Perceptions of Group Versus Individual Service Failures and Their Effects on Customer Outcomes
通过两个实验发现，相比个体服务失败，群体服务失败会引发顾客更强的愤怒、负面口碑和投诉意愿，且这种差异由顾客对服务提供者的责备归因中介，顾客权利感调节该效应。
A service failure and its negative effects can involve multiple customers at the same time, which suggests the need to understand the psychological mechanisms that underlie differential perceptions of group service failures (GSFs) versus individual service failures (ISFs) as well as their related outcomes. With an attributional framework, this article reports on two experiments that varied in their blame-attribution ambiguity. The results reveal that customers experience greater anger and show higher negative word-of-mouth and complaint intentions after a GSF versus an ISF. These differential effects are mediated by blame attributions, such that GSFs cause customers to blame the service provider more than ISFs. Customer entitlement also moderates the effect of the failure context (GSF vs. ISF) on blame attribution, contingent on perceptions of whether the service provider or customer violated an existing rule. Thus, we find that customers respond differently to service failures depending on the context. Managerial implications include separating customers from each other when GSFs are likely to take place, using techniques to redirect customer’s blame attributions to sources other than the service provider after a GSF and using customer scripts to minimize the occurrence of customer-induced service failures.