The role of cause and affect in service failureL. Jean Harri.docx

The role of cause and affect in service failure
L. Jean Harrison-Walker
University of Houston – Clear Lake, Houston, Texas, USA
Abstract
Purpose – The primary purpose of this paper is to explore the
role of emotions that consumers experience as a result of
assigning causal attributions to
service failures. The secondary purpose is to consider the
effects of each of these emotions on behavioral outcomes.
Design/methodology/approach – This paper extends the work of
Wetzer, Zeelenberg, and Pieters regarding emotions and draws
upon the existing
literature to present a series of research propositions tying
attributions to emotions and emotions to behavioral outcomes.
Findings – When a service failure occurs, customers experience
any of a variety of negative emotions. The particular emotional
reaction depends on
the customer’s perception of why the service failure occurred in
the first place. Behavioral outcomes associated with service
recovery therefore depend
directly on the negative emotion and indirectly on the
customer’s perception of the cause.
Practical implications – To the extent that marketing managers
can frame the cause of the service failure in their post-failure
communications,
recovery satisfaction may be increased leading, in turn, to more
positive customer response outcomes. The specific managerial
implications depend
upon the emotional response experienced by the customer.
Originality/value – Research to date looking at causal

attributions in service failure is limited to attributions based on
stability and controllability and
ties them to very few emotions; this paper identifies six
attributions and ties each to a specific emotion. The behavioral
outcomes of reconciliation and
share-of-wallet are added to the traditional outcomes of
repatronage intentions and negative word-of-mouth.
Keywords Service failures, Emotions, Causal attribution,
Behavioral outcomes, Share-of-wallet, Reconciliation,
Consumers
Paper type Conceptual paper
An executive summary for managers and executive
readers can be found at the end of this article.
Introduction
Failures in service transactions are unavoidable. No matter
how much effort the firm puts into service quality assurance,
it is not possible to entirely eliminate service errors. This is in
great part due to the simultaneous production and
consumption characteristic of services. To the extent that a
particular service is people-focused, errors are even more
likely to occur. When errors occur, customers experience one
of several negative emotions. More specifically, Wetzer et al.

(2007) identify six emotions that occur following a service
failure and empirically demonstrate that the content and
implications of behavioral outcomes (such as negative word-
of-mouth) are contingent on the specific emotion that the
customer experiences.
The primary purpose of this paper is to extend the work of
Wetzer et al. (2007) to explore the antecedents of the six
emotions by looking at causal attributions. Customers’
interpretations of the cause of the service failure are
attributions (Priluck and Wisenblit, 2009). Depending on
their attributions, customers are likely to respond differently
in terms of the emotions they experience as well as their
subsequent level of satisfaction with the recovery process.
Accordingly, the secondary purpose of this paper is to
consider the effects of the negative emotion on behavioral
outcomes.
This paper is presented in four parts. First, the literature
regarding emotions following service failure is reviewed.
Second, the literature relevant to causal attribution in service

failure is introduced and research propositions are set forth
regarding the relationship between specific attributions and
their resulting emotions. Third, the indirect effects of
attributions and the direct effect of emotions on behavioral
outcomes are explored. Finally, managerial implications and
directions for future research are identified.
Service failure and emotional response
Scholars tend to define a service failure as a situation where a
service provider does not meet customer expectations in terms
of its service products or engages in service behaviors that
customers evaluate as unsatisfactory (Lin, 2006).
Accordingly, the definition itself suggests two forms of
service encounter failures: outcome-oriented and process-
oriented (Bitner et al., 1990; Hoffman et al., 1995;
Keaveney, 1995; Mohr and Bitner, 1995). Outcome-
oriented service failure involves what customers actually
receive from the service, whereas process-oriented failure
relates to the manner in which the service is delivered

(Gronroos, 1988; Parasuraman et al., 1985). As further
explained by Smith et al. (1999), outcome-orientated service
failures are the result of a business’s failure to realize or
accomplish the most fundamental or core services required of
the business; and process-oriented service failures result from
flaws of the core service process carried out by the service
provider or faults in specific areas. When the service outcome
and/or service process fails to meet customer expectations, a
service failure is said to occur.
The way in which individuals evaluate the service failure
generates an emotional response (del Rio-Lanza et al., 2009;
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is
available at
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Journal of Services Marketing
26/2 (2012) 115–123
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited [ISSN 0887-6045]
[DOI 10.1108/08876041211215275]
115

