The answer lies in rethinking marketing’s role in society. Marketing—services marketing in particular, which began with a focus on the marketing of intangible services—has recognized the need for an additional imperative: guiding managers in serving society. This evolution reframes marketing’s potential, positioning it as a strategic force for helping to address some of the world’s most pressing challenges. By embracing this role, marketing can help businesses generate both societal value and sustainable profits.

Importantly, all organizations—professional services, retailers, manufacturers, and others—are service organizations to some degree. Whether they offer services exclusively or provide both goods and services, services now dominate economic output, add value, and contribute to employment in both developed and developing economies. Even manufacturers are increasingly offering services to complement the sale of goods, underscoring the reality that all organizations play a role in the service economy. 

Moving Beyond Traditional Corporate Social Responsibility

For decades, corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been the primary way businesses give back to society. CSR initiatives are often well-intentioned but typically operate separately from the core business functions. Many CSR programs are viewed as external efforts, disconnected from what companies fundamentally do to create value.

However, today’s challenges require more than the traditional CSR approach. Many consumers and other stakeholders demand greater accountability and integration of social impact into a company’s central strategy. Enter social profit orientation (SPO)—a cultural imperative that moves beyond isolated acts of goodwill and weaves social impact directly into the company’s mission. SPO shifts the focus to proactively making societal benefits a core element of business operations.

In a recent article, we examined how companies can adopt SPO to make social impact an integral part of their operations, ensuring that societal contributions move beyond peripheral initiatives to become central to business strategy.

This transition reframes the question: How can companies address social and environmental challenges without sacrificing profitability? The answer, as SPO demonstrates, is by embedding purpose into their business DNA, leading to long-term sustainable value creation that benefits both society and shareholders.

The Role of Services Marketing in Social Profit Orientation

By nature, services marketing is boundary-spanning—it requires deep integration across functions like operations, human resources, and management. This integration facilitates marketing professionals connecting various business functions in service of a larger purpose.

In SPO, services marketing plays a critical role in aligning a company’s societal contributions with its business objectives. Marketing leaders can craft campaigns, initiatives, and partnerships that showcase the company’s commitment to solving pressing social problems—whether it’s addressing climate change, improving community access to better housing, education, or healthcare, or promoting inclusivity. In this new paradigm, marketing no longer functions as an afterthought or add-on—it becomes the driving force behind societal and business growth.

For example, World Central Kitchen has redefined disaster relief, providing sustainable solutions for hunger while addressing systemic issues around food insecurity. Similarly, Gundersen Health System has achieved energy independence while delivering exceptional healthcare, demonstrating the profound impact of combining social responsibility with business goals. These examples highlight how SPO can be applied across sectors, with services marketing at the core of these efforts to align societal contributions with business objectives.

From CSR to SPO: A Practical Guide for Marketing Professionals

For businesses looking to make this transition, moving from CSR to SPO requires a significant shift in mindset and operations. Marketing professionals are uniquely positioned to lead this transformation. Here’s how companies can successfully transition and implement SPO:

1. Secure Board Commitment

The first step in embedding SPO into a company’s strategy is securing top-level commitment. Without strong support from the board, SPO initiatives often face underfunding or lack priority. Marketing leaders must advocate for the business case behind SPO, showing how social impact initiatives can generate brand loyalty, customer and employee retention, and even revenue growth. Board-level buy-in is crucial to ensuring that SPO is implemented as a core business function rather than a peripheral program.

2. Champion the Champion

While one or more visionary executives or change champions will be responsible for leading the SPO transformation, marketing must play a critical role in supporting the champion(s). This includes providing essential stakeholder research, market insights, and promotions that highlight the benefits of SPO, helping to secure buy-in from key stakeholders. Marketing professionals can provide the data and narratives needed to rally the organization behind the transformation. And marketing professionals themselves may perform the “champion” role.

3. Develop an Initiative Framework

SPO is not about supporting every social initiative available. Companies need to be strategic in selecting societal initiatives that align with both their core values and business objectives. Marketing professionals, particularly service marketers, with their boundary-spanning capabilities, can facilitate collaboration across departments in designing a decision framework. Departments such as operations, finance, human resources, and corporate strategy should be involved in this process to ensure that the initiatives selected are aligned with the company’s strengths and potential for long-term societal impact. This approach ensures that resources are allocated wisely, contributing to both the community and the bottom line.

