Typically, Customer Satisfaction is Influenced by the Ind...

Typically, customer satisfaction is influenced by the individual’s prior experiences with the
service provider.There is some evidence to suggest that emotional bonding or relationship status
might make customers more lenient towards service providers in the case of service failures (e.g.
Mattila, 2004). On the other hand, researchers also argue that perceived losses arising from
service failures are highly detrimental among customers with high prior cumulative satisfaction
(Bitner et al., 1990; Bolton, 1998). Loyal customers might retaliate if they feel betrayed by aservice failure (Grégoire & Fisher, 2008). Conversely, customers with low levels of emotionalbonding might be highly “forgiving” as long as the service recovery is effectively handled(Mattila, 2004).Relationship status is indeed a concept that is closely related to fairness. For example,Aggarwal and Larrick (2012) introduce the notion of communal versus exchange relationshipsto the recovery literature. Communal and exchange relationships were first identified in theinterpersonal relationships literature (Clark, 1981; Clark & Mills, 1979; Clark, Mills & Corcoran,1989) but have also been applied to consumer contexts (Aggarwal, 2004; Goodwin, 1996;Johnson & Grimm, 2010; Wan et al., 2011). In communal relationships, members benefit fromeach other on the basis of needs or to demonstrate general concern for each other’s welfare(Clark, 1984). Conversely, in exchange relationships, members benefit from each other inresponse to specific benefits received in the past or expected in the future (Clark & Mills, 1979;Mills & Clark, 1982). Aggarwal & Larrick (2012) show that consumers who have a communalrelationship with a brand are more sensitive to interactional fairness under conditions of lowdistributive fairness while those who have an exchange relationship are more receptive whendistributive fairness is high.