The Way a Salesperson Manages Service Providers Influences Customers’ Anger About Problems

Abstract

Reprimands are a way for a salesperson to fulfill managerial responsibilities for quality control. Two experiments investigate the effect of a salesperson’s reprimand of an employee on customers’ feelings of anger after a service infraction. Study 1, which involved 77 undergraduate students in a between-subjects design, shows that compared to no reprimand, a reprimand by a salesperson of an offending employee reduces consumers’ anger toward the firm as well as consumers’ desire for revenge against the firm. We observe these effects because reprimands acknowledge that the customer has been harmed and move blame for the infraction away from the manager. Consistent with this interpretation, Study 2 shows that whereas a reprimand decreases the customer’s anger directed at the reprimanding manager, it fails to decrease anger directed at the offending employee. The exception to decreased customer anger at the manager is when the manager’s reprimand fails to acknowledge harm to the customer. Study 2 involved 91 undergraduate students in a between-subjects design. The experiments’ results have pragmatic implications for ways salespeople should manage subordinates while at the same time managing service recovery.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Steven Koppitsch

Steven Koppitsch (Ph.D. Candidate, University of Southern California), Instructor of Marketing, Bowling Green State University, [email protected].

Valerie S. Folkes

Valerie S. Folkes (Ph.D., University of California, Los Angeles), USC Associates Chair in Business Administration and Professor of Marketing, Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California, [email protected].

Deborah MacInnis

Deborah MacInnis (Ph.D., University of Pittsburgh), the Charles L. and Ramona I. Hilliard Professor of Business Administration and Professor of Marketing, Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California, [email protected].

Christine Porath

Christine Porath (Ph.D., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), Assistant Professor of Management, McDonough School of Business, Georgetown University, [email protected].