Folkes et al., 1987). Chebat and Slusarczyk (2005) further
argue that not only do individuals experience emotions, they
also engage in behaviors consistent with the impressions and
feelings they experience with the service recovery. Thus,
emotions clearly play an important role in consumers’
evaluations of service recovery encounters (del Rio-Lanza
et al., 2009). Although del Rio-Lanza et al. (2009) examine
antecedents to the emotional reactions to service failure (in
the form of perceived injustice), they measure emotional
reactions as a composite of three negative emotions (anger,
offense, and disappointment) rather than examining specific
emotional reactions. In their study of service failure, Folkes
et al. (1987) only consider the single emotion of anger. While
anger is certainly the emotion experienced by many
customers, other emotional responses are also possible.
In their empirical investigation, Wetzer et al. (2007) identify
six emotions experienced by customers following a service
failure. These emotions include anger, frustration, irritation,

disappointment, regret, and uncertainty. Anger is defined as
an emotion that occurs when a negative experience “is
occasioned by the actions of another person, actions which
are appraised by the angry individual as unjustified or at least
unavoidable” (Averill, 1982, p. 129). Frustration occurs when
events put the attainment of a goal or need satisfaction out of
reach, delaying its attainment, or requiring additional effort
(Scherer, 2001). Frustration occurs when the negative event is
seen as environmentally caused, while anger occurs when the
event is seen as caused by others (Roseman and Smith, 2001).
Irritation differs from anger in that it is less intense (Banse
and Scherer, 1996). Disappointment is an emotion that is
experienced when something positive was expected but did
not occur (Van Dijk et al., 1999). Regret is an emotion
experienced when one realizes or imagines that the present
situation would have been better had s/he decided differently
(Zeelenberg, 1999). Finally, uncertainty refers to situations in
which people are unsure how to interpret the situation or how

to respond (Wetzer et al., 2007).
While several authors stress that consumer’s emotions
during service recovery influence their service recovery
satisfaction (del Rio-Lanza et al., 2009; Menon and Dube,
2004; Schoefer and Ennew, 2005; Smith and Bolton, 2002),
researchers have yet to investigate the relationship between
attributions and the various emotional responses that may
occur.
Causal attribution and service failure
When customers have unanticipated experiences with
products or services, the general tendency is for the
customer to want to determine the reason for what
happened (Folkes et al., 1987). Customers’ interpretations
of the cause of the service failure are attributions (Priluck and
Wisenblit, 2009). An attribution is “the act of ascribing an
effect to a particular source or cause” (Jolibert and Peterson,
1976, p.447). As several researchers suggest, attribution
theory provides a useful framework for examining customers’

reactions to service failure (Bettman, 1979; Folkes et al., 1987;
Richins, 1983; Valle and Wallendorf, 1977):
Depending on their attributions, customers are likely to respond
differently
to service deficiencies in terms of their subsequent attitudes and
behavior
(Priluck and Wisenblit, 2009, p. 366).
Thus, service failure attribution is a valid construct to include
in the service recovery model.
In an empirical study of the impact of attributions on
service recovery satisfaction, Priluck and Wisenblit (2009)
consider only the extent to which the customer feels the
service failure was or was not controllable by the service
provider. Folkes et al. (1987) limit their study of attributions
to two issues: controllability and stability. For example, flight
delays at an airport caused by fog are considered
uncontrollable while delays that result from the airline
trying to sell more tickets is deemed controllable
(Folkes et al., 1987). With regard to stability, continual
understaffing is a more stable situation than a temporary

shortage of help (Folkes et al., 1987).
This paper argues that attributions of service failure may
not be limited to just controllability and stability. In other
words, there may be many reasons for the occurrence of a
service failure and each of these attributions may elicit
different emotions on the part of the customer. It is this
association between the specific attribution and its
consequent emotional response that is the subject of this
paper.
When a service failure is interpreted as being controllable
by the service provider, deliberate and unjustified, the
customer is likely to experience anger. Folkes et al. (1987)
(see also Bonifield and Cole, 2007) report empirical findings
that controllability increases anger and this leads to the first
research proposition:
P1. When customers consider the cause of a service failure
to be controllable, deliberate and unjustified, they
experience anger.
Frustration occurs when events put the attainment of a goal

or need satisfaction out of reach, delaying its attainment, or
requiring additional effort (Scherer, 2001). Customers are
more likely to feel frustrated when they perceive the service
failure to be a result of incompetence or poor training. For
example, when customers are checking out at the grocery
store, their goal is to be able to safely transport their
purchases home in the car and be able to unpack their grocery
bags in an efficient manner. The customer who finds that the
grocery bagger has placed meat in the same bag as fresh
produce, or placed heavy items in with the bread such that the
loaf of bread becomes deformed, will become frustrated by
the apparent lack of training provided by the grocery store to
its baggers. There is an element of sympathy for the bagger
who does not seem to know any better. Therefore it is difficult
to experience full-fledged anger. Rather, the less intense
emotion of irritation is more probable.
In another example, a customer may schedule an
appointment to have work done on his/her car only to find

out that the mechanic failed to order the parts required
necessitating a second appointment to complete the repairs.
Since the mechanic knew the type of repair needed as well as
the make, model and year of the car, the parts should have
been ordered in advance of the appointment. This type of
service failure may be attributed to incompetence, and
requires additional effort on the part of the consumer to bring
the car back to the mechanic a second time. In this example,
incompetence on the part of the mechanic serves to frustrate
the customer:
Volume 26 · Number 2 · 2012 · 115 – 123
116
to result from incompetence or poor training, they

