The Effect of Interactional Fairness on Online Customers’ Trust after Recovery
(A2020-63443)

AUTHORS

Zonaib Tahir, IAE Lyon School of Management ; Kiane Goudarzi, IAE Lyon School of Management

KEYWORDS

Online service recovery; Interactional justice; Trust

ABSTRACT

The limited online service recovery research has produced contradictory recovery expectations without examining the effect of interactional justice on attitudinal outcomes. The aim of this research is to explore online customers’ circumstantial recovery expectations in terms of interactional and outcome justice, and subsequent assessment of the effect of interactional fairness on customers’ attitudes. 20 semi-structured interviews and an experimental study revealed that a lower value coupon, provided with a personalized message generates a higher trust. Moreover, a lower value coupon generates more satisfaction when sent with a personalized message compared to a high value coupon accompanied by a non-personalized response. Online firms would be better off by devising personalized responses to convey their concern and empathy instead of merely providing higher value coupons since our results suggest that online customers value interactional fairness more than the distributive justice.