Resumo Objetivo: O propósito desta pesquisa é explorar como a manutenção do relacionamento com prestadores de serviço durante a pandemia da Covid-19 afeta o bem-estar do consumidor e sua intenção de compra no período pós-pandemia. Originalidade/valor: Este artigo usa dados empíricos coletados durante a pandemia de Covid-19, para compreender como indivíduos podem melhorar seu bem-estar durante eventos estressantes por meio do uso de serviços e também como empresas podem aumentar suas possibilidades de recuperação durante essa situação. Design/metodologia/abordagem: Dados foram coletados através de questionário no Brasil durante o período intermediário da pandemia de Covid-19. Para executar a análise, foram feitas modelagens de equações estruturais. Resultados: Resultados mostram que quanto mais forte era a confiança no prestador de serviço antes do período estressante, maior será a manutenção do relacionamento com ele durante esse período. A manutenção do relacionamento entre consumidor e prestador de serviços durante a pandemia de Covid-19 melhora a satisfação com a vida e a saúde (i.e., bem-estar) do indivíduo (mesmo quando o serviço não é prestado da forma combinada previamente, e.g., aulas on-line de yoga). Os efeitos positivos no bem-estar são explicados por uma maior percepção de controle e sensação de estar ajudando o prestador de serviço durante um período de crise. Adicionalmente, a manutenção do relacionamento com o prestador de serviços durante esse período aumenta a intenção de recompra futura (i.e., após a pandemia) do consumidor junto a esse prestador de serviços.

Abstract Purpose: This research aims to explore how the maintenance of customers’ relations with service providers during the Covid-19 pandemic affects customers’ well-being and repurchase intentions for the post-pandemic period. Originality/value: This paper uses empirical data collected during the Covid-19 pandemic to shed light on how individuals can improve their well-being during stressful life events through service provisions and how businesses can increase chances of recovery after stressful situations such as a pandemic. Design/methodology/approach: Data were collected during the pandemic with Brazilian consumers. Structural equations models (SEM) techniques were used. Findings: Results show that the stronger the customer’s trust in the service provider before the stressful event, the higher the maintenance of the provider’s relationship during this period. More importantly, this relationship maintenance with the service provider during the Covid-19 pandemic (even when the service is not being provided as previously agreed, e.g., online yoga classes) improved the individual’s satisfaction with life and health (i.e., well-being). These positive effects on well-being are explained by perceptions of control and the feeling of helping the service provider during a crisis (i.e., a pandemic). Furthermore, maintaining the relationship with the service provider during this period increased customers’ future repurchase intentions with the business.

Abstract Research on service failure has neglected the temporal dimension of consumer-perceived control (i.e., past, present and future control). This paper introduces the temporal model of perceived control to service research and compares its explanatory power for consumers’ emotional and behavioural reactions after a service failure to that of the causal attribution model. The results of a correlational study show that the temporal model of perceived control has greater explanatory power than the causal attribution model (i.e., the former can better predict consumers’ regret, self-focused anger, and repurchase behaviour after a stressful service episode). This is the first empirical research to use a temporal model of perceived control to explain consumer reactions after service failures, showing that this model may be combined with others in a complementary way to provide a better understanding of consumer reactions.

ABSTRACT Purpose: This theoretical essay aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of distributive justice in situations of service recovery. More specifically, we seek to investigate distributive justice evaluations based on social comparisons. Originality/value: This article seeks to fill a gap in the existing knowledge to discuss the social comparison theory applied to the service recovery context. Design/methodology/approach: After a literature review, we present three research propositions about comparisons between consumers in terms of compensation received after complaining about a service and their effects on the evaluation of distributive justice, taking into account the perceived similarity between consumers and the time elapsed between the complaint handling and the comparison. Findings: Even though social comparisons are increasingly frequent, they have been neglected in the service marketing literature. It is possible for consumers to compare the compensation received after a complaint with the compensation given to another consumer and, perceiving upward differences, have negative reactions to the company.

A teoria da sinalização afirma que os sinais são ações que a empresa pode realizar para transmitir informações sobre a qualidade dos seus produtos. Este trabalho busca ampliar o conhecimento existente sobre sinalização de qualidade ao estendê-lo ao setor de serviços, através da investigação de dois sinalizadores de qualidade: o preço e a responsividade. O controle comportamental percebido, entendido como a percepção do indivíduo sobre sua habilidade para realizar um comportamento, é proposto como moderador da relação entre as variáveis sinalizadoras e a qualidade percebida. Foram conduzidos dois estudos experimentais de desenho fatorial e intersujeitos para se testar as hipóteses formuladas com base na literatura. Os resultados de ambos os experimentos demonstram que a sinalização de qualidade através das variáveis preço e responsividade afetam a qualidade percebida. O segundo estudo suporta a hipótese envolvendo a moderação do controle comportamental percebido na relação entre a variável sinalizadora preço e a qualidade percebida, mas não entre responsividade e qualidade percebida. Esses resultados e as implicações encontradas são finalmente discutidos no capítulo de considerações finais.

Signaling theory states that signals are firms' actions that communicate information about the quality of a product. The main purpose of this research is to investigate the effect of signal quality in a service context, through the investigation of the signaling effects of price and responsiveness in a service context. Perceived behavior control, regarded as an individual's perception of the ability to perform a behavior, was proposed as a moderator between signaling variables and perceived quality. Two experimental studies with factorial and inter-subject designs were conducted in order to test the hypotheses formulated from the literature review. Results from both experiments show that signaling quality through price and responsiveness can affect perceived quality. The second experiment supports the hypothesis of perceived behavior control moderation between price as a signaling variable and perceived quality, but not between responsiveness and perceived quality. These results and their implications are discussed in the final section of the paper.