4. Achieve Early Wins

As with any major change, quick wins are crucial. Early successes demonstrate the value of SPO and build internal and external support for further initiatives. Marketing teams should focus on highlighting these early wins through targeted campaigns that show the positive effects of SPO.

5. Foster Leadership Synergy

For SPO to succeed, there must be alignment between senior leadership and grassroots efforts within the company. Marketing professionals are in a unique position to facilitate this connection, ensuring that social impact initiatives are supported from the top while engaging employees at all levels. This fosters a culture where SPO is a company-wide priority, not just an executive initiative.

6. Forge Strategic Partnerships

No company can drive large-scale social change alone. Strategic partnerships with external organizations—whether nonprofits, governments, or other businesses—are often essential to amplifying the reach and impact of SPO. Marketing professionals are well-versed in building relationships and can lead efforts to form partnerships that fill resource gaps and expand the company’s influence. These alliances further the company’s ability to create meaningful social profit.

7. Integrate Impact Metrics

Measuring the impact of SPO is critical to proving its effectiveness. Marketing professionals must incorporate tools like social return on investment (SROI) to track both the societal and financial outcomes of SPO initiatives. By integrating impact metrics into marketing dashboards, companies can clearly communicate progress to stakeholders, ensuring transparency and accountability.

8. Leverage Storytelling

One of marketing’s greatest strengths is its ability to tell stories that resonate. By crafting compelling narratives around the company’s social impact, marketing professionals can engage customers, employees, and investors in a meaningful way. Storytelling humanizes the organization and demonstrates how its actions are making a tangible difference in society. These stories are powerful tools for building loyalty and trust, showcasing the value of SPO initiatives.

The Future of Marketing: A Catalyst for Change

As businesses continue to evolve, marketing will play an even greater role in shaping the future of society. SPO is not just a model for integrating social good into a company’s mission—it’s the next frontier in marketing strategy. By embedding SPO into their core operations, companies can foster customer, employee, and other stakeholder loyalty, build sustainable growth, and help address the urgent challenges facing society.

In a world where purpose increasingly drives purchase decisions, SPO offers a clear pathway for businesses to succeed both financially and socially. Many consumers and employees are demanding that companies step up and address the urgent issues facing society. Meanwhile, managers increasingly recognize that “doing well by doing good” isn’t just a slogan—it’s a reality. In fact, McKinsey found that 48% of executives view sustainability as contributing positively to shareholder value, underscoring the growing alignment between social responsibility and business success.

Despite the growing recognition of the value of socially responsible business practices, there has been notable pushback. Some critics argue that these practices can detract from immediate financial returns or advance political agendas. However, as societal challenges like climate change and inequality become more pressing, such resistance is likely to diminish over time. SPO, by focusing on long-term value creation for both society and businesses, ensures that companies remain resilient and committed to addressing these challenges, even in the face of short-term political opposition.

Marketing professionals are at the forefront of this movement, equipped with the skills and knowledge to drive SPO forward. As companies transition to being more socially profit-oriented, they will discover that doing good isn’t just beneficial for society—it’s essential for sustained business success.

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That is, while most existing research addresses CE in particular domestic or local market conditions, the reported findings may lack generalizability in and across international markets, revealing an important research gap. For example, Gupta, Pansari, and Kumar (2018, p. 16) posit that “the positive association between customer experience and satisfaction is enhanced in collectivistic (vs. individualistic) culture[s],” thus revealing important CE-based differences across markets. Similarly, Hollebeek (2018, p. 46) postulates that “consumers displaying mostly individualist (collectivist) traits will focus their cognitive CE more on individual brand interaction attributes (holistic brand interactions) than consumers exhibiting mostly collectivist (individualist) traits,” corroborating the existence of differing cross-cultural CE dynamics.  

