The Role of Emotions and Trust in Service Recovery in Business-to-Consumer Electronic Commerce

Ángel Hernández-García,Julián Chaparro-Peláez,Alberto Urueña-López

doi:10.4067/s0718-18762015000200006

Ángel Hernández-García, Julián Chaparro-Peláez

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.4067/s0718-18762015000200006

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Abstract

This study proposes a service recovery model to describe how cumulative satisfaction, loyalty and word-of-mouth are affected by complaints. The model is based on the role of positive and negative emotions in satisfaction with service recovery processes, with trust acting as a mediator of the relationship between satisfaction with service recovery and cumulative satisfaction, and between positive and negative emotions, satisfaction with service recovery and loyalty. The sample for this study consists of 303 business-to-consumer e-commerce users who made a complaint after an electronic transaction. The results show that positive emotions are a key factor in satisfaction with service recovery processes; this is in contrast to the major role that negative emotions have traditionally played in these models. Furthermore, trust mediates the relationship between satisfaction with service recovery and cumulative satisfaction, and between positive emotions and loyalty. Trust has an important influence on loyalty, and cumulative satisfaction is a strong predictor of word-of-mouth. While prior satisfaction with service recovery studies usually investigated only negative emotions and satisfaction with a specific transaction, this research considers both positive and negative emotions, as well as the mediating effect of trust on the relationship between satisfaction with a specific transaction and cumulative satisfaction.

Highlights

Despite the big efforts companies make to provide high quality services, providing an error-free service is impossible
In order to analyze the measurement model, it is a requirement that single-item reliability for reflective indicators is tested, measuring the factor loadings of the latent variable indicators, which should have factor loading > .707 i.e. more than 50% of the observed variance is shared by the construct [27], loadings of .5 or .6 may be acceptable in preliminary stages [13]
This study makes a contribution to the scientific research literature on satisfaction with service recovery

Summary

Introduction

Despite the big efforts companies make to provide high quality services, providing an error-free service is impossible. Errors may frequently cause customer dissatisfaction, which in turn may lead to complaints. Business-to-consumer electronic commerce (B2C-EC) refers to the use of the global Internet for purchase of goods and services sold by companies to end consumers, including service and support after the sale [66]. Of the individuals who made online purchases-digital and physical goods and services- in 2009 and 2010, 6.8% of purchasers reported problems with their online purchases; customers made more complaints: almost four out of five users (78.3%) who experienced a problem with their online purchases chose to lodge a complaint, mainly through the selling company’s customer care service, a 14% rise on the previous year. The trend is that consumers are reporting more problems every year, and more of these consumers are issuing complaints after they experience a problem with their online purchase

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