Supporting Customers at Success and Failure: Does It Make Difference for Novice and More Experienced Customers?

This research differentiates between social support received by experienced and novice service users at success and failure times of the service experience and examines their differential effects on goal attainment, satisfaction and citizenship behaviors. A total of 308 valid responses were collected by the means of a snowball sample and analyzed by the means of multi-group analysis. The findings demonstrate the importance of social support provided at success time, especially for novices compared to experienced users in developing their perceptions of goal attainment. Goal attainment was found to be a stronger driver of customer satisfaction for experienced than novices. Also, customers’ satisfaction was the key driver of the citizenship behaviors for novices, whereas goal attainment was the main driver of citizenship behaviors for experienced customers.