Handling online service recovery: Effects of perceived justice on online games

Much of service recovery research was based on brick-and-mortar, not online games.Post-recovery trust is vital for loyalty behaviors in the online game context.Trust is fundamental for forming trust relationships after online service failures.The results help to design marketing strategies for online game service recovery. This study examines online service recovery influenced by the relative effects of four dimensions of justice (distributive, procedural, interpersonal, and informational) on consumer attitudinal reactions (satisfaction and trust) and their subsequent effects on behavioral intentions (e-WOM and repurchase intention) in online games. A web-based survey of Taiwan Internet forums was used to collect data and yielded 265 valid responses. Structure equation modeling was conducted to assess the proposed relationships. Results revealed that all four dimensions influenced satisfaction and trust, with distributive justice producing the strongest relative effect in the online game context. As expected, positive perceptions of online service recovery efforts not only left customers satisfied and trusting, but also generated positive e-WOM about their service experiences as well as encouraged them to continue the service. An important contribution of this study for service recovery concerns the differential effects of perceived justice on post-recovery trust that is vital in forming loyalty behaviors in the online game context. Trust is a fundamental principle not only for establishing online exchange relationships but also for establishing trust relationships after online service failures. The results have the potential to design better marketing strategies for online game service recovery.

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