Different market environments exhibit unique characteristics in terms of culture, GDP, living standards, regulation, socioeconomic systems, purchase behaviors, and so on (Burgess and Steenkamp 2006), thus differentially shaping cross-market CE. That is, customers’ cross-cultural engagement styles or their “motivationally driven disposition to think, feel, act, and relate to others in a certain manner characteristic of their specific individual  â€¦ traits in brand interactions” are likely to differ across markets (Hollebeek 2018, p. 46). Moreover, firms’ CE-cultivating strategies may differ in line with prevailing institutional or infrastructure conditions. For example, Kumar and Pansari (2016) find that economic growth, which they argue will affect consumer budgets, has a positive impact on CE. Furthermore, the lack of trust-enhancing infrastructure and well-functioning regulatory institutions in emerging markets can affect consumer trust and CE (Jaiswal et al. 2018).

Drawing on these observed gaps, in this special issue we call for the further contextualization of CE research across international markets (Tsang and Kwan 1999), which refers to the process of “incorporating the context in describing, understanding, and theorizing about phenomena within it” (Tsui 2006, p. 2). We welcome conceptual, methodological, qualitative, or quantitative contributions that offer insight in this area. Special issue papers may focus on topics including, but not limited to, the following:

• To what extent do existing CE-based findings hold up in or across international marketing contexts?
• How do cross-cultural characteristics affect CE in or across particular market-based scenarios?
• How does customer trust/relational behavior affect cross-market CE (or vice versa; Hewett and Bearden 2001)?  
• Which entry strategies are most conducive in markets characterized by different CE styles (Onamusi 2020)?
• To what extent does culture affect customer-to-customer interactions in international market contexts (e.g., online brand communities, social media; Kim, Moon, and Iaccobucci 2019)?
• How does product/service standardization influence CE in or across particular markets?
• How does different countries’ technological infrastructure and/or usage affect online CE?
• How do consumers engage with particular brands in the company’s home market (vs. particular host markets)?
• (How) does customer ethnocentrism affect CE with local/domestic (vs. foreign-made) products or brands?
• How do multinational corporations (vs. born global companies) develop CE in particular markets?
• Which international market research best practices help advance insight into CE with specific brands, products, or firms in or across particular markets?
• How do differing national characteristics (e.g., literacy rates, technology access, GDP) affect CE across markets?
• What is the role of institutional or other national (e.g., regulatory, political, administrative, knowledge-based, global connectedness) factors or conditions (Berry, Guillen, and Zhou 2010) in firms’ abilities to develop and benefit from CE?
• Which cultural model(s) best explain or predict CE’s development across international markets?
• What are CE’s key cross-border characteristics and dynamics, both during and after COVID-19?
• How has the pandemic affected the use of (smart) technology across international markets, and what is its impact on CE?

All manuscripts must conform to JIM’s author guidelines. Manuscripts must be submitted through the . When submitting your manuscript, please indicate that your submission is to the special issue entitled “Customer Engagement in International Markets.” The closing date for submissions is September 30, 2021. Ěý

Queries can be directed at the Special Issue Guest Editors: 

Linda D. Hollebeek
Senior Associate Professor/Full Professor of Marketing
Montpellier Business School/Tallinn University of Technology
l.hollebeek@montpellier-bs.com

Wafa Hammedi
Professor of Marketing
University of Namur
wafa.hammedi@unamur.be

Sanjit K. Roy
Associate Professor of Marketing
University of Western Australia
sanjit.roy@uwa.edu.au

Kelly Hewett
Reagan Professor of Business
University of Tennessee
khewett@utk.edu

References

Berry, Heather, Mauro F. GuillĂ©n, and Nan Zhou (2010), “An Institutional Approach to Cross-National Distance,” Journal of International Business Studies, 41 (9), 1460–80.

Brodie, Rod, Linda Hollebeek, Ana Ilic, and Biljana Juric (2011), “Customer Engagement: Conceptual Domain, Fundamental Propositions & Implications for Research in Service Marketing,” Journal of Service Research, 14 (3), 252–71.

Burgess, Steven M. and Jan-Benedict E.M. Steenkamp (2006), “Marketing Renaissance: How Research in Emerging Markets Advances Marketing Science and Practice,” International Journal of Research in Marketing, 23 (4), 337–56.

Christofi, Michael, Demetris Vrontis, Erasmia Leonidou, and Alkis Thrassou (2018), “Customer Engagement Through Choice in Cause-Related Marketing: A Potential for Global Competitiveness,” International Marketing Review, 29 (5), 354–66.

Gupta, Shaphali, Anita Pansari, and V. Kumar (2018), “Global Customer Engagement,” Journal of International Marketing, 26 (1), 4–29.

