The Effects of Time on Customer Revenge and Avoidance:
An Examination in Online Public Complaining Contexts
Yany Grégoire
Thomas Tripp
Renaud Legoux
________________________________________________________________________
Yany Grégoire is Assistant Professor of Marketing at Washington State University, Thomas
Tripp is Full Professor of Management at Washington State University, and Renaud Legoux is
Assistant Professor of Marketing at HEC School of Management in Montreal. Address all
correspondence to Yany Grégoire, Department of Marketing, Washington State University, PO
Box 644730, Pullman, WA, 99164-4730, USA, phone: (509) 334-2781 or email:
ygregoire@wsu.edu.
1
EXTENDED ABSTRACT
The potential for customers to get even with service firms after a service failure has
grown exponentially with the advent of the Internet. As highlighted by Ward and Ostrom (2006),
disgruntled customers can develop their own anti-corporation websites to denounce firms’
misbehaviors. Based on a review of consumer advocacy websites (Yahoo! 2007), “homemade”
anti-corporation websites represent only the tip of the iceberg of online public complaining, a
phenomenon broadly defined as the act of using the Internet to publicly complain about a firm
(cf. Singh 1988). A vast array of online third-party organizations now offers preformatted
platforms that customers can use with even more convenience and at virtually no cost. As a
general purpose, this study examines the phenomenon of public complaining made via online
third-party organizations.
Online public complaining is intimately related to the notion of customer revenge,
defined as the actions taken by a customer to cause harm to a firm for the damages it has caused
(Bechwati and Morrin 2003). Given its managerial and financial implications (Luo 2006),
research on customer revenge has recently gained in popularity (Bechwati and Morrin 2003 and
2007; Grégoire and Fisher 2006 and 2008).
Although progress has been made concerning our comprehension of customer revenge, a
simple but important question still remains: How does customer revenge evolve over time? Does
it grow stronger, or does it fade away? Managers should have a special interest in this question,
because they need to know whether “online retaliators” will naturally reduce their vengeful
activities over time, or persist in their efforts.
Our research here fills this gap by examining the effects of time on customer revenge.
Moreover, we extend the revenge literature by incorporating another dimension reflecting a lack
2
of forgiveness, avoidance. In this study, we suggest that customers fail to forgive as long as they
stay motivated (a) to seek revenge against the firm, and (b) to avoid any form of interaction with
the firm (cf., McCullough and colleagues 1998; 2007). Overall, we posit that time has
differentiated effects on revenge versus avoidance.
Our hypotheses are tested with a longitudinal field study that was performed in
collaboration with two established online third-party organizations over a two-month period. The
study involves a series of four questionnaires that were administered at a regular interval of two
weeks (cf., McCullough, Root and Bono 2007). Our sampling frame was composed of customers
who made an online complaint at consumeraffairs.com (CA) or initiated a blog on ripoff_report.com (RR) in the 10 days preceding the first questionnaire. Initially, the sampling
frames were composed of 1,434 and 952 individuals for CA and RR, respectively, for an overall
sampling frame of 2,386. After the first wave, 431 participants completed the first survey, with
247 and 184 participants for RR and CA, respectively. For wave 1, the overall response rate was
of 18.1% -- 17.2% and 19.3% for CA and RR, respectively. The number of respondents
decreased by 131 between waves 1 and 2, by 85 between waves 2 and 3, and by 43 between
waves 3 and 4. Overall, 172 respondents completed the four phases of the survey, with 111 and
61 respondents for CA and RR, respectively.
The central question of this research has both theoretical and managerial implications,
and it can be formulated as follows: Do customers forgive firms over time? Our results suggest
that customers have difficulties forgiving firms after a service failure that led to an online public
complaining (see Figure 1). While customers lose their desire for revenge over time, which is
perhaps satisfied after their online actions, their desire for avoidance increases over time,
3
showing that they hold grudges. Overall, our results show little evidence that time would help the
restoration of a relationship as it was before the service failure episode.
