Small influencers, big impact? The use of (different types of) social media influencers in service recovery
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2024-06-26
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en
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Service failures are inevitable due to the inconsistent nature of service delivery, resulting in customer dissatisfaction, switching behavior, and negative word-of-mouth. Companies must address these service failures effectively, as proper recovery can enhance the recovery paradox where customer satisfaction exceeds pre-failure levels. Social media influencers play a crucial role in shaping consumer perceptions and behaviors, including during service recovery. Through an online experiment (n = 107), this study investigated the impact of (different types of) social media influencers (nano- and micro- versus macro- and mega-) on customer forgiveness following a service failure. The results indicate that the use of a social media influencer in an organization’s response to a service complaint does not significantly impact customer forgiveness. Moreover, there were no significant differences in customer forgiveness between those mentioning nano- and micro-influencers and those mentioning macro- and mega-influencers. The study concludes by discussing potential explanations and limitations of the research. Suggestions for future research include collecting a representative sample and a more balanced sample size.
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Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen