Citation
(2014), "Executive summary of “The role of collective angst during and after a service failure”", Journal of Services Marketing, Vol. 28 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/JSM-03-2014-0108
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Executive summary of “The role of collective angst during and after a service failure”
Article Type: Executive summary and implications for managers and executives From: Journal of Services Marketing, Volume 28, Issue 3
This summary has been provided to allow managers and executives a rapid appreciation of the content of the article. Those with a particular interest in the topic covered may then read the article in toto to take advantage of the more comprehensive description of the research undertaken and its results to get the full benefit of the material present.
As customers, service failures affect us all from time to time. As service providers, knowing how to avoid them – and, more to the point, effectively recovering from service failures when they occur – is key to running a successful business. We’ve probably all been in a restaurant where someone who has arrived later is attended to first. Whether it makes you slightly annoyed or downright angry rather depends on the circumstances, and also if your personality is such that you tend to shrug and say “these things happen” or immediately start getting hot under the collar.
But what if the snub – if that’s what it is – on the part of the service employee is more than just a mistake but because you and he or she are of different cultural backgrounds? Maybe that’s not the reason and maybe it’s just what you think has happened. Whichever it is, it demands management attention if negative word-of-mouth to the detriment of the business’s viability is at risk. In a world of increased immigration and foreign travel, it’s commonplace to have a mix of people with different ethnic backgrounds, both as customers and service employees, especially in large cities with a huge cultural mix.
Consumers who migrate to another country tend to – but not always – acculturate and assimilate in the host culture. However, there are places where people from the host population are outnumbered – for example, Gulf countries such as Kuwait where the foreign population far exceeds the locals and where there can be pressure to assimilate into the immigrant culture rather than the other way round. Of course, people should treat each other equally whoever they are but we know that doesn’t always happen. And if it’s your customer who feels they are being treated in an inferior manner because of their culture, then that’s also bad for business. If a minority population perceives a threat to their culture, it can cause resentment and if this manifests itself in a service failure it can lead to a “collective angst” – an aversive emotional reaction in response to concerns about the future of one’s cultural group.
In “The role of collective angst during and after a service failure”, Dr Amro A. Maher and Dr Rana Sobh warn that service establishments need to gauge the level of collective angst that exists in the local population where that population might be less forgiving in their reactions to service failures and recovery situations. Of their study of the collective angst that Kuwaitis may experience from the perceived threat posed by a large expatriate population, the authors say: “We expect a consumer from the in-group (i.e. a local) experiencing collective angst to react negatively to service failures in which the threatening out-group (i.e. foreigners) is the service employee”. The effect of group-based emotions, such as animosity, admiration and affinity, has been found to affect the purchase of consumer products. It is particularly important to examine the impact of such emotions in a service context, given the increasing likelihood of intercultural encounters due to globalization and immigration. Research to date on intercultural service encounters has typically been conducted in countries where foreigners are ethnic minorities.
The current research reveals that consumers do experience collective angst which plays a role during service failures. Collective angst results in higher levels of anger following a service failure and also moderates the impact of the perceived cultural distance (the extent to which a culture is different from or similar to another culture) of the frontline employee on anger. Higher perceived cultural distance (PCD) leads to greater anger, but only for those consumers who have high collective angst. The study also found that collective angst moderates the impact of cultural distance on post-recovery recommendations. High PCD leads to lower recommendation intentions, but only for those consumers with high collective angst.
The research suggests that collective angst leads to higher anger as a result of a service failure. As this poses a danger of a variety of retaliatory responses, it is recommended that employees be trained to read the facial expressions of angry customers to try to diffuse the situation quickly. Anger is contagious and might be transferred from the customer to the employee. Consequently, employees should be made aware that such anger can transfer to them and inhibit them from responding effectively. Frontline employees must be educated to understand that consumer reactions to service failures can be driven by collective angst. If they learn to understand this, it might alleviate the emotional stress that can be experienced from encounters with angry customers.
Service recovery is also of critical importance when the frontline employee is culturally distant. Therefore, frontline employees should be empowered to deal with service failure scenarios. Research shows that empowering employees to deal with service failures leads to greater job satisfaction.
To read the full article enter 10.1108/JSM-10-2012-0203 into your search engine.
(A précis of the article “The role of collective angst during and after a service failure”. Supplied by Marketing Consultants for Emerald.)