服務失誤情境下消費者原諒形成之研究－結構關係模型的應用

Abstract

面對日益競爭的市場環境，為確保競爭優勢，企業紛紛以如何提高顧客滿意進而增加其忠誠度為努力目標，使得關係行銷成為廣受討論之議題。由於服務業之產業特殊性，與顧客維持良好關係對其尤為重要，即使服務再好的企業也難免會發生服務失誤之情形。當失誤發生後，企業往往會透過各種服務補救來減輕消費者心中之不滿。但有學者指出即使顧客獲得妥善的失誤補償，其心中仍存有不滿之情緒，倘若能使消費者產生原諒，則有助於彼此關係的重建，實現顧客保留之目標，因此相較於服務補救對於提升顧客滿意所帶來的短期效果，消費者原諒才是企業應努力的關鍵。然而，消費者原諒之相關研究與理論框架尚未獲得完善發展。 本研究旨在了解服務失誤情境下消費者原諒形成之原因，參考過去學者對消費者原諒之相關研究架構，另於模型中納入原諒態度、同理心、關係品質、品牌信任等變數，並以經歷過餐廳服務失誤之大眾為研究對象，樣本收集方式採用網路問卷之形式，共回收259份有效問卷，並以LISREL與SPSS為研究分析工具，來探討消費者原諒與原諒態度、同理心、品牌信任的連結關係。 本研究分析結果發現：（1）社會影響與轉換成本會正向顯著影響原諒態度；（2）原諒態度與同理心會正向顯著影響消費者原諒；（3）關係品質會正向顯著影響品牌信任。

With the increasing competition in the current marketplace, considerable attention has been paid to the concept of customer relationships orientation, especially in the service industry. Because service failures are unavoidable, when service failures happen, the relationships between customers and their service providers are susceptible to disruption and problems. A service provider will take the actions, known as service recovery, in response to a service failure. Some customers still remain lingering grievance, though encountering excellent service recoveries. Facing the competition, service providers must realize that the factors to elicit customer forgiveness are more crucial to restore the relationships than implementing recoveries. The study develops a model that addresses the following: (a) What factors may affect customer’s attitude to forgive? (b) Can a highly attitudes to forgive and empathy enhance customer forgiveness? (c) Do customer forgiveness and relationship quality influence brand trust after service failure? (d) To what extent do service recoveries moderate the relationship between customer forgiveness and its triggers? The model is operationized with data from online questionnaire asking customers to recall an actual service failure listed in the questionnaire they had recently experienced at a restaurant. Research methodology consists of LISREL and SPSS analysis with 259 valid samples. The results suggest that social influence and switching costs can enhance customer’s attitude to forgive. Also, highly attitudes to forgive and empathy would elicit customer forgiveness. Moreover, relationship quality enhances brand trust. However, customer forgiveness has no significant influence on brand trust and service recoveries have no moderation effect on customer forgiveness and its triggers.