Differential Effects of Recovery Efforts on Products Attitudes (Differential Effects of Recovery Efforts on Products Attitudes)

서지정보

· 발행기관 : 한국마케팅과학회
· 수록지 정보 : Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science(마케팅과학연구) / 18권 / 1호 / 33 ~ 58페이지
· 저자명 : 김천길, 최정미

초록

Previous research has presupposed that the evaluation of consumer who received any
recovery after experiencing product failure should be better than the evaluation of
consumer who did not receive any recovery. The major purposes of this article are to
examine impacts of product defect failures rather than service failures, and to explore
effects of recovery on postrecovery product attitudes. First, this article deals with the
occurrence of severe and unsevere failure and corresponding service recovery toward
tangible products rather than intangible services. Contrary to intangible services, purchase
and usage are separable for tangible products. This difference makes it clear that
executing an recovery strategy toward tangible products is not plausible right after
consumers find out product failures. The consumers may think about backgrounds and
causes for the unpleasant events during the time gap between product failure and
recovery. The deliberation may dilutes positive effects of recovery efforts.
The recovery strategies which are provided to consumers experiencing product failures
can be classified into three types. A recovery strategy can be implemented to provide
consumers with a new product replacing the old defective product, a complimentary
product for free, a discount at the time of the failure incident, or a coupon that can be
used on the next visit. This strategy is defined as "a rewarding effort." Meanwhile a
product failure may arise in exchange for its benefit. Then the product provider can
suggest a detail explanation that the defect is hard to escape since it relates highly to
the specific advantage to the product. The strategy may be called as "a strengthening
effort." Another possible strategy is to recover negative attitude toward own brand by
giving prominence to the disadvantages of a competing brand rather than the advantages
of its own brand. The strategy is reflected as "a weakening effort." This paper
emphasizes that, in order to confirm its effectiveness, a recovery strategy should be
compared to being nothing done in response to the product failure. So the three types of
recovery efforts is discussed in comparison to the situation involving no recovery effort.
The strengthening strategy is to claim high relatedness of the product failure with
another advantage, and expects the two-sidedness to ease consumers' complaints. The
weakening strategy is to emphasize non-aversiveness of product failure, even if
consumers choose another competitive brand. The two strategies can be effective in
restoring to the original state, by providing plausible motives to accept the condition of
product failure or by informing consumers of non-responsibility in the failure case.
However the two may be less effective strategies than the rewarding strategy, since it
tries to take care of the rehabilitation needs of consumers. Especially, the relative effect
between the strengthening effort and the weakening effort may differ in terms of the
severity of the product failure. A consumer who realizes a highly severe failure is likely
to attach importance to the property which caused the failure. This implies that the
strengthening effort would be less effective under the condition of high product severity.
Meanwhile, the failing property is not diagnostic information in the condition of low
failure severity. Consumers would not pay attention to non-diagnostic information, and
with which they are not likely to change their attitudes. This implies that the
strengthening effort would be more effective under the condition of low product severity.
A 2 (product failure severity: high or low) X 4 (recovery strategies: rewarding,
strengthening, weakening, or doing nothing) between-subjects design was employed. The
particular levels of product failure severity and the types of recovery strategies were
determined after a series of expert interviews. The dependent variable was product
attitude after the recovery effort was provided. Subjects were 284 consumers who had an
experience of cosmetics.
Subjects were first given a product failure scenario and were asked to rate the
comprehensibility of the failure scenario, the probability of raising complaints against the
failure, and the subjective severity of the failure. After a recovery scenario was
presented, its comprehensibility and overall evaluation were measured. The subjects
assigned to the condition of no recovery effort were exposed to a short news article on
the cosmetic industry. Next, subjects answered filler questions: 42 items of the need for
cognitive closure and 16 items of need-to-evaluate. In the succeeding page a subject's
product attitude was measured on an five-item, six-point scale, and a subject's
repurchase intention on an three-item, six-point scale. After demographic variables of age
and sex were asked, ten items of the subject's objective knowledge was checked.
The results showed that the subjects formed more favorable evaluations after receiving
rewarding efforts than after receiving either strengthening or weakening efforts. This is
consistent with Hoffman, Kelley, and Rotalsky (1995) in that a tangible service recovery
could be more effective that intangible efforts. Strengthening and weakening efforts also
were effective compared to no recovery effort. So we found that generally any recovery
increased products attitudes. The results hint us that a recovery strategy such as
strengthening or weakening efforts, although it does not contain a specific reward, may
have an effect on consumers experiencing severe unsatisfaction and strong complaint.
Meanwhile, strengthening and weakening efforts were not expected to increase product
attitudes under the condition of low severity of product failure. We can conclude that
only a physical recovery effort may be recognized favorably as a firm's willingness to
recover its fault by consumers experiencing low involvements. Results of the present
experiment are explained in terms of the attribution theory.
This article has a limitation that it utilized fictitious scenarios. Future research
deserves to test a realistic effect of recovery for actual consumers. Recovery involves a
direct, firsthand experience of ex-users. Recovery does not apply to non-users. The
experience of receiving recovery efforts can be relatively more salient and accessible for
the ex-users than for non-users. A recovery effort might be more likely to improve
product attitude for the ex-users than for non-users. Also the present experiment did not
include consumers who did not have an experience of the products and who did not
perceive the occurrence of product failure. For the non-users and the ignorant consumers,
the recovery efforts might lead to decreased product attitude and purchase intention. This
is because the recovery trials may give an opportunity for them to notice the product
failure.

