If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix It? Understanding How an Inertia Mindset Mitigates the Effect of Service Failure on Customer Defection
(A2023-114287)

AUTHORS

Tobias Marx, Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf

ABSTRACT

Implementing a customer relationship management (CRM) process can significantly improve a company’s economic performance. However, the CRM process-economic performance link can be jeopardized by various moderating factors such as service failure. Against this background, the present study seeks to answer the question of whether a customer’s inertia mindset can mitigate the effect of service failure on customer defection. To do this, we carried out an online survey including a one-factor between-subjects experimental design among 442 video streaming service customers. The results show that a customer’s inertia mindset not only directly decreases defection intention, but also acts as a moderator by reducing the impact of service failure on defection intention. This finding has important implications for researchers and practitioners, which are further explored in this study.