European Journal of Marketing: Volume 54 Issue 10

Guest editorial

Philip J. Kitchen, Charles R. Taylor

Addressing the Janus face of customer service: a typology of new age service failures

Charles R. Taylor, Philip J. Kitchen, Matthew E. Sarkees, Christian O. Lolk

Despite increased emphasis on customer or market orientation over the past several decades, there is considerable evidence that many customer service practices have created a…

Gaining satisfaction: the role of brand equity orientation and failure type in service recovery

Ke Ma, Xin Zhong, Guanghui Hou

This study aims to examine the role played by brand equity orientation and failure type in service recovery. Specifically, through the lens of forgiveness, the way brand equity…

Time lags, non-linearity and asymmetric effects in an extended service-profit chain

Gregory Strydom, Michael T. Ewing, Campbell Heggen

This study aims to present an extended service-profit chain (SPC) framework for assessing service performance. This framework is then used to investigate non-linear and asymmetric…

The impact of collective brand personification on happiness and brand loyalty

Dominique Braxton, Loraine Lau-Gesk

Frontline service providers are a key touchpoint in a customer’s overall experience with a brand. Though they are recognized as important contributors to brand experiences…

Reimagining customer service through journey mapping and measurement

Charles H. Patti, Maria M. van Dessel, Steven W. Hartley

How can customer service be so bad in an era when companies collect endless data on customer interactions? The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the important challenge of…

Extending the experience construct: an examination of online grocery shopping

Reema Singh, Magnus Söderlund

This study aims to assess factors influencing customers’ online grocery shopping experiences, and it evaluates the central role of customer service and consumers’ responses to…

Inferred respect: a critical ingredient in customer satisfaction

Laurence Ashworth, Maureen A. Bourassa

This paper aims to address the following question: Do consumer inferences of respect (disrespect) contribute to satisfaction (dissatisfaction)? The research question is explored…

Service gifts, collective social connection and reciprocity

Yihui (Elina) Tang, Christian Hinsch, Donald J. Lund, Husni Kharouf

This study aims to investigate the process of service gifting (i.e. unexpected upgrades or benefits) and examine why service gifts do not always result in firm-beneficial…

Does one bad apple ruin a firm’s green brand image? Examining frontline service employees’ environmentally irresponsible behaviors

Lin Zhang, Jintao Wu, Honghui Chen, Bang Nguyen

Drawing on the branded service encounters perspective, the purpose of this study is to investigate how frontline service employees’ environmentally irresponsible behaviors affect…

Construction, validation and generalization of SERVSTRESS: a measure for service induced customer stress

Subhadip Roy, Varsha Jain

The purpose of this study is to construct and validate a generalizable scale to measure service induced perceived stress for customers of personal services with a high level of…

Management response to negative comments, psychological distance and product nature: a consumer perspective

Chundong Zheng, Liping Yuan, Xuemei Bian, Han Wang, Lei Huang

Management response to consumer comments has become a widely adopted marketing strategy to address the undesirable effects caused by negative remarks. Yet, when and what…

A bibliometric investigation of service failure literature and a research agenda

Pantea Fouroudi, Philip J. Kitchen, Reza Marvi, Tugra Nazli Akarsu, Helal Uddin

This paper aims to study the citations made in service failure literature and assesses the knowledge construction of this region of exploration to date.

Introducing the socialbot: a novel touchpoint along the young adult customer journey

Carolyn Wilson-Nash, Amy Goode, Alice Currie

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the special issue theme by exploring customer response to automated relationship management tactics on social media channels.