Hewett, Kelly and William O. Bearden (2001), “Dependence, Trust, and Relational Behavior on the Part of Foreign Subsidiary Marketing Operations: Implications for Managing Global Marketing Operations,” Journal of Marketing, 65 (4), 51–66.

Hollebeek, Linda (2018), “Individual-Level Cultural Consumer Engagement Styles: Conceptualization, Propositions, and Implications,” International Marketing Review, 35 (1), 42–71.

Hollebeek, Linda, Rajendra K. Srivastava, and Tom Chen (2019), “S-D Logic-Informed Customer Engagement: Integrative Framework, Revised Fundamental Propositions, and Application to CRM,” Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 47 (1), 161–85.

Jaiswal, Anand, Rakesh Niraj, Chang Hee Park, and Manoj K. Agarwal (2018), “The Effect of Relationship and Transactional Characteristics on Customer Retention in Emerging Online Markets,” Journal of Business Research, 92, 25–35

Kim, Moon-Yong, Sangkil Moon, and Dawn Iaccobucci (2019), “The Influence of Global Brand Distribution on Brand Popularity on Social Media,” Journal of International Marketing, 27 (4), 22–38.

Kumar, V. and Anita Pansari (2016) “Competitive Advantage Through Engagement,” Journal of Marketing Research, 53 (4), 497–514.

Kumar, V., Bharath Rajan, Shaphali Gupta, and Ilaria Dalla Pozza (2019), “Customer Engagement in Service,” Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 47 (1), 138–60.

Meire, Matthijs, Kelly Hewett, Michel Ballings, V. Kumar, and Dirk van den Poel (2019), “The Role of Marketer-Generated Content in Customer Engagement Marketing,” Journal of Marketing, 83 (6), 21–42.

Onamusi, Abiodun (2020), “Entry Mode Strategy, Customer Engagement, and Firm Performance,” Journal of Business and Social Review in Emerging Economies, 6 (1), 99–112.

Tsang, Eric and Kai-Man Kwan (1999), “Replication and Theory Development in Organizational Science: A Critical Realist Perspective,” Academy of Management Review, 24 (4), 759–80.

Tsui, Anne S. (2006), “Contextualization in Chinese Management Research,” Management and Organization Review, 2 (1), 1–13.

Special Issue Editor Bios

Linda D. Hollebeek, Ph.D, is Senior Associate Professor of Marketing at Montpellier Business School and Full Professor of Marketing at Tallinn University of Technology (Adj.). Her research centers on customer/consumer engagement and interactive consumer/brand relationships. Her work to date has published in the Journal of Service Research, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, International Marketing Review, Journal of Interactive Marketing, and Industrial Marketing Management, among others. She is the recipient of the 2020 SERVSIG Emerging Scholar Award, serves as Associate Editor of the European Journal of Marketing, is on the ERB of Psychology & Marketing, and is co-editor of The Handbook of Research on Customer Engagement. She has guest edited recent special issues in the Journal of Service Research (near finalization) and International Journal of Research in Marketing (mostly finalized).

Wafa Hammedi, Ph.D, is Associate Professor of  Service Innovation and Marketing at the University of Namur-Belgium. She received her Ph.D from the Institute for Management Research, Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands. Her primary research interests include service innovation, user engagement, vulnerable service users (e.g., health care), and engagement mechanisms (e.g., gamification). She has published in highly recognized journals such as the Journal of Product Innovation Management, Journal of Interactive Marketing, and Journal of Business Research. She is cofounder of the Annual Doctoral Symposium in the service field, “ÂÜŔňÉçąŮÍř – SERVSIG – Let’s Talk ÂÜŔňÉçąŮÍřt Service,” serves as Associate Editor of the Journal of Services Marketing, and is member of the Editorial Boards of several journals. She is currently guest editing two special issues for Journal of Services Marketing and Recherche et Applications en Marketing (A-ranked journal of the French Marketing Association). 

