서비스 실패요인이 보복행위에 미치는 영향과 관계품질의 조절효과

The Effect of Service Failure on the Desire for Betrayal and Retaliatory Behavior - Based on the Moderating Role of the Customer-Service Firm Relationship Quality

과거 기업은 고객만족을 통해 고객의 충성도를 구축해 지속적인 이윤을 창출하는데 주로 초점을 맞추었다. 그러나 고객들은 기업에게 긍정적 영향만을 주지 않으며 때로는 기업을 위험에 빠뜨리기도 하고 곤란에 처하게 하기도 한다. 서비스 실패를 경험한 고객에게 기업이 적절한 서비스 회복조치를 취하지 못했을 때 그들은 배신감과 분노 같은 강한 부정적 정서를 느끼며 이러한 부정적 정서는 기업의 성과에 상당한 부정적 영향을 미칠 수 있는 공격적 행동이나 보복행동을 유발 할 수 있다. 고객이 느끼는 이러한 부정적 정서는 기업과 오랜 거래관계를 유지하고 그 기업에 대해 애착을 가진 충성고객에게 더 강하게 발생될 수 있다. 강한 배신감을 느낀 충성고객은 단순히 경쟁기업으로 브랜드 전환을 하는데 머무는 것이 아니라 온라인 부정적 구전, 불매운동, 언론매체를 통한 호소 등의 강력한 보복행동을 수행한다. 본 연구는 서비스 실패요인으로 발생되는 배신감이라는 감정이 보복욕구를 통해 보복행위까지 가는 인과관계에 대해 알아보고, 기업 간의 충성도가 각기 다른 고객들을 분류하여 그 차이를 살펴보았다. 실증분석 결과 각각의 공정성 훼손은 모두 지각된 배신감에 유의한 영향을 미치는 것으로 나타났다. 특히 고객들은 분배 공정성 훼손으로 인한 서비스 실패를 경험하였을 경우 가장 높게 배신감을 지각했으며 절차공정성 훼손으로 인한 서비스 실패를 경험하였을 경우 배신감을 가장 낮게 느끼게 하는 것으로 나타났다. 또한 지각된 배신감은 보복욕구에 유의한 영향을 미치며 이후 부정구전과 보복적인 불평행동, 제3단체를 통한 불만 홍보와 같은 보복행위 모두에 유의한 영향을 미치는 것으로 나타났다. 따라서 공정성 훼손은 지각된 배신감과 보복욕구와 같은 매개변수를 통하여 보복행위에 영향을 미치는 것으로 볼 수 있다. 마지막으로 공정성 훼손과 지각된 배신감과의 관계에서 과거 해당기업과 고객 간의 관계의 친밀도를 나타내는 관계품질의 조절변수 역할을 검증한 결과 관계품질은 조절변수로서 역할을 하는 것으로 나타났다. 본 연구는 서비스 실패 요인이 보복행위에 미치는 영향을 단순 인과관계로 보지 않고 기업과 고객 간의 관계품질의 조절효과를 고려하여 연구를 하였다는 데 그 의의가 있다.

Service failure and a poor service recovery may lead loyal customers to try to aggressively punish the service firm. We use perceived betrayal and desire for vengeance as the key constructs to understand customer retaliation. Perceived betrayal is defined as a customer's belief that a firm has intentionally violated what is normative in the context of their relationship. And the desire for vengeance is defined as the retaliatory feelings that consumers feel toward a firm, such as the desire to exert harm on the firm. The perceived betrayal and the desire for vengeance are key antecedents of retaliatory behaviors such as vindictive complaining, negative WOM and third-party complaining for publicity. The empirical results suggest that betrayal is a key motivational factor that lead customers to restore fairness by making use of all means, including retaliation. We also find that relationship quality has effect on a customer's response to a failure in service recovery. As the levels of relationship increases, a violation of the proper fairness has a stronger effect on the sense of betrayal experienced by customers. Considerable research has investigated consumer responses to dissatisfaction. But our study examine the response of outraged and highly frustrated consumers. We focus on emotional and behavioral processes that have not been covered by previous dissatisfaction researches and which are unique to outraged consumers caused by extremely dissatisfied purchase experience. It has recently been pointed out by various mass media that the customers not only have positive effects on the company performance but also put the company in crisis. It has often been reported that one customer's dissatisfaction, for example, never ends as it is, and it tends to grow for retaliating upon the company, depending on the level of seriousness of the dissatisfaction. This sometimes leads to a lawsuit against the company. Our study focuses on the customers' emotional and behavioral responses induced by their extreme dissatisfactions. We divided the customer groups into the customers with high relationship quality and the customers with low relationship quality, and the difference between two groups is examined. The objective of this study is to comprehend the causal relationship between the feeling of betrayal caused by the service failure and the retaliatory behavior triggered by the desire of revenge. Our study is divided into three parts. First, a causal relationship between perceived unfairness and the perceived betrayal and desire for revenge. Second, the effect of the perceived betrayal and desire for revenge on the retaliatory behavior is investigated. Finally, the moderating role of relationship quality in the causal relationship between the unfairness in service recovery and the perceived betrayal is analyzed. This study finds the following empirical results. The distributive unfairness, procedural unfairness and interactional unfairness had significant effects on the perceived betrayal. Especially, the perceived distributive unfairness results in the highest perceived betrayal. When the service company does not provide customers proper and sufficient compensation for the failure, they feel the strong sense of betrayal. And in the causal relationship between the perceived betrayal, desire for revenge and retaliatory behavior, the perceived betrayal has significant effects on e desire for revenge. In addition desire for revenge has significant effects on negative word of mouth, retaliatory complaining behavior and publicity of complaints through third group. Therefore the perceived unfairness has effects on retaliatory behavior through the mediation of the perceived betrayal and desire for revenge. Finally the moderating role of relationship quality was examined in the relationship between the unfairness and perceived betrayal. If the customers experienced the perceived unfairness in the process of service recovery, the customers with high relationship quality feel the stronger perceived betrayal than the customers with low relationship quality do. When they experience the double service failure, the customer group with high relationship quality accumulating the sense of trust feel the more perceived betrayal than the customer with low relationship quality who do not have strong trust. The contribution of this study is to find the effect of the service failure on the retaliatory behavior with the moderating roles of relationship quality. The dimensions of unfairness in service recovery is found to have differential effects on the perceived betrayal, desire for revenge. And these differential effect is moderated by the level of relationship quality.