영어초록

Previous research has presupposed that the evaluation of consumer who received any
recovery after experiencing product failure should be better than the evaluation of
consumer who did not receive any recovery. The major purposes of this article are to
examine impacts of product defect failures rather than service failures, and to explore
effects of recovery on postrecovery product attitudes. First, this article deals with the
occurrence of severe and unsevere failure and corresponding service recovery toward
tangible products rather than intangible services. Contrary to intangible services, purchase
and usage are separable for tangible products. This difference makes it clear that
executing an recovery strategy toward tangible products is not plausible right after
consumers find out product failures. The consumers may think about backgrounds and
causes for the unpleasant events during the time gap between product failure and
recovery. The deliberation may dilutes positive effects of recovery efforts.
The recovery strategies which are provided to consumers experiencing product failures
can be classified into three types. A recovery strategy can be implemented to provide
consumers with a new product replacing the old defective product, a complimentary
product for free, a discount at the time of the failure incident, or a coupon that can be
used on the next visit. This strategy is defined as "a rewarding effort." Meanwhile a
product failure may arise in exchange for its benefit. Then the product provider can
suggest a detail explanation that the defect is hard to escape since it relates highly to
the specific advantage to the product. The strategy may be called as "a strengthening
effort." Another possible strategy is to recover negative attitude toward own brand by
giving prominence to the disadvantages of a competing brand rather than the advantages
of its own brand. The strategy is reflected as "a weakening effort." This paper
emphasizes that, in order to confirm its effectiveness, a recovery strategy should be
compared to being nothing done in response to the product failure. So the three types of
recovery efforts is discussed in comparison to the situation involving no recovery effort.
The strengthening strategy is to claim high relatedness of the product failure with
another advantage, and expects the two-sidedness to ease consumers' complaints. The
weakening strategy is to emphasize non-aversiveness of product failure, even if
consumers choose another competitive brand. The two strategies can be effective in
restoring to the original state, by providing plausible motives to accept the condition of
product failure or by informing consumers of non-responsibility in the failure case.
However the two may be less effective strategies than the rewarding strategy, since it
tries to take care of the rehabilitation needs of consumers. Especially, the relative effect
between the strengthening effort and the weakening effort may differ in terms of the
severity of the product failure. A consumer who realizes a highly severe failure is likely
to attach importance to the property which caused the failure. This implies that the
strengthening effort would be less effective under the condition of high product severity.
Meanwhile, the failing property is not diagnostic information in the condition of low
failure severity. Consumers would not pay attention to non-diagnostic information, and
with which they are not likely to change their attitudes. This implies that the
strengthening effort would be more effective under the condition of low product severity.
A 2 (product failure severity: high or low) X 4 (recovery strategies: rewarding,
strengthening, weakening, or doing nothing) between-subjects design was employed. The
particular levels of product failure severity and the types of recovery strategies were
determined after a series of expert interviews. The dependent variable was product
attitude after the recovery effort was provided. Subjects were 284 consumers who had an
experience of cosmetics.
Subjects were first given a product failure scenario and were asked to rate the
comprehensibility of the failure scenario, the probability of raising complaints against the
failure, and the subjective severity of the failure. After a recovery scenario was
presented, its comprehensibility and overall evaluation were measured. The subjects
assigned to the condition of no recovery effort were exposed to a short news article on
the cosmetic industry. Next, subjects answered filler questions: 42 items of the need for
cognitive closure and 16 items of need-to-evaluate. In the succeeding page a subject's
product attitude was measured on an five-item, six-point scale, and a subject's
repurchase intention on an three-item, six-point scale. After demographic variables of age
and sex were asked, ten items of the subject's objective knowledge was checked.
The results showed that the subjects formed more favorable evaluations after receiving
rewarding efforts than after receiving either strengthening or weakening efforts. This is
consistent with Hoffman, Kelley, and Rotalsky (1995) in that a tangible service recovery
could be more effective that intangible efforts. Strengthening and weakening efforts also
were effective compared to no recovery effort. So we found that generally any recovery
increased products attitudes. The results hint us that a recovery strategy such as
strengthening or weakening efforts, although it does not contain a specific reward, may
have an effect on consumers experiencing severe unsatisfaction and strong complaint.
Meanwhile, strengthening and weakening efforts were not expected to increase product
attitudes under the condition of low severity of product failure. We can conclude that
only a physical recovery effort may be recognized favorably as a firm's willingness to
recover its fault by consumers experiencing low involvements. Results of the present
experiment are explained in terms of the attribution theory.
This article has a limitation that it utilized fictitious scenarios. Future research
deserves to test a realistic effect of recovery for actual consumers. Recovery involves a
direct, firsthand experience of ex-users. Recovery does not apply to non-users. The
experience of receiving recovery efforts can be relatively more salient and accessible for
the ex-users than for non-users. A recovery effort might be more likely to improve
product attitude for the ex-users than for non-users. Also the present experiment did not
include consumers who did not have an experience of the products and who did not
perceive the occurrence of product failure. For the non-users and the ignorant consumers,
the recovery efforts might lead to decreased product attitude and purchase intention. This
is because the recovery trials may give an opportunity for them to notice the product
failure.

참고자료

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