The Power of Apology

After an unsatisfactory purchase, many rms are quick to apologize to customers. It is, however, not clear why they should do that. As the apology is costless, it should be regarded as cheap talk and thus ignored by the customer. In this paper, we test in a controlled eld experiment whether apologizi...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Abeler, J, Calaki, J, Andree, K, Basek, C
Format: Working paper
Language:English
Published: University of Nottingham 2009
_version_ 1826273224149696512
author Abeler, J
Calaki, J
Andree, K
Basek, C
author_facet Abeler, J
Calaki, J
Andree, K
Basek, C
author_sort Abeler, J
collection OXFORD
description After an unsatisfactory purchase, many rms are quick to apologize to customers. It is, however, not clear why they should do that. As the apology is costless, it should be regarded as cheap talk and thus ignored by the customer. In this paper, we test in a controlled eld experiment whether apologizing in uences customers' subsequent behavior. We nd that apologizing yields much better outcomes for the rm than oering a monetary compensation.
first_indexed 2024-03-06T22:24:56Z
format Working paper
id oxford-uuid:56592c55-5900-4466-962f-e3199d886dc5
institution University of Oxford
language English
last_indexed 2024-03-06T22:24:56Z
publishDate 2009
publisher University of Nottingham
record_format dspace
spelling oxford-uuid:56592c55-5900-4466-962f-e3199d886dc52022-03-26T16:49:45ZThe Power of ApologyWorking paperhttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_8042uuid:56592c55-5900-4466-962f-e3199d886dc5EnglishDepartment of Economics - ePrintsUniversity of Nottingham2009Abeler, JCalaki, JAndree, KBasek, CAfter an unsatisfactory purchase, many rms are quick to apologize to customers. It is, however, not clear why they should do that. As the apology is costless, it should be regarded as cheap talk and thus ignored by the customer. In this paper, we test in a controlled eld experiment whether apologizing in uences customers' subsequent behavior. We nd that apologizing yields much better outcomes for the rm than oering a monetary compensation.
spellingShingle Abeler, J
Calaki, J
Andree, K
Basek, C
The Power of Apology
title The Power of Apology
title_full The Power of Apology
title_fullStr The Power of Apology
title_full_unstemmed The Power of Apology
title_short The Power of Apology
title_sort power of apology
work_keys_str_mv AT abelerj thepowerofapology
AT calakij thepowerofapology
AT andreek thepowerofapology
AT basekc thepowerofapology
AT abelerj powerofapology
AT calakij powerofapology
AT andreek powerofapology
AT basekc powerofapology