Service failures in e-retailing: Examining the effects of response time, compensation, and service criticality

The impact of AI-enabled CRM systems on organizational competitive advantage: A mixed-method approach using BERTopic and PLS-SEM

The recent advances in machine learning and deep learning algorithms, along with the advent of generative AI, have led AI to become the "new normal" in organizations. This trend has extended to CRM, resulting in the development of AI-enabled CRM systems, or AI-CRM. Despite the growing adoption of AI as part of competitive strategies, many firms report minimal or no positive effect of AI on performance. This study addresses the research questions: "What are the critical features of AI-CRM systems?" and "How do these features impact organizational competitive advantage?" To explore this, we aim to identify key characteristics of AI-CRM and assess their impact on organizational performance. In Study 1, we utilize BERTopic topic modeling to extract critical features of AI-CRM from user reviews. Study 2 employs PLS-SEM to examine how these features influence organizational competitive advantage. Study 1 reveals four main characteristics of AI-CRM (general, marketing, sales, and service/support), each comprising distinct features. Study 2 shows that these characteristics differentially impact CRM capability, significantly affecting performance and competitive advantage. The findings offer valuable insights for both theory and practice regarding the effective use of AI in organizations.

Recover From Failure: Examining the Impact of Service Recovery Stages on Relationship Marketing Strategies

Purpose

Given the digital transformation of service businesses by providing online food services and the influence of online reviews on consumers' purchasing decisions, this study examines how service recovery attributes in different stages influence relationship marketing strategies, i.e., relationship quality and customer loyalty after service failure. This study is built upon a revised service recovery cycle model by accounting for three stages and their corresponding attributes; whereon a conceptual stage model of service recovery is proposed. This conceptual stage model incorporates stages of service recovery, their respective attributes, and how they influence relationship marketing strategies.

Design/methodology/approach

An online marketing company was employed for data collection in 2019, which resulted in 301 valid responses. A Structural Equation Model (SEM) was conducted with all the data to test the relationships between the constructs. The individual measurement model was tested using the Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA). A structural model was estimated using AMOS to test all the hypotheses.

Findings

The findings demonstrate that the attributes (i.e., response speed, compensation) paired with the first two stages of service recovery can significantly influence consumer loyalty in a positive state. The findings also manifest the intermediary role that relationship quality has played in the association of service recovery and consumer loyalty, which implies that the food delivery businesses could attain a more comprehended relationship quality with consumers through active and timely compensatory service recovery consumer loyalty to the food businesses.

Originality/value

This study examines how these different stages of the service recovery cycle influence the decision-making of relationship marketing strategies (i.e., relationship quality, customer loyalty) on the prerequisite of service failure. This study aspires to expand the service recovery research by objectifying a conceptual stage model of service recovery, incorporating stages' recovery attributes and how these recovery attributes reciprocally influence relationship quality and customer loyalty.

The Influence of Empathy and Consumer Forgiveness on the Service Recovery Effect of Online Shopping

The service failure of online shopping has always plagued online stores, but the current academic circles still need to explore the service recovery of online shopping from the perspective of empathy and consumer forgiveness. Based on the service failure cases of real online shopping, this article uses the method of situational experiment to carry out empirical research, discusses the impact mechanism of service recovery effect from the perspective of empathy and consumer forgiveness, and tests the moderating role of online store reputation. The results show that in the online shopping service recovery scenario, empathy has a positive impact on consumer forgiveness, consumer forgiveness has a positive impact on consumer repurchase intention, and consumer forgiveness plays a mediating effect between empathy and consumer repurchase intention. Online store reputation plays a moderating role in the relationship between consumer forgiveness and consumer repurchase intention. The research conclusion of this article will help to expand the application of empathy and consumer forgiveness in the research of service recovery, enrich the theory of online shopping service recovery, improve the effect of online shopping service recovery, and promote the healthy development of online shopping business models.

Would compensation be necessary? The importance of service recovery strategy in e-retail delivery problems

Purpose

This study examines the different effects of service recovery strategies on customers' future intentions when online shoppers were experiencing delivery failures. Two types of problem severity are evaluated: wrong-product delivery (issues with the product quality or quantity) and late delivery. This study also investigates the impact of service criticality on the relationship between service recovery strategies and customers' future intentions.

Design/methodology/approach

This study employs experimental research with 123 online shoppers as participants. Following the results, a subsequent test is conducted to examine the effect of participants' demographics on future intentions. Finally, the current study elaborates the findings using qualitative research, interviewing both sides impacted by the service failures: online shoppers and e-retail managers.