experience frustration.
Although the emotion of irritation is not well defined in the
literature (Wetzer et al., 2007), it is considered a lesser form of
anger that is more closely associated with suddenness and
familiarity (Scherer, 2001). The Free Dictionary (n.d.)
defines irritation variously as an annoyance or a bother;
arousing impatience; or a disturbance especially by minor
causes. Irritation would be more probable when the service
failure is deemed to be caused by an accident. In one
example, a customer calls to have a new gas log set installed
into a residential fireplace. The technicians very carefully lay
out a fireproof blanket to protect the carpeting in the home
from soot or heat damage. However, when the heated grate
has to be removed and replaced to complete the installation a
burn mark makes its way through the blanket despite the best
efforts on the part of the technician. This failure did not result
from incompetence or poor training; it was a sudden and
unexpected occurrence for which the technician was

immediately apologetic. Despite the apology and the
promise to remedy the situation, the customer is
understandably irritated:
to have happened by accident, they experience
irritation.
Disappointment is an emotion that is experienced when
something positive was expected but did not occur
(Van Dijk et al., 1999). Customer expectations are beliefs
about a product or service, which are used by the customer as
a point of reference (Olson and Dover, 1979). There is a
general consensus that consumers use expectations as a
standard against which their subsequent experiences are
compared (Zeithaml et al., 1993). Bebko et al. (2006) argue
that a key determinant of a consumer’s level of expectations is
the collective service promises of the service organization,
both implicit as well as explicit. Implicit promises include cues
such as price and the tangible elements associated with the

service, whereas explicit promises are made by the service
organization through personal and non-personal statements
(Bebko et al., 2006). Considering explicit promises
specifically, Fabien (1997) suggests that a “promise” may be
expressed as a formal commitment that is verifiable by the
customer, states the service norms that the customer can
expect, and sometimes includes an explicit guarantee. By and
large, promises are conveyed to the target clientele through
the mass media, direct mail or point-of-purchase advertising
(Fabien, 1997). Fabien (1997) offers the following example of
a failed service promise that leads to customer
disappointment: a Canadian airline attracted customers by
promising “gastronomic” meals on its flights; economy-class
passengers who were expecting a top quality meal were
understandably disappointed.
Another example is a customer who goes to a beauty salon
to have her hair highlighted. The beautician promises that the
highlights will be somewhat noticeable under normal lighting
and quite apparent in the sunlight. When the service is

completed, the customer is disappointed to find that the
highlights are barely evident under any lighting. The service in
this case was over-promised:
to result from mis-advertising or over-promising on the
part of the service provider, they experience
disappointment.
As explained by Zeelenberg and Pieters (2004),
disappointment is felt when actual service delivery violates
prior held expectations, whereas regret is typically felt
following a bad choice of service provider (i.e. when it turns
out that a foregone provider would have delivered a better
service). Regret is an emotion experienced when one realizes
or imagines that the present situation would have been better
had he/she decided differently (Zeelenberg, 1999). Service
customers feel regret when they take responsibility for having
made a choice of a service provider that they know may be
right for some people, but not for themselves. They feel the
service was poor from their own perspective, but not
necessarily from someone else’s perspective. They feel they
should have known better.
An example of service failure where a customer may feel
regret would be an instance where a customer goes to a
seafood restaurant only to find enchiladas on the menu. The
customer waivers between staying with the restaurant
specialty (e.g. seafood) and ordering the enchiladas (which
suddenly sound appealing). The customer enjoys good
Mexican food and has not had enchiladas in quite some
time. Against better judgment, the customer orders the
enchiladas and regrets the decision. The enchiladas are simply

not on par with what the customer is accustomed to having at
Mexican restaurants. The enchiladas might be fine for people
who seldom order enchiladas and have little basis for
comparison, but they are not acceptable for someone
familiar with real Mexican food:
to result from their own poor decision in terms of
provider selection, they experience regret.
Finally, uncertainty refers to situations in which people are
unsure how to interpret the situation or how to respond
(Wetzer et al., 2007). Uncertainty is an emotion most closely
associated with services that are high in credence qualities.
Darby and Kami (1973, p. 68) define credence attributes
“those [attributes] which, although worthwhile, cannot be
evaluated in normal use.” Unless a consumer is an expert in
the particular service, there is no way to evaluate the credence
attributes directly (Taylor and Miyazaki, 1995).
Consider the example where a client hires an attorney for
representation at trial. If the verdict is a clear victory for the
client, the client is unlikely to feel that a service failure
occurred. However, anything less than a clear victory means
the client walks away from the trial feeling uncertain about the
outcome. Losing even a small amount at trial means less than
total satisfaction with the outcome. In these instances, service
failure is not “all or nothing.” Service failure may occur to
varying degrees and it is the extent of the service failure that is
difficult to assess. The question that continues to nag the
client is: did the attorney do an outstanding job given the
particulars of the case, or could the attorney have handled the
case better? The client will probably never know for certain.
A similar situation occurs when a person hires an
accountant to prepare the annual income tax filing. The

result of the tax preparation is generally that the individual
owes money to the IRS or that a refund is due. In either case,
the client is likely to be unsure about the outcome. If a refund
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117
is due, the individual has no idea if all deductions were taken
and therefore whether or not the refund could be larger. If a
payment is due, the client has no idea if all deductions were
taken and therefore whether the amount due could be lower.
Again, the client may never know for certain, barring an audit
initiated by the IRS.
There are also instances of service failure where customers
have no idea why the failure occurred and therefore do not
know how to attribute the cause. In such a case, customers are
left feeling rather bewildered, not knowing quite how to feel.
Should they be angry? Disappointed? Frustrated? Without
some idea as to the cause, the customer is left in a state of
uncertainty:
P6. When customers have difficulty identifying the cause
or extent of a service failure because they are not

equipped to interpret the service situation either as a
result of lacking the knowledge to do so or due to the
nature of the service being high in credence qualities,
they experience uncertainty.
The effect of attributions and emotional response
on behavioral outcomes
In marketing, the few available studies support the idea that the
specific
emotion that is experienced by consumers affects their
subsequent behaviors
(Wetzer et al., 2007, p. 663).
For example, anger is associated with negative word-of-
mouth, while sadness is not (Nyer, 1997). Given that a
customer may experience any of six different emotions
following a service failure, it would be important to marketers
to know which emotions result from which attributions and
how behavioral outcomes are affected by each of these
emotions. Accordingly, distinguishing between specific
emotions seems to be important in gaining deeper insights
into the behavioral outcomes (see Wetzer et al., 2007).
The marketing literature to date typically investigates two
behavioral outcomes of service recovery: repatronage
intentions and negative word-of-mouth. From a strategic
perspective, the outcome of repatronage intentions is
problematic. Repatronage intentions are generally measured
as a customer’s intention to do business with the service

organization again in the future (see Blodgett et al., 1993).
Accordingly, repatronage intentions do not differentiate
between a customer’s intent to make one additional
purchase from the company and several additional
purchases. Accordingly, the current research proposes that
two additional behavioral outcomes be included in the
services recovery model: reconciliation and share of wallet.
Reconciliation
While the service recovery literature identifies repatronage
intentions as a customer response outcome, this simply means
the intent to make another purchase from the service provider
(see Blodgett et al., 1993). Repatronage intentions are not the
same as the intention to remain in an ongoing, committed
relationship with the service provider, although certainly an
additional purchase would represent the initial step in a
continuing relationship. It would seem reasonable to expect
that reconciliation might be added to the service recovery
model as a consequence of repatronage intentions. Arguably,
reconciliation would be a far more important outcome to
service marketers than simple repatronage intentions.
Share of wallet
Interestingly, a customer may attempt reconciliation even
while still strongly feeling anger or resentment
(Aquino et al., 2006). This might occur if the victim finds it
expedient or beneficial to maintain a relationship.

Alternatively, a wronged customer may choose not to
remain in an ongoing committed relationship, yet may
intend to make one or more future purchases from the
company. To better assess the damage done by the service
provider’s transgression, it may be worthwhile to determine
how much future purchases may be impacted by those who
intend to make at least one future purchase. Accordingly, an
additional outcome to include in the model would be change
in share of wallet. Typically, consumers’ share of spending
across a broad range of business sectors is measured as the
share of purchases customers provide to a particular brand in
the category over a fixed period (Cunningham, 1956;
Jones and Sasser, 1995; Zabin and Brebach, 2004).
Effects of specific emotions on behavioral outcomes
The first three emotions (anger, frustration, and irritation) are
conceptually related (Wetzer et al., 2007). However, they are
“potentially different in terms of their behavioral
implications” (Wetzer et al., 2007, p. 668). Although anger
and frustration are similar they can result from differing
root causes and can also cause different responses;

frustration rarely causes such a profound effect as anger,
nor is it considered to be as strong an emotion
(AngerManagementExpert, n.d.). Of the three, irritation is
the lowest form of anger (see Banse and Scherer, 1996;
Scherer, 2001). Irritation is defined more as an annoyance.
Most of the research to date has focused on the highest
intensity emotion of anger. For example, empirical evidence
demonstrates that angry customers are likely to complain,
exhibit negative repurchase intentions (Folkes et al., 1987;
Kalamas et al., 2008) and spread negative word of mouth
(Bougie et al., 2003; Maute and Dubé, 1999). Since
reconciliation represents the longer term effects of
repatronage intentions and share of wallet reflects the
volume of repatronage, reconciliation and share of wallet
should be effected in the same manner as repatronage. With
regard to negative word-of-mouth, Wetzer et al. (2007) report
that consumers who experience any of the three emotions of
anger, frustration or irritation are likely to spread negative
word-of-mouth to some extent.
In summary, we expect the three emotions of anger,
frustration and irritation to have a negative effect on
repatronage intentions, share of wallet, and reconciliation.

