Abstract

Keywords

۱٫ Introduction

۲٫ Theoretical background and hypotheses development

۳٫ Overview of studies

۴٫ Research design and participants

۵٫ General discussion

Appendix A. Study 1 scenarios

In the negative emoticon condition:

In the no emoticon condition:

Appendix B.

In the positive emoticon condition:

Background introduction for exchange relationship condition:

References

Vitae

Abstract

Emoticons are pictorial/textual depictions of facial expressions used in marketing communications. Little is known about how customers interpret positive or negative emoticons used by customer service employees in service failure contexts. We investigate the impact of emoticon type on customer satisfaction and re-purchasing intention, and examine the sequential mediating role of perceived sincerity and willingness to forgive. Results show that the use of a negative emoticon in a response leads to a higher level of customer satisfaction and re-purchasing intention than responses with a positive emoticon. We further demonstrate that customers perceive that the presence of a negative emoticon in a response is more sincere and generates a higher level of forgiveness than those responses that use positive emoticons, but only when the communal relationship is salient in the customer’s mind. Our findings offer important theoretical and practical implications in service failure contexts.

۱٫ Introduction

Service failure is often associated with negative consequences for business. Some examples of these consequences are: customer complaints (Mittal et al., 2008), desire for retaliation (Gr´egoire et al., 2009), switching behavior (Keaveney, 1995), and negative word of mouth (WOM) (Gr´egoire & Fisher, 2006). Service failure can happen to the best service providers, so the responses that businesses use to communicate with their customers play a significant role in understanding the effectiveness of the response strategy (McCullough, 2000a). Effective responses from service providers may encourage customer forgiveness and lead to positive outcomes for brands, such as re-purchasing intention (Lyon & Cameron, 2004), positive WOM (Coombs & Holladay, 2011) and customer loyalty (Nguyen & Leblanc, 2001).

Customers expect service providers to respond in a supportive manner when addressing their emotions after experiencing service failure (Menon & Dub´e, 2000). An apology is an effective response strategy used by brands to gain customer forgiveness (Folkes, 1984), particularly in the brand-customer relationship domain (Choi & Choi, 2014). However, not all apologies are perceived as trustworthy and sincere, leading to a positive outcome (Takaku, 2001). An effective apology depends not only on the content of the apologetic message, but also on the emotions displayed when offering that apology (Hareli & Eisikovits, 2006). Emoticons (e.g., ) are pictorial depictions of facial expressions commonly used by brands in their digital communication channels (e.g. Facebook, Twitter or Instagram) to convey emotions (Derks et al., 2007). For example, the company, Currys PC World used smiley faces in their Black Friday tweet in November 2019. Customer service employees of Three Telecommunication Company often use emoticons when dealing with customer enquiries via online chat box. As a key component of computer-mediated communication (CMC), more and more brands are using emoticons to communicate with their customers in the online environment.