FIGURE 1:
Changes in Revenge and Avoidance over Time (Observed Means)
6
5.5
5
Desire for
Avoidance (DA)
4.5
Desire for
Revenge (DR)
4
3.5
3
1
2
3
4
Time Period
Despite an unforgiving tendency, the decrease of a desire for revenge over time
constitutes encouraging news for managers. Let us remember that a desire for revenge is found to
be associated with online public complaining for help-seeking in this research, and that this
desire was found to be an important driver leading to harmful behaviors such as negative wordof-mouth, and vindictive complaining in previous research (Bonifield and Cole 2007). Compared
to the results reported in the case of intimate relationships (McCullough, Bono, and Root 2007),
the desire for revenge experienced by customers seems less sustainable. Overall, managers can
find some comfort in these findings. The use of revenge is very demanding for customers in
terms of time and emotional energy, and maintaining this response seems unproductive and
4
unnecessarily costly. Note that these findings provide an explanation about the disappearance
and lack of maintenance of many anti-corporation websites, after a given period of time (Ward
and Ostrom 2006).
Although the consequences of a desire for avoidance are arguably less spectacular than
those of revenge, they also come with costs that should not be underestimated by managers. In
light of the influential work on lifetime customer value, the definite loss of a customer patronage
can have non-negligible long-term financial repercussions (Luo 2007), especially in the case of
strong-relationship customers. In addition, the service paradox literature has highlighted the
importance of the recovery process through which a firm has the ability to create a renewed
sense of loyalty (Maxham and Netemeyer 2002). Based on this paradox, customers’ definite
withdrawal from the recovery process may constitute the loss of a firm’s last chance to restore a
valuable relationship.
5
REFERENCES
Aggarwal, Pankaj (2004), “The Effects of Brand Relationship Norms on Consumer Attitudes and
Behaviors,” Journal of Consumer Research, 31 (June), 87-101.
Anderson, James C. and David W. Gerbing (1988), “Structural Equation Modeling: A Review
and Recommended Two-Step Approach,” Psychological Bulletin, 103 (May), 411-423.
Aquino, Karl, Thomas M. Tripp, and Robert J. Bies (2001), “How Employees Respond to
Personal Offense: The Effects of Blame Attribution, Victim Status, and Offender Status on
Revenge in the Workplace,” Journal of Applied Psychology, 86 (February), 52-59.
----, Steven L. Grover, Barry Goldman, and Robert Folger (2003), “When Push Doesn’t Come to
Shove: Interpersonal Forgiveness in Workplace Relationships,” Journal of Management
Inquiry, 12 (September), 209-219.
Ariely, Dan (2007), “HBR Case Study: The Customers’ Revenge,” Harvard Business Review, 85
(December), 31-42.
Bechwati, Nada N. and Maureen Morrin (2003), “Outraged Consumers: Getting Even at the
Expense of Getting a Good Deal,” Journal of Consumer Psychology, 13 (4), 440-453.
---- and ---- (2007), “Understanding Voter Vengeance,” Journal of Consumer Psychology, 17
(4), 277-291.
Bies, Robert J., and Thomas M.Tripp (1996), “Beyond Distrust: Getting Even and the Need for
Revenge,” In Trust in Organizations, ed. Roderick M. Kramer, & Tom R. Tyler, Newbury
Park, CA: Sage Publications, 246-260.
Bitner, Mary Jo, Bernard H. Booms, and Mary S. Tetreault (1990), “The Service Encounter:
Diagnosing Favorable/Unfavorable Incidents,” Journal of Marketing, 54 (January), 71-84.
6
Bliese, Paul D. and Robert E. Ployhart (2002), “Growth Modeling Using Random Coefficient
Models: Model Building, Testing and Illustrations,” Organizational Research Methods, 5
(October), 362-387.
Bolton, Ruth N. and Katherine N. Lemon (1999), “A Dynamic Model of Customers’ Usage of
Services: Usage as an Antecedent and Consequence of Satisfaction,” Journal of
Marketing Research, 36 (May), 171-186.
Bonifield, Carolyn and Catherine Cole (2007), “Affective Responses to Service Failure: Anger,
Regret, and Retaliatory and Conciliatory Responses,” Marketing Letters, 18 (January), 8599.
De Wulf, Kristof, Gaby Oderkerken-Schröder and Dawn Iacobucci (2001), “Investment in
Consumer Relationships: A Cross-Country and Cross-Industry Exploration,” Journal of
Marketing, 65 (October), 33-50.
