“Give me an upgrade or I will give you a bad review!” Investigating customer threats in the hospitality industry
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Date
2024
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Elservier
Abstract
This work is a first attempt to explain the phenomenon of customer threats and identify the individual and
situational factors that drive this phenomenon in tourism and hospitality. Towards this goal, one qualitative and
two quantitative studies are employed. Study 1 conceptualizes customer threats by uncovering two of the most
common forms of verbal threats (i.e., threat to switch and threat to negative word of mouth) and their distinctive
features as well as customers’ motivations behind them, and some situational conditions that favor the enactment
of customer threats. Using a survey-based approach, study 2 sheds light on three incident-specific drivers (i.e.,
psychological reactance, rumination, and justice perceptions) of the two main forms of customer threats. Finally,
using an experimental approach, study 3 assesses the effectiveness of two service recovery strategies (self-service
recovery vs. human-based recovery) at mitigating customer threats following service failure incidents.
Description
Tourism Management 104 (2024) 104927
Keywords
Customer threats,Service failure,Service recovery,Negative word of mouth,Threat to switch