We further expect the three emotions to positively impact
negative word-of-mouth. However, since frustration and
irritation are lesser forms of anger, we expect frustration
and irritation to affect the four outcomes to a lesser degree
(see Figure 1). In other words:
P7. Anger, frustration and irritation all serve to decrease
repatronage intentions, decrease share of wallet,
decrease reconciliation, and increase negative word of
mouth, with anger having the greatest effect of the
three emotions and irritation having the least effect.
The fourth emotion in this study is regret. Zeelenberg and
Pieters (2004) empirically demonstrate that regret promotes
switching and word-of-mouth (see also Zeelenberg
et al., 2001). They explain that this finding is consistent
Volume 26 · Number 2 · 2012 · 115 – 123
118

with the fact that the experience of regret implies that the
customer made a poor decision as to service provider
selection and felt another alternative would have been a
wiser choice (Zeelenberg and Pieters, 2004). Accordingly,
customers will likely switch to the alternative provider the
next time they need that type of service (Zeelenberg and
Pieters, 2004). Switching behavior is essentially the opposite
of three of the outcomes identified in this paper; therefore, we
can expect that regret reduces repatronage intentions,
reconciliation and share of wallet yet increases negative
word-of-mouth.
Disappointment differs from regret in that it is felt in
situations where others are responsible for the bad experience
(e.g. Zeelenberg et al., 1998). Zeelenberg and Pieters (2004)
find a significant relation between disappointment and
switching. The rationale is that disappointment causes
customers to try to do better next time or to refrain from

the service altogether. Accordingly, we expect disappointment
to reduce repatronage intentions, reconciliation and share of
wallet.
Zeelenberg and Pieters (2004) and Zeelenberg et al. (2001)
further report that disappointment promotes word-of-mouth
communications. The authors explain that this finding is
consistent with WOM being a venting mechanism and a
means to gain sympathy from others (Zeelenberg and Pieters,
2004).
These findings beg the question of whether regret or
disappointment would have a greater impact on the outcome
variables. The data reported by Zeelenberg and Pieters
(2004) reflect that regret has a greater negative effect on
repatronage intentions, share of wallet, and reconciliation
than disappointment. When customers experience regret, it
suggests that an alternative was recognized and explicitly
considered before a selection was made; therefore, the
customer can react rather quickly by switching over to the
alternative that in hindsight was deemed to be the better

selection. With disappointment, this is not necessarily the
case. Customers may not be aware of alternatives and
therefore their intentions to switch (to whom?) may not be as
strong:
P8. Regret will have a greater negative effect on
repatronage intentions, share of wallet, and
reconciliation than disappointment.
The data reported by Zeelenberg and Pieters (2004) also
show that disappointment has a greater positive effect on
negative word-of-mouth. When customers experience regret it
was due to their own poor decision and therefore they may be
more reluctant to tell others about the experience. When
customers are disappointed, it is due to over-promising on the
part of the service provider and the customer may be quick to
tell others in an effort to warn them of the false claims.
Therefore, we expect a greater positive effect of
disappointment on negative word-of-mouth compared to
regret (see Figure 2):

P9. Disappointment will have a greater positive effect on
negative word-of-mouth than regret.
The sixth emotion considered in the present study is that of
uncertainty. Customers feel that perhaps a service failure has
occurred, but have difficulty identifying the cause or extent of
the service failure because they are not equipped to interpret
the service situation. This may be because they lack the
knowledge to do so or because of the nature of the service
being high in credence qualities. With this emotion, the effects
on repatronage, share of wallet and reconciliation may be
insignificant since the customer is not able to discern whether
or not there was a failure and has little to no practical basis for
comparison among alternative service providers. In this state
of uncertainty, the customer is in no position to communicate
negatively to others about the service. The likelihood of
switching to an alternative provider and then later engaging in
negative word-of-mouth may occur if another provider can
convince them that the service they received was sub-par.

Therefore, the effect of uncertainty on repatronage, share of
wallet and reconciliation may be negative, but insignificant,
while the effect on word-of-mouth may be positive but
insignificant:
P10. Uncertainty has a negative yet insignificant effect on
repatronage, share of wallet and reconciliation, and a
positive yet insignificant effect on negative word-of-
mouth.
Figure 1 Relative effects of anger, frustration and irritation on
behavioral outcomes
Figure 2 Relative effects of disappointment and regret on
behavioral
outcomes
Volume 26 · Number 2 · 2012 · 115 – 123
119
Managerial implications

