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Consumer cheating on service guarantees

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Abstract

Fear of opportunistic customers is an important reason why firms are reluctant to implement service guarantees. This article empirically tests potential drivers of cheating. Potential material gain and repeat purchase intent were tested across three studies, whereas satisfaction, ease of invoking the guarantee, morality, shame, self-monitoring, and Machiavellianism were each tested in a subset of the three studies. The results for potential material gain and repeat purchase intent were consistent across all three studies: potential material gain had no effect on consumer cheating, but repeat purchase intent reduced that tendency. Other findings suggest that high levels of satisfaction, morality, and self-monitoring reduce cheating, whereas high levels of Machiavellianism increase cheating. Furthermore, two three-way interaction effects were encountered. Specifically, Machiavellianism interacted with gain and ease of invocation, and with gain and repeat purchase intent. In both cases, individuals with high Machiavellianism took advantage of certain situational constellations.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National University of Singapore, Singapore

    Jochen Wirtz & Doreen Kum

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  1. Jochen Wirtz
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Jochen Wirtz (bizwirtz@nus.edu.sg) (Ph.D., London Business School) is an associate professor of marketing and academic director of the Asia-Pacific Executive MBA (APEX-MBA) Program, and academics co-director of the UCLA-NUS Executive MBA Program at the NUS Business School, National University of Singapore. His research focuses on service managementrelated issues including service guarantees, customer satisfaction, customer feedback systems, and revenue management. His recent work has been published in theCornell HRA Quarterly, theJournal of Business Research, theInternational Journal of Service Industry Management, theJournal of Consumer Psychology, theJournal of Retailing, theJournal of Services Marketing, andPsychology and Marketing. He is also a coauthor of the fifth edition ofServices Marketing (with Christopher Lovelock, Prentice Hall) andServices Marketing in Asia—Managing People, Technology and Strategy (with Christopher Lovelock and Hean Tat Keh, Prentice Hall). In recognition of his excel-lence in instruction, he has received several teaching awards, including the university-level Outstanding Educator Award 2003, the business school-level Outstanding Educator Award 2002, and the Award for Excellence in Instruction from the MBA Alumni. Outside academia, he has been an active management consultant working with a number of consulting firms in Asia and Europe, including Accenture, Arthur D.Little, and KPMG.

Doreen Kum (doreenk@nus.edu.sg) is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Marketing, NUS Business School, National University of Singapore. Her research focuses on consumer behavior issues such as categorization and branding strategies, as well as service guarantees. Her research has been published in theGeneral Management Review andJournal of Services Marketing.

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Wirtz, J., Kum, D. Consumer cheating on service guarantees. JAMS 32, 159–175 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1177/0092070303261416

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