Sanjit K. Roy, Ph.D, is Associate Professor of Marketing and Fellow at the Centre for Business Data Analytics at UWA Business School, The University of Western Australia. He is a certified LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® Facilitator. He is an Associate Editor at the European Journal of Marketing and on the Editorial Boards of Journal of Business Research, Journal of Services Marketing, Journal of Strategic Marketing, and the Journal of Service Theory & Practice. His research interests include marketing of services, impact of new technology on marketing, and transformative service research. He has published in the European Journal of Marketing, Journal of Business Research, Journal of Marketing Management, Information Systems Frontiers, and Journal of Services Marketing, among others. He has guest edited special issues for the Journal of Service Theory & Practice, Journal of Strategic Marketing, and International Journal of Bank Marketing. Currently, he is also guest editing special issues for the International Journal of Information Management and Journal of Marketing Management.

Kelly Hewett, Ph.D, is the Reagan Professor of Marketing and Haslam Family Faculty Research Fellow at the University of Tennessee’s Haslam College of Business. She also serves as Editor in Chief of the Journal of International Marketing. Prior to joining UT, she worked for five years at Bank of America, where she was a senior vice president in the firm’s corporate marketing group. Previously, she had a ten-year academic career and also held prior positions in international marketing and marketing research. Kelly’s research has been published in the Journal of Marketing, Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, and Journal of International Marketing, among others.

The post Call for Papers | Journal of International Marketing: Customer Engagement in International Markets appeared first on ÂÜŔňÉçąŮÍř.

Teaching Insights

Marketers should consider appreciating (e.g., saying “thank you for the wait”) rather than apologizing to (e.g., saying “sorry for the wait”) their customers in redressing most service failures, as doing so increases the customers’ self-esteem, which in turn leads to favorable consumer responses such as higher customer satisfaction, positive word of mouth, and repatronage intentions.

Related Marketing Courses: ​
Consumer Behavior; Marketing Communications; Marketing Strategy; Services Marketing​​​​ ​​​​

Full Citation: ​
You, Yanfen, Xiaojing Yang, Lili Wang, and Xiaoyan Deng (2020), “,” Journal of Marketing, 84 (2), 133–50.

Article Abstract: 
In their initial recovery efforts after a service failure, service providers need to decide what to communicate to consumers to restore their satisfaction. Prior work has primarily examined apology (saying “sorry”) as a symbolic recovery strategy; the current research suggests appreciation (saying “thank you”) as an alternative, often more effective strategy. Drawing from research on linguistic framing and self-view, the authors reason that the shift of focus in the service provider–consumer interaction, from emphasizing service providers’ fault and accountability (apology) to spotlighting consumers’ merits and contributions (appreciation), can increase consumers’ self-esteem and, in turn, postrecovery satisfaction. Across multiple service failure contexts, Studies 1a–1e establish the superiority of appreciation in redressing service failures. By measuring and manipulating self-esteem and examining the moderating role of narcissism and recovery timing, Studies 2–5 provide converging evidence for consumers’ state self-esteem as the underlying mechanism. Studies 6 and 7 go beyond examining appreciation in isolation and show that it is as effective as recovery messages that combine appreciation and apology (Study 6) and that its superiority over apology holds when service providers combine symbolic and utilitarian recovery (Study 7).

Special thanks to  and , Ph.D. candidates at Duke University, for their support in working with authors on submissions to this program.

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Teaching Insights

The idea of using pleasant ambient scents to connect to consumers is well founded. The exposure to pleasant ambient scents on average produces a substantial increase in the level of customer responses (3%–15%). However, it requires judiciously considering the various situational contingencies as they are eventually decisive for the increase in the level of customer responses due to ambient scent.

Related Marketing Courses: ​
Consumer Behavior; Marketing Strategy; Retail Marketing; Services Marketing;​​​​ ​​​​

Full Citation: ​
Roschk, Holger, and Masoumeh Hosseinpour (2020), “,” Journal of Marketing, 84(1), 125–145

Article Abstract: 
To prevail in the fierce competition of in-store experiences, some firms have focused on providing pleasant ambient scents. However, equivocal results on scent effects make generalizations and managerial guidance uncertain. While efforts to consolidate research findings have been conducted, a comprehensive quantitative integration is notably lacking. In this meta-analysis, the authors integrate 671 available effects from ambient scent experiments and show that exposure to pleasant ambient scents on average produces a substantial increase in the level of customer responses (3%–15%). The effects of ambient scent depend on situational contingencies and are, for example, positively related to congruency, unidimensional aroma structure, ascribed familiarity of a scent, service exchange, proportion of female participants in the sample, and imagined (vs. fictitious) offering. Thus, the authors estimate expenditures would increase by 3% and 23% for an average and a most favorable condition, respectively. The authors also examine effect patterns, identifying, for example, ambient scent as more cognitive than affective and nonlinear effects of perceived concentration. Using the insights, they develop a research agenda and provide clear strategic guidance to leverage ambient scent effects.