When a service failure occurs, customers experience any of a
variety of negative emotions. The particular emotional
reaction depends on the customer’s perception of why the
service failure occurred in the first place. Behavioral outcomes
associated with service recovery therefore depend directly on
the negative emotion and indirectly on the customer’s
perception of the cause. To the extent that marketing
managers can frame the cause of the service failure in their
post-failure communications, recovery satisfaction may be
increased leading, in turn, to more positive customer response
outcomes.
When a service failure occurs, the provider needs to initiate
a response that reflects considerable care and effort on the
part of the service provider. For example, a longer more
detailed letter of apology would be better received than a
short, scripted response. In its communications, the provider
needs to explain the reason for the service failure. According
to the current research, the best-case scenario is if the service

failure was simply the result of an accident. Although the
customer may experience a sense of annoyance or irritation,
the impact on behavioral outcomes will be minimal. The
company needs to explain and justify that the failure was in
fact an unavoidable mishap and that this occurrence is rare to
non-existent.
If the failure resulted from incompetence rather than from a
simple mishap, the customer will experience the slightly more
negative emotion of frustration. In this case, the organization
needs to clearly explain the reason for why the error occurred
as well as the steps the company is taking (such as additional
training or stricter product quality controls) to prevent the
error from recurring. Past findings have indicated that
providing a good explanation can reduce a customers’
dissatisfaction with unfavorable service experiences
(Bitner, 1990).
The strongest negative emotion of anger will be felt by the
customer who feels that the service failure was deliberate and
avoidable. If the error was in fact uncontrollable and

unavoidable, then the company needs to clearly explain the
situation to the customer and demonstrate that the service
failure was unavoidable. To the extent that the company is
successful with its explanations, customer anger may be
reduced or eliminated. Alternatively, by definition, if the error
was truly avoidable it indicates that the company has not
taken appropriate measures to ensure service quality. In truth,
this may be because the company has other priorities (cost
control, for example) that preclude greater service quality.
Such a company has two choices: make the appropriate
changes to improve service quality, or suffer the
consequences. In the long term, a service provider can
simply not afford the significant impact that customer anger
will have in terms of not wanting to do business again with the
provider (therefore a near total reduction in share of wallet
and unwillingness to reconcile the relationship) and the strong
inclination to tell others about the terrible service experience.
Even when service quality is important to the company,
poor service may still result from controllable factors causing

customers to become angry. Bougie et al. (2003, p. 390)
present empirical findings that “support the intuitive notion
that service providers should try to keep customers from
getting angry. However, the intangible and inseparable nature
of services will inevitably bring about anger at one time or
another, despite the best intentions of the service provider.”
When controllable service failure occurs, the first step is for
the company to recognize angry customer responses since this
provides an opportunity for the company to respond directly
(Bougie et al., 2003). Literature related to angry customers
emphasizes the importance of acknowledging what the
customer is saying and feeling before taking action
(e.g. Riley, 2002). Learning why the customer feels the
problem was controllable and intentional may lead to new
practices or procedures to prevent the problem from recurring
in the future.
Service failures that lead to disappointment on the part of
the consumer may be a function to some extent of the
company’s lack of clarity or detail in its communications. As

noted by Kopalle and Lehmann (2006), a key role of
advertising in terms of providing information is to set quality
expectations. While some companies under-play quality so
that customers will expect less and then be delighted by
having their expectations exceeded, many companies over-
play their quality to encourage initial trial (Kopalle and
Lehmann, 2006). Although organizations want to make
themselves look good in the eyes of the customer, over-
promising can prove to be a particularly harmful mistake.
Inflated expectations lead to dissatisfaction and decreased
future purchases (Kopalle and Lehmann, 2006).
Furthermore, the negative impact is greatly multiplied as
disappointed customers engage in negative word-of-mouth to
existing as well as prospective customers. Company
communications need to be reviewed to make sure the
company is not mis-advertising its services by comparing
expectations to actual performance (see Kopalle and
Lehmann, 2006), and once again operations need to be

reviewed to ensure the promised level of service quality in
terms of both product and process is being provided.
When it comes to regret, the company needs to consider
that the customer making the poor decision was not the
intended target audience in the first place and may be
considered a “wrong” customer for the business.
Communications by the company that clearly reflect the
target market should minimize the number of wrong
customers choosing a particular service provider. No service
operation should attempt to be all things to all people. There
will be occasions where a customer makes a poor decision and
is willing to take the responsibility for the service product or
process not matching expectations. The company should be
willing to let these customers go.
Finally, some customers who think they may have
experienced a service failure but are uncertain need to be
educated by the service provider regarding the specific steps
that were taken in terms of the service that was performed,
demonstrating that all possible avenues toward a better

outcome were exhausted, and explaining any external
restrictions on the potential outcome (what prevented a
total victory). Additionally, the provider should build
professional credibility with the client in terms of the
provider’s credentials and expertise in the service area so
that the client has greater confidence in the process and the
eventual outcome. If the service provider does not make the
effort to educate the customer in this manner from the
beginning, another service provider may be in an
opportunistic position to prey upon the customer’s
uncertainty and lure the customer away.
Volume 26 · Number 2 · 2012 · 115 – 123
120
In summary, this paper extended the work of

