The Effect of Customer Participation Types on Online Recovery Satisfaction: A Mental Accounting Perspective

Yu Zhang and Bingjia Shao *

School of Economics and Business Administration, Chongqing University, Chongqing 400030, China; lovezym2000@163.com

*  Correspondence: shaobingjia@cqu.edu.cn; Tel.: +86-177-2377-3387

Received: 12 September 2018; Accepted: 1 October 2018; Published: 3 October 2018

Abstract: With the high popularity of the Internet, online trading has gradually replaced the traditional shopping model and extended to every corner of social life. However, online trading cannot avoid failures; thus, understanding how firms can best recover customers in online contexts to keep customer loyalty is very important. This study investigates the mechanisms by which customer participation types (physical, mental, and emotional) promote customers’ perceived justice and post-recovery satisfaction from a mental accounting perspective. Furthermore, the moderating effects of two modes of online apology speech acts (direct and indirect) on customer participation and perceived justice are investigated. A total of 1083 Chinese tourists who have purchased a Wi-Fi rental service in the past year were contacted according to the database provided by two travel agencies, and 329 stated having experienced an online recovery service and participated in the survey; 297 valid questionnaires were collected. Among them, 48.82% were males and 51.18% females. Most of the respondents were aged 20–35 years. By carrying out data analysis by partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) using SmartPLS, the results show that, first, only mental and physical participation can enhance perceived justice, while emotional participation does not influence perceived justice. Second, the positive influence of mental participation on perceived justice is most significant. Third, only when the service staff adopts the indirect mode to express an online apology, mental and physical participation can enhance perceived justice.

Keywords: customer participation; mental accounting; online apology speech acts; perceived justice; post-recovery satisfaction

Future Internet (EI index),2018, 10, 97; doi:10.3390/fi10100097