Special thanks to  and , Ph.D. candidates at Duke University, for their support in working with authors on submissions to this program.

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Teaching Insights

Integrated product and service solutions often do not deliver the desired results since solutions involve joint coproduction between suppliers and customers. This leads to shifts in relational habits and task responsibilities and may cause tensions. These slides cover governance mechanisms that can solve such solution challenges.

Related Marketing Courses: ​
Business-to-Business Marketing; Marketing Strategy; Services Marketing

Full Citation: ​
Colm, Laura, Andrea Ordanini, and Torsten Bornemann (2020), “,” Journal of Marketing, 84 (1), 105-124.

Article Abstract: 
Facing competitive and commoditization threats, many companies shift to solution offerings, albeit with mixed results. With a qualitative analysis of dyadic data (suppliers and customers), this article investigates an important, often overlooked reason for such mixed outcomes: the complex, dynamic role of governance matching. This study identifies a series of tensions arising from solution-specific exchange conditions and the matched governance mechanisms actors use to address them: temporary asset colocation, network closure, knowledge-based boundary objects, rights allocation agreements, and liaison champions. It also reveals the dynamic nature of governance matching. Solutions evolve in three phases—experimentation, integration, and evolution—in which single mechanisms have different functions (safeguarding and/or coordination), provide contingent and transient benefits, and can be used in combination to address complex tensions. This study also identifies two decision points, mutual commitment and balanced power, that separate the three phases; their outcomes help explain why certain solution efforts do not take off, others stall, and still others revert to mere spot exchanges. Beyond contributing to solutions literature, these findings provide actionable insights to marketing managers.

Special thanks to  and , Ph.D. candidates at Duke University, for their support in working with authors on submissions to this program.

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Teaching Insights

Recovery incentives are negatively associated with contract renewal likelihoods. Consistent with the economic theory of reference prices, the deeper the recovery incentive, the less likely newspaper subscribers were willing to renew their contracts at full price

But, this negative effect of recovery discounts on contract renewals was reduced when: 1) subscribers were reminded of the full service price several times before the renewal, 2) subscribers were offered a discount at the time of the renewal, 3) subscribers had more time left in their service contracts after the recovery incentive was administered, 4) subscribers were originally acquired through personalized campaigns that emphasized the value of the service as opposed to the price of the service, or 5) subscribers were offered the recovery discount when the promotional intensity in the external environment was low (e.g., non-holiday periods).

Related Marketing Courses: ​
Consumer Behavior; Marketing Analytics; Marketing Strategy; Pricing; Principles of Marketing, Core Marketing, Intro to Marketing Management; Services Marketing

Full Citation: ​
Kanuri, Vamsi K., and Michelle Andrews (2019), “,” Journal of Marketing, 83 (5), 57-77.

Article Abstract:Ěý
Subscription-based service providers (e.g., newspapers, internet services, utility companies) often issue price-based incentives to recover from service failures. However, whether recovery incentives improve customer retention in the long-term remains unknown. We investigate this question by examining 6,919 contract renewal decisions of newspaper subscribers who received varying levels of recovery incentives after newspaper delivery failures. In contrast to conventional wisdom, we find that recovery incentives are associated with lower renewal likelihoods at the end of the contract period. We rationalize this finding using the economic theory of reference prices and further demonstrate that firms could mitigate the unintended consequence of recovery incentives by reminding subscribers of the original price at touch points following the recovery, discounting the renewal price, and prolonging the duration between the recovery and renewal. We also show that the intensity of promotions in the external environment at the time of administering recovery incentives, and that acquiring subscribers by communicating the value of the subscription service, can influence the long-term effectiveness of recovery incentives. For subscription-based service providers, we propose a decision support model to optimize recovery and renewal incentives, and demonstrate its utility within our empirical context.

Special thanks to  and , Ph.D. candidates at Duke University, for their support in working with authors on submissions to this program. 

