Highly Recommended? How Relation-Specific Attachment Styles Bias Customers Willingness to Recommend
| Autor: | Jelle Bouma, Willem Verbeke, Linda Teunter, Maarten Gijsenberg, Larissa M. E. Hendriks |
|---|---|
| Přispěvatelé: | Research Programme Marketing |
| Jazyk: | angličtina |
| Rok vydání: | 2020 |
| Předmět: |
Mediation (statistics)
willingness to recommend INTENTIONS SATISFACTION media_common.quotation_subject lcsh:BF1-990 relation specific and general attachment styles MODELS CONSUMERS Word of mouth Affect (psychology) 050105 experimental psychology 03 medical and health sciences 0302 clinical medicine WORD-OF-MOUTH Attachment theory Psychology 0501 psychology and cognitive sciences anxious attachment style Marketing RELATIONSHIP QUALITY Tertiary sector of the economy General Psychology media_common Original Research business.industry 05 social sciences avoidant attachment style CLOSE RELATIONSHIPS Service provider appraisal bias of customer experience ANTECEDENTS lcsh:Psychology Willingness to recommend TRUST business COMMITMENT 030217 neurology & neurosurgery Reputation |
| Zdroj: | Frontiers in Psychology, 11:1311. Frontiers Media SA Frontiers in Psychology Frontiers in Psychology, Vol 11 (2020) |
| ISSN: | 1664-1078 |
| Popis: | Recently concepts from attachment theory are being applied to business situations. In this paper we focus on how relationship specific (RS) versus general (G) attachment styles affect the willingness-to-recommend (WtR) by customers. Such WtR refers to the likelihood of customers to recommend the services of their service provider to other customers, based on their experiences with the provider. This WtR is often measured by means of the Net Promoter Score (NPS) which is assumed to be a reliable (credible) market signal as it originates from customers themselves and not from the firm. This study provides insights in this issue using data from 798 members of an online panel from the Netherlands, covering four service industries. Customers are surveyed on their RS and G attachment styles, trust in, satisfaction with, and commitment to their service provider, as well as their WtR this provider. Findings emerge from econometric parallel mediation analyses. This study shows that customers' RS but not the G attachment styles bias their appraisal of trust in, satisfaction with and commitment to the service provider, which in turn affects their WtR. More specifically, across the four service industries, customers scoring higher on RS anxiety and/or avoidance show systematically lower levels of trust in and satisfaction with, and commitment to the firm, ultimately leading to lower WtR. Firms should especially target those customers that score higher on RS avoidance (possibly in combination with higher levels of RS anxiety) as their WtR is strongly biased which might create uncertainty for other customers about the firm's reputation. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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