Wetzer et al. (2007) by exploring the antecedents of the six
emotions by looking at causal attributions. The paper then
suggests that depending on their attributions, customers are
likely to respond differently in terms of the emotions they
experience as well as their behavioral outcomes. Furthermore,
new outcome measures of reconciliation and share-of-wallet
are suggested for future research in service recovery. Armed
with a more complete understanding of how customers
respond to service failures, service marketers can better
promote desirable customer outcomes leading to improved
long term profitability.
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About the author
L. Jean Harrison-Walker, Professor of Marketing at the
University of Houston-Clear Lake, has published in
numerous academic journals including the Journal of Service
Research, the Journal of Services Marketing, the Journal of
Marketing Theory and Practice, the Service Industries Journal,
the Journal of Strategic Marketing, the Journal of Consumer
Marketing, Business Horizons, the Journal of Marketing for
Higher Education, the Journal of Quality Management, the
Journal of Marketing Channels, the Journal of Business-to-
Business Marketing, the Journal of International Business
Research, the International Journal of Nonprofit and Voluntary
Sector Marketing, the Journal of Education for Business, the
Academy of Marketing Studies Journal, the Journal of Applied
Business and Economics, Journal of Organizational Culture,
Communications and Conflict, the Journal of Business
Disciplines,
among others. Her primary research interests include services
marketing, marketing strategy, and relationship marketing.
L. Jean Harrison-Walker can be contacted at:
[email protected]
Executive summary and implications for
managers and executives
This summary has been provided to allow managers and
executives
a rapid appreciation of the content of the article. Those with a

particular interest in the topic covered may then read the article
in
toto to take advantage of the more comprehensive description of
the
research undertaken and its results to get the full benefit of the
material present.
According to Homer Simpson, trying is the first step to failure
and his advice to someone who has failed is simply this: “You
tried your best and failed miserably. The lesson is: never try.”
Fortunately for us Homer works in a fictitious nuclear plant
and not in a real-life service industry. Get things wrong for
customers to whom you are providing a service and you need
a different sort of philosophy. One that reflects considerable
care and effort. One that presumes trying is the first step to
satisfying the customer and that, if indeed you did try your
best and fail miserably, the lesson is to find out why, inform
the customer, try to ascertain their feelings and try to make
sure you do not fail again.
You probably will because failures in service transactions,
especially those which are people-focused, are unavoidable
and no matter how much effort the firm puts into service
quality assurance, it is not possible to entirely eliminate
service errors. When a service failure occurs, customers
experience any of a variety of negative emotions. The
particular emotional reaction depends on the customer’s
perception of why the service failure occurred in the first
place. Behavioral outcomes associated with service recovery

therefore depend directly on the negative emotion and
Volume 26 · Number 2 · 2012 · 115 – 123
122
indirectly on the customer’s perception of the cause. To the
extent that marketing managers can frame the cause of the
service failure in their post-failure communications, recovery
satisfaction may be increased leading, in turn, to more
positive customer response outcomes.
In “The role of cause and affect in service failure” L. Jean
Harrison-Walker explores the antecedents of six emotions
(anger, frustration, irritation, disappointment, regret and
uncertainty) by looking at causal attributions and also
considers the effects of the negative emotion on behavioral
outcomes.
The best case scenario is if the service failure was simply the
result of an accident. Although the customer may experience
a sense of annoyance or irritation, the impact on behavioral
outcomes will be minimal. The company needs to explain and
justify that the failure was in fact an unavoidable mishap and
that this occurrence is rare to non-existent. If the failure
resulted from incompetence, the customer will experience the
slightly more negative emotion of frustration. In this case,
the organization needs to clearly explain the reason for why

the error occurred as well as the steps it is taking (such as
additional training) to prevent it from recurring.
The strongest negative emotion of anger will be felt by the
customer who feels that the service failure was deliberate and
avoidable. If the error was in fact uncontrollable and
unavoidable, then the company needs to clearly explain the
situation to the customer and demonstrate that the service
failure was unavoidable. To the extent that the company is
successful with its explanations, customer anger may be
reduced or eliminated. Alternatively, by definition, if the error
was truly avoidable it indicates that the company has not
taken appropriate measures to ensure service quality. In truth,
this may be because the company has other priorities (cost
control, for example) that preclude greater service quality.
Such a company has two choices: make the appropriate
changes to improve service quality, or suffer the
consequences. In the long term, a service provider can
simply not afford the significant impact that customer anger
will have in terms of not wanting to do business again with the
provider and the strong inclination to tell others about the
terrible service experience.
Even when service quality is important to the company,
poor service may still result from controllable factors causing
customers to become angry. When controllable service failure
occurs, the first step is for the company to recognize angry