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Teaching Insights

Marketers should consider appreciating (e.g., saying “thank you for the wait”) rather than apologizing to (saying “sorry for the wait”) their customers in redressing most service failures, because doing so increases the customers’ self-esteem which in turn leads to favorable consumer responses such as higher customer satisfaction, positive word of mouth, and repatronage intentions.

Related Marketing Courses: ​
Consumer Behavior; Marketing Communications; Marketing Strategy; Services Marketing

Full Citation: ​
You, Yanfen, Xiaojing Yang, Lili Wang, and Xiaoyan Deng (2020), “,” Journal of Marketing, 84 (2), 133-150.

Article Abstract: 
In their initial recovery efforts after a service failure, service providers need to decide what to communicate to consumers to restore their satisfaction. Prior work has primarily examined apology (saying “sorry”) as a symbolic recovery strategy; the current research suggests appreciation (saying “thank you”) as an alternative, often more effective strategy. Drawing from research on linguistic framing and self-view, the authors reason that the shift of focus in the service provider–consumer interaction, from emphasizing service providers’ fault and accountability (apology) to spotlighting consumers’ merits and contributions (appreciation), can increase consumers’ self-esteem and, in turn, postrecovery satisfaction. Across multiple service failure contexts, Studies 1a–1e establish the superiority of appreciation in redressing service failures. By measuring and manipulating self-esteem and examining the moderating role of narcissism and recovery timing, Studies 2–5 provide converging evidence for consumers’ state self-esteem as the underlying mechanism. Studies 6 and 7 go beyond examining appreciation in isolation and show that it is as effective as recovery messages that combine appreciation and apology (Study 6) and that its superiority over apology holds when service providers combine symbolic and utilitarian recovery (Study 7).

Special thanks to  and , Ph.D. candidates at Duke University, for their support in working with authors on submissions to this program. 

Search other Insights in the Classroom​

Read a managerial summary of this paper.

More from the Journal of Marketing​​â¶Ä‹â¶Ä‹â¶Ä‹â¶Ä‹â¶Ä‹

The post Why Gratitude Outperforms Apologies in Service Failures [Self-Esteem Insights] appeared first on ÂÜŔňÉçąŮÍř.

The service industry has been an early-adopter of human service robots (HSRs), which have been touted by business media as a way for companies to stay on the cutting edge of technology, increase buzz, and engage customers on a social level vs. conventional self-service machines. But while human reactions to robots has been studied in the robotics field, there hasn’t been much research comparing their specific reactions to humanoid compared to HSRs. Despite this, it is essential for companies and marketers to understanding how humans will respond to HSRs in order to meet their business goals, grow their consumer base, and inspire brand trust.

What the Researchers Did:

In order to find out more about how humans respond to HSRs, a team of researchers from Florida State University, Babson College, and University of Groningen, The Netherlands, that use four distinct HSRs as stimuli. Taken together, the studies explore whether or not consumers exhibit compensatory behaviors (such as purchasing status items or overeating) in response to HSRs, and if so, what sort of perceptions did they have of HSRs that drives this behavior. For example, do humans perceive HSRs as a threat to their human identity?

Key findings:

• Though robots with human-like features are designed with the goals of appealing to humans and inspiring trust, the response they elicit is often aversive. This may be due to the fact that while robots may be programed to imitate humanness they can not truly replicate human qualities.
• The uncanny valley concept suggests humans feel heightened levels of discomfort and overall sense of eeriness when faced with robots. In a consumer context, this results in increased compensatory consumption such as status spending or consuming more calories.
• From a financial standpoint, HSRs may benefit firms by triggering a rise in consumer spending.
• Since service employees (human or robot) represent the company, consumer discomfort with HSRs could undermine brand trust, customer satisfaction and loyalty.
• Firms should deliver positive customer experiences, so marketers need to understand the circumstances in which consumers have adverse experiences with HSRs.

Results: ​

Though more research is needed to determine how humans react to HSRs in the future, based on the findings of these seven studies studies, the authors determined that due to the uncanny valley concept, consumer discomfort and compensatory activities rises when they deal with HSRs. Firms may wish to invest in HSRs that are less human-like vs. which have been shown to generate a more positive response among consumers compared to those who are designed to look like humans.

