After-Sale Service Failures and Their Influence on Customer Behaviour with Reference to Home Appliances

Title

After-Sale Service Failures and Their Influence on Customer Behaviour with Reference to Home Appliances

Creator

Rajni, Gupta

Contributor

R,Sreedhara

Description

There are continuous technological advancements, and home appliance manufacturers have developed innovative products that make customer's life effortless. The increase in the purchasing power of the customers made the industry more competitive and put an extra burden on the manufacturers to adopt new technologies that help customers solve their problems and fulfil their needs. Firms face problems and challenges in the form of after-sale service failures. After-sale services are an integral part of home appliance products, and the companies can not avoid these while serving the customers. Although the after-service structure is rich in empirical studies on different service sectors like information technology, after-sale service failure, and consumer behaviour modelling in the home appliance have not been adequately investigated in Indian services. Previous researches have relied on understanding the services and their relation to either satisfaction or loyalty. Thus, they have been unable to disentangle the phenomenon of unfavourable reactions after an after-sale service failure from satisfaction and dissatisfaction. After-sale service is an essential component of customer behavioural outcomes. Therefore, businesses need to understand how after-sale service failures influence customer behaviour. Despite service superiority's importance, the home appliance industry lacks industry-specific, widely recognized instruments for after-sale service assessment. The primary goal of this study is to find major after-sale service failures and look at how these after-sale service failures affect customers, leading to unfavourable behavioural reactions. The study used a quantitative approach to understand the issue comprehensively. This research incorporated various after-sale service failure areas discussed and analyzed by previous research. It also discussed service theories and models (Expectancy Disconfirmation Paradigm, Justice Theory, Attribution Theory) related to failures and behaviours. However, this research focuses mainly on how these service failure areas lead to customer behavioural outcomes. Firstly, to know the major after-sale service failure areas, this study prepared the questionnaire based on the literature available on after-sale service failures and customers' reviews and their experience with the after-sale service of the home appliance companies. Data is collected from customers who have experienced after- sale service failures and their subsequent behaviour. The study analyzed the reasons for after-sale service failures, the types of failures that customers encounter, and the impact of these failures on customer behaviour, including their negative word of mouth, switching behaviour, willingness to recommend the brand etc. The findings of this study provided valuable insights into how businesses can improve their after-sale service and retain their customers. The study found seven major after-sale service failures that significantly impact customer behaviours. Unreasonable charges and policy clarity issues are the most significant service failures affecting customers, leading to negative behaviours. These findings show that different types of service failure elicit different reactions. The present study is one of the few empirical studies examining the links between service failures and actual behaviours in consumer durable after-sale service failures.

Source

Author's Submission

Date

2023-01-01

Publisher

Christ(Deemed to be University)

Subject

Management Studies

Rights

Open Access

Relation

61000273

Format

PDF

Language

English

Type

PhD

Identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/10603/533985