اقدام مقابله به مثل، مجازات و تاوان: بررسی مقابله به مثل مشتری

Customers, regardless of context or culture, will go to any extreme to retaliate against an offending service provider. Retaliation is an action taken in return for an injury or offense [Huefner, J.C. and H.K. Hunt, “Consumer retaliation as a response to dissatisfaction,” J Consum Satisf Dissatisfaction Complaining Behav, (2000); 13, 61–82.]. To date, research has had only a limited discussion of customer's use of anti-consumption behaviors as an expression of retaliation. This study uses qualitative methods to demonstrate that the motivations for retaliation extend beyond simply “getting even,” customers retaliate to teach the service provider a lesson or to save others from the same fate. The research identifies specific roles taken by customers as they retaliate, the emotions of customers and store issues that are at the root of these behaviors. In addition, the authors categorize a range of retaliatory behaviors as follows: cost/loss; consumption prevention; voice, exit and betrayal; and boycotting.

One day in 1997, Richard Hatch rode to his local Wal-Mart at 7 a.m. to be the first in line to buy a new batch of Tamagotchis — a popular Japanese electronic “pet”. During the purchase he got into a shouting match with a Wal-Mart employee and as a result was banned from the store. In retaliation, Hatch hired a Web design expert and launched Walmartsucks.com, a site devoted to attacking this retailer. The site became a popular public forum for disgruntled Wal-Mart customers and employees. Wal-Mart was so threatened by the site that its attorneys sent a letter to Hatch threatening “necessary action” unless the site was taken down within 48 hours. Hatch ignored the threat and the complaint site has since been used by millions and featured in the popular press. The success of Walmartsucks.com has inspired other disgruntled shoppers, and sparked the creation of a variety of brand and retailer complaint websites (www.businessweek.com/). While Hatch's retaliation was motivated by revenge, some customers engage in retaliatory behaviors for more noble reasons such as protecting others from harm. For example, a group of disgruntled business people retaliated against a hotel, whose night clerk gave away their guaranteed room reservation. The group retaliated by drafting a scathing PowerPoint presentation about their experiences. The presentation outlined the inadequacies of the frontline staff and the cost of not addressing this problem to the hotel management. When the business people sent the presentation to hotel management they also forwarded it to friends and relatives so that they would be protected from a similar fate (http://www.hyperorg.com). The presentation was spread virally throughout the Internet and was featured in several national publications and news outlets. These sorts of incidences demonstrate the damage an angry customer can inflict, and the importance of having corporate reputation strategies that manage retaliation — specifically Internet complaint sites (Bailey, 2004). Oftentimes scarcity prevents customers from ending their consumption practices; there are no alternatives, so they retaliate by making transactions difficult or costly. For example, a Brazilian man gained notoriety by retaliating against a store in Rio de Janeiro. Ernesto Do Couto waited in line for almost six hours to have his credit checked, only for it to be rejected. Mr. Couto then saved 32,052 coins over two years to pay for his next purchases at the shop. The transaction required 11 shop assistants and lasted three hours. After the incident Mr. Couto said “I spent two years putting all the coins together, it was a lot of work, but I feel that I've got my revenge now.” (http://www.int.iol.com.za). Customers, regardless of context or culture, will go to extremes to exact their revenge. Acts of anti-consumption and the solicitation of social support are the key tools used in retaliation. This behavior is done by the withholding of consumption, the seeking of unlimited amounts of social support through negative word of mouth, and/or the creation of public displays of protest. These incidences also show that the motives for retaliation go beyond simply getting even. Acts of customer retaliation are somewhat common. Customer/employee altercations comprise thirty percent of workplace violence incidents according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (www.crimelibrary.com). The stories cited earlier illustrate that customer retaliation can be damaging; therefore, it represents a significant threat to service providers. Given that customer retaliation can result in significant material loss, psychological damage to employees, or a thrashing of brand image (Fullerton and Punj, 1997; p. 336), further examination of this relationship is warranted. Retaliation typically occurs in response to a perceived injustice and is a way to restore one's sense of justice (Murphy, 1993). Retaliation can be fueled by a customer's lack of patience, dissatisfaction with a product or service, discourteous service from the provider, and/or mistakes or promises that are not kept (www.crimelibrary.com). While there has been some work on categorizing retaliatory behaviors, little is known about the motivations or cognitive processing that customers use to choose a particular behavior. Huefner and Hunt (2000) identify six categories for customer retaliation as a response to a dissatisfying service experience - cost/loss, vandalism, trashing, stealing, negative word of mouth, and personal attack (see Table 1). Table 1. Huefner and Hunt (2000) retaliatory behaviors Retaliatory behavior Definition Cost/loss A specific effort to cost the store money by creating extra work, spoiling products, placing false orders, etc. (p. 65) Vandalism The destruction or damage of something in order to “get back” at the business (p. 65) Trashing Making a mess by either dumping clothes or products on the floor, or making a mess in a restaurant (p.66) Stealing Taking a product without paying for it in order to “get back” at the business, not just to obtain the product for nothing (p. 66) Negative word of mouth Telling others of one's dissatisfactory experience (or some exaggerated version) with the intent to hurt the business. Stories do not represent mere warnings to others, the intent had to be clearly one to hurt the business (p. 67) Personal attack A specific effort to in some way hurt the salesperson or manager either through abusive language, negative feedback to supervisors, or physical aggression (p. 67) Table options The current research builds upon this prior work by looking at situational and emotional antecedents of retaliation and how these precursors affect the types of retaliatory behavior used by customers against service providers. This research will ultimately guide service providers to better anticipate and diminish either the occurrence, or the severity, of customer's retaliatory behaviors, in addition to calling on researchers to expand the range of emotions, behaviors, and intent considered when developing anti-consumption theory.

Customer retaliation is a deliberate response to unfair treatment and can have a detrimental effect on company goals. The stories/data of retaliation described in this research show that customers often use the ways in which they consume as a tool for retaliation. Customers will not just stop or slow their own consumption practices through boycotting, they will also engage in preventive consumption (i.e. actively preventing or impeding other customers from consuming a targeted product or service). Companies can avoid acts of retaliation if interactional justice is maintained throughout the front-line employee customer interface. Additionally, service providers should establish and communicate their procedures for managing key contact employees who provide poor customer service. Customers are less likely to engage in retaliatory behavior if they feel mechanisms are in place to punish offending employees (Aquino et al., 2006). Technology and the increasing competitiveness of the marketplace will further empower customers in the marketplace. More choices in service providers, purchasing power, and access to increasing amounts of social support will increase the possibility and range of customer retaliatory behaviors. Technology, particularly customer's access to the Internet, heightens the importance of researching the use of preventive consumption as a form of retaliation. Also, retaliation studied here was restricted to a brick and mortar context. Future work can look at how retaliation and anti-consumption behaviors manifest in computer mediated contexts. Most important to the field of anti-consumption however, are the findings which indicate that retaliation is deliberate and that customers often enact one of three roles when retaliating: avenger, altruist, or victim. Future research may wish to investigate how individual differences or contextual factors affect which roles customers adopt when retaliating.