What does this mean / takeaway for future:

Organizations who are currently using or considering the use of HSRs in consumer settings should take heed of these findings. While HRS may be conceived as a way to show consumers companies are technologically advanced and inspire brand engagement, these findings indicate that while HSRs may drive consumer spending, that may be because they generate discomfort, compensatory behaviors—which can result in negative attitudes toward the company. Replacing human workers with HSRs too soon may increases chances for upselling and promote greater spending on food items, but the interaction might trigger a decline in loyalty and trust, which can erodes the customer/company relationship over time. 

 Marketers are on the front lines of making transitions to HSR technology a positive experience for consumers, so they must understand what types of consumption-related behaviors are triggered by HSRs vs. human workers or other types of automation. As more research is done in this area, marketers shouldstress the importance of the consumer experience and satisfaction when it comes to HSRs and advocate for a slow introduction of this technology over time.

In addition, marketers should conduct market research to look for ways to determine customer response to HSRs in varying contexts. For example, consumers might have a more positive response to HSRs in a quick turnaround setting such as an airport food kiosk than in a more traditional restaurant that relies on repeat customers. Market research can also help determine varying levels of technology readiness and anxiety among the company’s consumer base,  so that messaging and campaigns can be tailored to help all consumers ease into interacting with HSRs.

Conclusion:

Companies must value consumer experience over bottom line when adopting new technologies of any kind. The use of Human Service Robots may create more opportunities for upselling, they have been demonstrated to cause uneasiness, discomfort, and compensatory behaviors among consumers. Therefore, companies should take a slow approach to incorporating them in their business operations or risk losing customer loyalty. Marketers can help make this transition smoother by encouraging introducing HSRs at a slow pace, changing approach (such as using more robot-like service robots versus humanoid robots), and creating campaigns and messaging for consumer groups who are more and less open to new technology. Both companies and marketers should be mindful of new studies when it comes to how humans react to HSRs (or conduct research of their own) as consumer attitudes toward these technologies shift over time.

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From: Jens Hogreve, Anja Iseke, Klaus Derfuss, & Tönnjes Eller, “,” Journal of Marketing, 81 (May).

Catch up on other Blast from the Past articles:

• Avoiding Revenue Losses When Sales Reps Leave
• Determining the ROI of Customer Engagement Initiatives
• Driving Media Coverage of New Product Announcements
• Protecting Consumer Trust in an Era of Data Breaches

The post Drive Results Inside-Out to Improve Service Chain Performance appeared first on ÂÜŔňÉçąŮÍř.

Roland Rust has been defining the boundaries of service research since he was a student at University of North Carolina. He has served as Editor of the Journal of Marketing, founded the annual Frontiers in Service Conference, was founding Editor of the Journal of Service Research, and most recently as Editor of International Journal Research in Marketing.  

At the 2016 Winter ÂÜŔňÉçąŮÍř Academic Conference, Professor Rust reflected on his career in an interview with ÂÜŔňÉçąŮÍř Fellow Kent Monroe.

Roland Rust | A Brief Biography

Roland Rust is Distinguished University Professor and David Bruce Smith Chair in Marketing at the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland, where he is founder and Executive Director of two research centers: the Center for Excellence in Service and the Center for Complexity in Business. 

He has received the ÂÜŔňÉçąŮÍř Irwin McGraw-Hill Distinguished Marketing Educator Award, the ÂÜŔňÉçąŮÍř Fellow Award, Fellow of the INFORMS Society for Marketing Science, the Paul D. Converse Award, and the Distinguished Marketing Educator Award from the Academy of Marketing Science. Professor Rust received his doctorate and MBA degrees from the University of North Carolina and a BA from DePauw University. 

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ÂÜŔňÉçąŮÍřt the Sheth Foundation:

The mission of the Sheth Foundation is to support the academic scholarship, publications, education and research of tax-exempt, publicly-supported educational organizations, primarily focusing on the discipline of marketing, by providing support to grant awarding Recipient Organizations.

The Sheth Foundation additionally provides support to other tax-exempt, publicly-supported organizations that are closely related in purpose or function to one or more of the Recipient Organizations and the activities of which carry out the purposes of one or more of the Primary Supported Organizations.

The Sheth Foundation was founded by Dr. Jagdish & Madhu Sheth. 

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