Douglas, Scott C. and Mark J. Martinko (2001), “Exploring the Role of Individual Differences in
the Prediction of Workplace Aggression,” Journal of Applied Psychology, 86 (August),
547-560.
Finkel, Eli J., Caryl E. Rusbult, Madoka Kumashiro and Peggy A. Hannon. (2002), “Dealing
with Betrayal in Close Relationships: Does Commitment Promote Forgiveness,” Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 82 (January), 956-974.
Folkes, Valerie S. (1984), “Consumer Reactions to Product Failures: An Attributional
Approach,” Journal of Consumer Research, 10 (March), 398-409.
Grégoire, Yany and Robert J. Fisher (2006), “The Effects of Relationship Quality on Customer
Retaliation,” Marketing Letters, 17 (January), 31-46.
7
---- and ---- (in press), “Customer Betrayal and Retaliation: When your Best Customers Become
your Worst Enemies,” Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, (Forthcoming).
Luo, Xueming (2007), “Consumer Negative Voice and Firm-Idiosyncratic Stock Returns,”
Journal of Marketing, 71 (July), 75-88.
Maxham, James G. III and Richard G. Netemeyer (2002), “A Longitudinal Study of
Complaining Customers’ Evaluation of Multiple Service Failures and Recovery Efforts,”
Journal of Marketing, 66 (October), 57-71.
McCullough, Michael E, K. Chris Rachal, Steven J. Sandage, Everett L. Worthington Jr., Susan
Wade Brown, and Terry L. Hight (1998), “Interpersonal Forgiving in Close Relationship:
II. Theoretical Elaboration and Measurement,” Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 75 (December), 1586-1603.
----, C. Garth Bellah, Shelley Dean Kilpatrick, Judith L. Johnson (2001), “Vengefulness:
Relationships with Forgiveness, Rumination, Well-Being, and the Big Five,” Personality
and Social Psychology Bulletin, 27 (May), 601-610.
----, Giacomo Bono, and Lindsey M. Root (2007), “Rumination, Emotion, and Forgiveness:
Three Longitudinal Studies,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92 (March),
490-505.
Podsakoff, Philip M., Scott B. MacKenzie, Jeong-Yeon Lee, and Nathan P. Podsakoff (2003),
“Common Method Biases in Behavioral Research: A Critical Review of the Literature
and Recommended Remedies,” Journal of Applied Psychology, 88 (October), 879-903.
Rindfleisch, Aric, Alan J. Malter, Shankar Ganesan, and Christine Moorman (in press), “CrossSectional versus Longitudinal Survey Research: Concepts, Findings, and Guidelines,”
Journal of Marketing Research, (Forthcoming).
8
Roehm, Michelle L. and Michael K. Brady (2007), “Consumer Responses to Performance
Failures by High-Equity Brands,” Journal of Consumer Research, 34 (December), 537545.
Singh, Jagdip (1988), “Consumer Complaint Intentions and Behavior: Definitional and
Taxonomical Issues,” Journal of Marketing, 52 (January), 93-107.
Smith, Amy K., Ruth N. Bolton, and Janet Wagner (1999), “A Model of Customer Satisfaction
with Service Encounters Involving Failure and Recovery,” Journal of Marketing Research,
36 (August), 356-372.
Sydell, Laura (2007), “On the Internet, Is Everyone an Expert?,” (accessed December 12, 2007),
[available at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15671312].
Tax, Stephen S., Stephen W. Brown and Murali Chandrashekaran (1998), “Customer
Evaluations of Service Complaint Experiences: Implications for Relationship Marketing,”
Journal of Marketing, 62 (April), 60-76.
Wade, Susan H. (1989), “The Development of a Scale to Measure Forgiveness,” Unpublished
Doctoral Dissertation, Fuller Theological Seminar, Pasadena, California.
Ward, James C, and Amy L. Ostrom (2006), “Complaining to the Masses: The Role of Protest
Framing in Customer-Created Complaint Web Sites,” Journal of Consumer Research, 33
(December), 220-230.
Yahoo! (2007), “Consumer Advocacy and Information in the Yahoo! Directory,” (accessed June
2, 2007) [available at http://dir.yahoo.com/Society_and_Culture/Issues_and_Causes].
9