Better him than me: social comparison theory and service recovery

Abstract

We conduct two studies to examine if, when, and why communication strategies using social comparisons can effectively restore emotional equilibrium after a service failure, and thus aid recovery efforts. In our first study, we find that after a service failure, like compensation, downward social comparisons reduce anger and improve post-purchase behavioral intentions (including exiting, complaining to management, engaging in negative word-of-mouth, and complaining to a third party). However, when two recovery tools, compensation and downward social comparisons are used together they do not have an additive effect. Additionally, we show that anger mediates the social comparison effect. In a second study, we further explore the social comparison effect and the financial compensation effect using complete and incomplete downward social comparisons and multiple levels of financial compensation. Our findings indicate that complete downward social comparisons are particularly effective at improving all four types of post-purchase behavioral intentions when financial compensation is non-existent or relatively low. Finally, we discuss implications for theory and practice.

Appendices

Appendix 1

Study 1 Text of videos

Video 1:

Outside:

Setting: It is a warm sunny October late Saturday afternoon. Two students (one male and one female) have just finished watching their college football team beat the visiting team in an exciting game.

The couple now decides to go out to dinner at a new restaurant in town. Later that evening, they have plans to attend Rent, which is at Hancher Auditorium for the weekend.

At the restaurant:

The manager seats the couple right away.

Then the waiter comes over to their table and takes their orders. The two people are very hungry, because they have been outside all afternoon. They decide to order a special dish from the menu that sounds really good (the menu indicates that this is the restaurant’s specialty).

A couple of minutes after the two people have placed their order, a group of seven or eight people (the ‘extras’) enters the restaurant. They are seated right away at a big table nearby.

15 min later:

The two people are still waiting for their meals. The waiter, though, has brought salad and bread to the large group table.

After another 15 min:

The waiter serves the main courses to the large group table; then, the waiter serves the salads and bread to the couple.

The couple then calls the waiter over to their table and asks “What’s the matter? Why are you serving them first?” The waiter says, “Just a minute,” and leaves.

The couple continues to wait for their main course. While they wait, the group of people at the nearby table are eating. The couple calls the manager over and says, “We have been waiting so long… We have tickets to see Rent at Hancher, and we are going to miss the first act of the show… We would like our food.” The manager says, “Please wait a minute. There are more customers at that table, so we served them first.” Then the manager leaves.

End of Video 1

Video 2: Recovery with downward social comparison and compensation

Well, I bet you’re wondering what happened. I went over to the couple that you just saw in the video and told them that things could have been a lot worse. Last night, a couple of my friends had tickets to see Rent and they decided to go out to eat at another restaurant. Unfortunately for them, their meals took longer and they ended up missing the entire performance, and as you know, Hancher tickets are non-refundable so they lost about $60 on their tickets, and the restaurant wasn’t able to provide them with any compensation.

Then I went over to the couple that you just saw in the video and told them that because the slow service tonight was the restaurant’s fault, that we wanted to apologize and also to pay for their dinner in order to compensate them for the inconvenience of missing the first act and quickly took away their bill.

Appendix 2

Table 4 Measures for post-purchase behavioral intentions for experiment 1 and 2

Appendix 3

Study 2 Text of Scenario

Scenario: $40 Compensation and Complete Downward Social Comparison for Study 2

Please read the following scenario and try to put yourself in the shoes of the hometown University student who had the following things happen over spring break. After you read the scenario, we will ask you to answer some questions as if you were the student that this happened to.

Scenario

You buy a vacation package to Acapulco for $640.00 for spring break 2007. The package included air travel from the local city ($400) and six nights in a hotel ($240) that is close to the clubs, has a large pool, is on the beach, and includes all of your breakfasts. Your friends, who will be your roommates at the hotel, pay for an extra night and leave on the Friday before spring break, but you have a prior commitment and have to leave on Saturday. You all plan to return together on the Friday of spring break. You are really looking forward to getting away from the cold.

On Saturday, you board the plane from your hometown to Chicago. You have to transfer to a different plane in Chicago. When you get to Chicago, you look at the screen inside the terminal and see that your flight is leaving from gate B1. When you get to B1, you realize that there are no people waiting in the gate area, but there is an airline personnel person behind the desk, apparently doing paperwork. You go to her and ask when the flight to Acapulco leaves. She says, “I’m sorry, you have the wrong gate. We had a last-minute unexpected gate change. The correct departure gate is C64.”

You head over to C64, which is in a different terminal. When you arrive at gate C64, there is no one in the gate area, except an airline agent. When you approach her and tell her that you are here for the flight to Acapulco, she says, “I’m sorry, we have finished boarding that flight. It has pulled away from the terminal. You’ll have to go to the customer service desk around the corner. They will reschedule you for the next available flight.”

You get to the customer service desk and explain to the agent that you missed your flight because the airlines made a last minute gate change, didn’t correct the screen inside the terminal, and you ended up at the wrong gate. The customer service agent says, “I’m sorry you missed your flight. We’ll get you a seat on the next available flight.” The agent checks on the computer and says, “The next available flight isn’t until tomorrow afternoon.”

The agent says, “Unfortunately, this is a very busy time of year and we have only two flights a day to Acapulco—all the flights are full on Sunday morning. You can try flying standby, but it doesn’t look good—all our flights are checking in full.” The agent hands you a new boarding pass for the Sunday afternoon flight and a distressed traveler package, which includes toiletries. The agent then adds, “Today I can also offer you a 10% cash refund on the air portion of your vacation package. You can receive the cash refund of $40.00 right now and still take your vacation.”

As you accept the cash, the agent adds, “You know, things could have been worse. My college-aged son got delayed in O’Hare when traveling on a different airline last spring break. The airline didn’t get him to his destination until 5 days later.”

After your transaction is complete, you go call your brother who lives in Chicago to arrange a place to stay.