the failure is related to employee attitude, whereas failures that are beyond the company's control are perceived as less severe than failures caused by internal factors.

There are two antecedents for causal inferences: Summary Attribution refers to the effect of ascribing a particular source or cause (Jolibert & Peterson, 1976). There are two antecedents for causal inferences: Information Motivation (Kelley & Michela, 1980)

Attribution causal dimensions: Summary Attribution causal dimensions: stability, locus of causality, and controllability

Factors affecting service failure and customer attribution: Summary Factors affecting service failure and customer attribution: Severity of failures Customer participation Online and off-line service failures Cultural factors

Outcomes of service failure and customer attribution: Summary Outcomes of service failure and customer attribution: Service recovery actions Customer emotions and behavioural intentions Perceived quality and customer satisfaction