Purpose

This research investigates the role of customer forgiveness as the result of online service recovery transparency in predicting customer engagement. It also examines the moderating roles of timeliness and personalization in this proposed model.

Design/methodology/approach

An online survey study using retrospective experience sampling and a scenario-based experimental study were conducted to test the proposed hypotheses.

Findings

Customer forgiveness positively influences customer engagement and plays a mediating role in the relationship between service recovery transparency and customer engagement. Additionally, timeliness and personalization moderate the positive influence of service recovery transparency on customer forgiveness. The positive influence of service recovery transparency on customer forgiveness is more apparent when levels of timeliness and personalization decrease.

Practical implications

To retain focal customers' engagement after a service failure, firms must obtain their forgiveness. One of the firm's online complaint handling strategies to increase the forgiveness level of focal customers is to provide a high level of service recovery transparency (i.e. responding to their complaints in a public channel), especially when the firm is unable to respond to online complaints quickly or provide highly personalized responses.

Originality/value

This research provides new insights into the underlying mechanism of customer engagement by applying the concept of customer forgiveness. It also contributes to the social influence theory by applying the essence of the theory to explain how other customers' virtual presence during the online complaint handling influences the forgiveness of focal customers in order to gain their engagement. Additionally, it provides insight into the conditions under which the role of service recovery transparency can be very effective in dealing with online complaints.

中文翻译：

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在社交媒体恢复中获得客户参与：及时性和个性化的调节作用

目的

本研究调查了在线服务恢复透明度在预测客户参与度时客户宽恕的作用。它还研究了及时性和个性化在该模型中的调节作用。

设计/方法论/途径

进行了一项使用回顾性经验抽样的在线调查研究和基于情景的实验研究来检验所提出的假设。

发现

客户宽恕对客户参与度产生积极影响，并在服务恢复透明度和客户参与度之间的关系中发挥中介作用。此外，及时性和个性化调节了服务恢复透明度对客户宽容度的积极影响。当及时性和个性化水平降低时，服务恢复透明度对客户原谅的积极影响更加明显。

实际影响

为了在服务失败后保持焦点客户的参与度，公司必须获得他们的原谅。该公司提高焦点客户原谅水平的在线投诉处理策略之一是提供高水平的服务恢复透明度（即在公共渠道中回应他们的投诉），特别是当公司无法快速回应在线投诉时或提供高度个性化的回复。

原创性/价值

这项研究通过应用客户宽恕的概念，为客户参与的潜在机制提供了新的见解。它还通过应用理论的本质来解释其他客户在在线投诉处理过程中的虚拟存在如何影响焦点客户的宽恕以获得他们的参与，从而对社会影响力理论做出了贡献。此外，它还深入了解了服务恢复透明度在处理在线投诉方面可以非常有效的作用的条件。