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This research investigates the role of customer forgiveness as the result of online service recovery transparency in predicting customer engagement. It also examines the moderating roles of timeliness and personalization in this proposed model.

An online survey study using retrospective experience sampling and a scenario-based experimental study were conducted to test the proposed hypotheses.

Customer forgiveness positively influences customer engagement and plays a mediating role in the relationship between service recovery transparency and customer engagement. Additionally, timeliness and personalization moderate the positive influence of service recovery transparency on customer forgiveness. The positive influence of service recovery transparency on customer forgiveness is more apparent when levels of timeliness and personalization decrease.

To retain focal customers' engagement after a service failure, firms must obtain their forgiveness. One of the firm's online complaint handling strategies to increase the forgiveness level of focal customers is to provide a high level of service recovery transparency (i.e. responding to their complaints in a public channel), especially when the firm is unable to respond to online complaints quickly or provide highly personalized responses.

This research provides new insights into the underlying mechanism of customer engagement by applying the concept of customer forgiveness. It also contributes to the social influence theory by applying the essence of the theory to explain how other customers' virtual presence during the online complaint handling influences the forgiveness of focal customers in order to gain their engagement. Additionally, it provides insight into the conditions under which the role of service recovery transparency can be very effective in dealing with online complaints.

This paper aims to investigate how commercial influencers retain their followers and successfully persuade them to consider purchasing newly recommended products and services within the food industry. We explored the impact of followers’ purchase satisfaction upon their repurchase intention for newly promoted food products and services, directly and by the mediating roles of followers’ affective commitment and loyalty toward commercial food influencers.

Our conceptual model design was supported by the tricomponent attitude model, which helps explain followers’ emotional attachment to the influencers. We validated the proposed model using a sample of 200 followers of renowned commercial food influencers in Iran. We used partial least squares structural equation modeling for data analysis, with the assistance of Warp PLS (version 8.0) software.

We found that followers’ purchase satisfaction exerts a positive influence upon their repurchase intention, both directly and through the mediating roles of affective commitment and loyalty toward commercial food influencers.

This study elucidates the role of followers’ satisfaction with their previous purchases in influencing their intention to buy newly recommended products. There is a multiplicity of important implications for restauranteur’s business models, as this marketing approach rewards a digital equivalent of a strong customer relationship and an honest, high-quality product. Our results also suggest that food influencers can operate effectively in the affiliate marketing sphere by operating and sustaining enduring relationships.

This work addresses how the influencer–follower relationship, followers’ purchase satisfaction and emotional attachment toward influencers, shape both follower retention and future repurchase intentions. This is from the perspective of the tricomponent attitude model within the food industry.