customer responses since this provides an opportunity for the
company to respond directly. It is important to acknowledge
what the customer is saying and feeling before taking action.
Service failures that lead to disappointment may be a
function to some extent of the company’s lack of clarity or
detail in its communications. While some companies under-
play quality so that customers will expect less and then be
delighted by having their expectations exceeded, many
companies over-play their quality to encourage initial trial.
Over-promising can prove to be a particularly harmful
mistake.
When it comes to regret, the company needs to consider
that the customer making the poor decision was not the
intended target audience in the first place and may be
considered a “wrong” customer for the business.
Communications by the company that clearly reflect the
target market should minimize the number of “wrong”
customers. There will be occasions where a customer makes a
poor decision and is willing to take the responsibility for the

service product or process not matching expectations. The
company should be willing to let these customers go.
(A précis of the article “The role of cause and affect in service
failure”. Supplied by Marketing Consultants for Emerald.)
Volume 26 · Number 2 · 2012 · 115 – 123
123
To purchase reprints of this article please e-mail:
[email protected]
Or visit our web site for further details:
www.emeraldinsight.com/reprints
For the final assignment, you may either write a critical essay
or write two critical response papers; produce a creative work.
Critical Essay (4-6 pages, 1800-2700 words) or Two Critical
Response Papers (2-3 pages 900-1350 words each). For this
assignment, you will have the opportunity to explore a film or
films we did not discuss in class that was produced within the
time span covered in our course (1895-early 60s). If you’re
finding it difficult thinking of which film to write about, you
could consider writing about a film or films made by one of the
movements, directors, or genres we’ve discussed in class, or
one that we haven’t.

YOU NEED TO TELL ME WHAT FILMS ARE YOU GOING
TO WRITE ABOUT!
Films watched:
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
Sunrise
Modern Times
It Happened One Night
Casablanca
Double Indemnity
Rear Window
Umberto D.
The purpose of this final writing assignment is to provide an
opportunity for you to refine your critical reception of a film
and to practice articulating your impressions and observations
in a formal manner. We’ve already started doing these things in
the critical responses and our class discussions, as I’ve asked
you questions that required critical inquiry into a film rather
than the mere regurgitation of its details. We will continue to
perform this kind of analysis throughout the class, as we will
focus on how particular technical details in the film’s
composition effectively conveyed a deeper meaning in the story
and its characters, and/or how they relate to the broader
sociological and historical context in which the film was
produced. For this assignment, I would like you to continue this
process by directing and crafting your own response to a film or
films into a critical essay or two critical response papers.
By critical essay, I simply mean an essay that presents an
argument that is supported by your close analysis of the parts of
the film that are most relevant to that argument. Put another
way, it is an essay assignment that is probably like the essays
you wrote in high school, in which you have an introduction
with a clearly defined thesis statement, followed by 3-4
paragraphs that prove this thesis statement. (Don’t worry about

a conclusion, which is usually superfluous or redundant
anyway.)
The critical response papers require less argumentation than a
critical essay. Nevertheless, you must articulate a point of view
that is not readily apparent in the film, based on your reaction
to it. One could say that it is like a more formal version of the
last question in the response pages, when I ask if you have any
other thoughts or observations, though this time it’s regarding a
film we have not screened and discussed in class. Here is a way
you can organize your response:
FIRST PARAGRAPH: Introduction of the film you’re analyzing
(title, director, storyline), concluding with a clear statement of
your reaction to it.
SECOND AND THIRD PARAGRAPH: Elaborate on this
reaction by citing an example from the film that provoked it. Be
as specific and detailed as possible in your description and
analysis of the example. If you want to investigate more than
one example from the film, then do so in a new paragraph.
That’s it. As for access to the film you choose, you can charge
the film out of the library, or out of one of the many
Philadelphia public libraries, or rent or stream through Netflix,
Hulu, youtube, archive.org, or rent it from your friendly
neighborhood video store (if they’re still around!).
Here are some other general things about the presentation and
execution of the essay:
1. The essay or response papers must meet the minimum
page/word requirement.
2. Use double-spaced 12-point type, one-inch margins, 1.5-
inch indent.
3. When describing what happens in a film, use the present
tense.
4. Italicize film titles.
5. Use characters’ names, not actors’ names. Can’t
remember? Try the International Movie Database
(http://us.imdb.com/search)
6. Assume the reader has seen the film you’re writing about,

therefore, do not summarize the film as a substitute for your
analysis of it –e.g., “It Happened One Night is about a wealthy
heiress, Ellie, who tries to escape her father’s control, only to
encounter another father figure in Peter Warne. Ellie and Peter
first meet at a bus station. The friction between the two is clear
from the start,” and so on… Only summarize the scene or shot
you’re analyzing, so that it reminds the reader of that moment
in the film and clarifies the basis of your subsequent analysis.
In general, try your best to make sure that everything you write
is essential to the argument that you are trying to make.
7. Avoid clichés, such as “Psycho had audience at the edge of
their seats,” and colloquialisms, such as, “Stanley Kowalski was
pissed off at Blanche DuBois from day one, which is why he
sent her to the loony bin!!”
8. Make sure you check spelling, grammar, syntax, and
whether or not your paper makes any sense.
9. I will deduct points if the paper falls short in any of these
categories.
Please let me know if you have any questions. Good luck!

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