Abstract
Understanding negative customer engagement is as important as positive customer engagement. This study aims to investigate determinants and process of negative customer engagement behaviors. Negative service quality disconfirmation and justice are proposed to be determinants of negative customer engagement behaviors that are examined in a process, including complaining, negatively engaged complaining, disengaged behavior, switching and negative word-of-mouth. Survey data collected from 404 respondents experiencing negative critical incidents in a service context was used to test the conceptual model. The data was analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling. Bootstrapping approach in SPSS Macro PROCESS was employed to test the process of negative customer engagement behaviors. The results show that negative disconfirmation positively affects complaining while perceived injustice does not result in complaining. The findings support two processes of negative customer engagement behaviors: (1) Complaining → Negatively Engaged Complaining → Switching → Negative word-of-mouth; and (2) Complaining → Disengaged behavior → Switching → Negative word-of-mouth. This result provides empirical evidence of the dynamic nature of customer engagement. Understanding how negative customer engagement behaviors occur enables management to have appropriate strategies to prevent the development of negative customer engagement behaviors.
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Do, D.K.X., Rahman, K., Robinson, L. (2022). Determinants and Process of Negative Customer Engagement Behaviors. In: Pantoja, F., Wu, S. (eds) From Micro to Macro: Dealing with Uncertainties in the Global Marketplace. AMSAC 2020. Developments in Marketing Science: Proceedings of the Academy of Marketing Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89883-0_112
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