Findings

The findings show that complementing product replacement with monetary compensation is the most effective strategy to improve repurchase intention after a dissatisfaction moment. This effect is indifferent to service criticality and severity. Age influences the participants' repurchase intentions, in which younger people are less tolerant of service failures. In contrast, gender and education level do not provide any differences. To prevent delivery failures, managers participating in this study suggest several best practices regarding systems and infrastructure, people and coordination and collaboration with logistics partners.

Research limitations/implications

The study mainly examines a limited type of service and service failures. Further studies are encouraged to expand the variables and scenarios, as well as to employ more distinctive methods, to enrich the findings related to recovery strategy in the e-commerce industry.

Practical implications

Given proper compensation, service failure could create momentum for online retailers to boost customer loyalty. This study suggests that managers design the most effective service recovery to win customers back to the business.

Originality/value

This paper enriches the literature related to a service recovery strategy, particularly within the online shopping context.

Exploring customers' responses to online service failure and recovery strategies during Covid-19 pandemic: An actor-network theory perspective

While the debate on online service failure and recovery strategies has been given considerable attention in the marketing and information systems literature, the evolving Covid-19 pandemic has brought about new challenges both theoretically and empirically in the consumption landscape. To fully understand customers' responses to service failure during a crisis we asked 70 millennials from three European Countries-Italy, France, and the UK-to describe their responses to service failure during the Covid-19 pandemic (30 completed a 4-week diary and 40 completed a 4-week qualitative survey). Drawing on phenomenological, constructivist, and hermeneutical approaches, and utilizing an actor-network theory perspective, the current study proposes a new framework for understanding customers' responses to online service failure and recovery strategies during the Covid-19 pandemic. Conclusions highlight implications for theory, policy, and management practice through extending comprehensions of service failure recovery processes by examining how marketing policies generate different social impacts during a crisis situation which facilitate the achievement of customer satisfaction and positive outcomes.

Service Failure and Recovery in B2B Markets - A Morphological Analysis

The existing body of research on service failures and recoveries primarily deals with business-to-consumer markets, with relatively limited and scattered research on business-to-business (B2B) markets. The purpose of this paper is to review the existing literature on these failures and recoveries in B2B markets, conceptualize and develop a morphological analysis (MA) framework, and identify research gaps that point to future research possibilities. We present an MA framework based on a literature review of 114 papers on the ABDC/ABS/ Clarivate Analytics list. The MA framework, constructed with eight dimensions and 62 variants, reveals 418 distinct research gaps as an upper bound of opportunities for future research. The paper concludes by discussing the implications for future research.

Investigation of customer churn insights and intelligence from social media: a netnographic research

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the distinct reasons and more common reasons that reduce customer satisfaction and are antecedents to customer churn behavior in the telecommunication industry.

Design/methodology/approach

The study adopted the netnography approach to investigate churn behavior by utilizing online user-generated content in qualified social media communities.

Findings

The investigation revealed that “data speed issue”, “ineffective relationship building”, “service area coverage issues” and “billing issues” are some of the most important attributes that influence a consumers' decision to churn. Further, the churn consequence influencers model summarizes the attributes that contribute to overall dissatisfaction and finally results in churn behavior. The study found out the application of the netnography approach in a quantitatively dominant research area and stands out with its insights from a rich qualitative data.

Practical implications

Proper clarification of customer expectations and pain points can help reduce customer churn. The study will serve as the basis for developing future churn prediction models that will contribute to the informed decision-making process.

Originality/value

Contributing to research on customer churn behavior, the study offers a novel attempt to study customer satisfaction and customer churn behavior jointly. The paper is the first attempt that contributes to the extant literature by adopting the unique qualitative approach to understand the reasons for telecommunication churn behavior in the emerging Indian market. Another contribution of this research is that the paper shifts the focus of the electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) literature to the telecommunications industry, thus adding another block to ongoing research in eWOM communication.

Peer review

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/ OIR-02-2020-0048

How Does Culture Impact Customer Evaluation in Online Complaining?

This article investigates how customers' cultural orientation impacts their service evaluations when complaining online on social media. Two separate scenario-based experimental studies were conducted using non-student samples from two culturally diverse countries (Germany and India). Study 1 using 83 participants from Germany and 83 from India shows that when causal explanations for service failure are given, individualists have higher perceived justice. Study 2 with 81 participants from Germany and 82 from India shows that when cognitive control is given through regular updates during service recovery to high uncertainty avoidance seekers, they show higher perceived justice. The three independent justice dimensions positively influence recovery satisfaction, with informational justice showing the strongest impact, followed by procedural and distributive justice. This research thus contributes to the nascent literature in social media complaining. Managers of online service organizations can benefit from these findings when developing their complaint management strategies.