Apology and Compensation: Impact on Customer Forgiveness and Negative Word-of-Mouth (WOM)

  • Resekiani Mas Bakar State University of Makassar, Faculty of Psychology
  • Nurul Hidayati State University of Makassar, Faculty of Psychology
  • Inastuti Retno Giffani State University of Makassar, Faculty of Psychology
DOI: https://doi.org/10.9744/jmk.21.1.%25p
Keywords: Apology, Compensation, Forgiveness, Negative Word-of-mouth, Service recovery strategy

Abstract

The service provider cannot totally guarantee the service process without any failure at all. This study aimed to measure the influence of service recovery strategy towards customer forgiveness and negative word-of-mouth (WOM) as the effect of service failure. Service recovery strategy was performed in three types of vignette: apology, compensation, and apology-compensation. Vignette was given to 94 participants who have encountered service of airline. The result of ANOVA showed that apology compensation achieved the highest score related to forgiveness. The interesting result of this study found that even the customers forgive the service provider due to the service failure they did, this cannot diminish the intention of negative WOM. This study offered an implication to the company in order to pay attention regarding the compensation and the spread of negative WOM to the other customers.

Author Biographies

Resekiani Mas Bakar, State University of Makassar, Faculty of Psychology
Industrial and Organizational Psychology
Nurul Hidayati, State University of Makassar, Faculty of Psychology
Industrial and Organizational Psychology
Inastuti Retno Giffani, State University of Makassar, Faculty of Psychology
Industrial and Organizational Psychology

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Published
2019-05-02
Issue
Vol 21 No 1 (2019): MARCH 2019
Section
Articles

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