HOW TO SAY SORRY: INCREASING REVISIT INTENTION THROUGH EFFECTIVE SERVICE RECOVERY IN THEME PARKS

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1 SOCIAL BEHAVIOR AND PERSONALITY, 2010, 38(4), Society for Personality Research (Inc.) DOI /sbp HOW TO SAY SORRY: INCREASING REVISIT INTENTION THROUGH EFFECTIVE SERVICE RECOVERY IN THEME PARKS Cheng-Neng Lai Shih Hsin University, Taipei, Taiwan, ROC Tai-Kuei Yu Southern Taiwan University, Tainan County, Taiwan, ROC Jui-Kun Kuo National Sun Yat-Sen University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan, ROC Theme parks are an important sector within the tourism industry which has grown dramatically. Service quality has become a focus for achieving satisfaction and revisit intention. In this study we sought to examine tourists perception of service recovery following a service complaint and how that related to their intention to revisit the theme park. The theory of planned behavior formed the foundation of a framework of revisit intention. Data were collected using questionnaires from tourists post complaint in Taiwan s largest theme park. The data were analyzed using structural equation modeling. The results show that interactive fairness, attitude, and subjective norms all influenced revisit intention. Keywords: complaint, revisit intention, service recovery, theme park, theory of planned behavior. Theme parks are a particularly important sector within the tourism industry which has shown dramatic growth in the last decade. The tourism pattern of Cheng-Neng Lai, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Public Relations and Advertising, Shih Hsin University, Taipei, Taiwan, ROC; Tai-Kuei Yu, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of International Business, Southern Taiwan University, Tainan County, Taiwan, ROC; Jui-Kun Kuo, PhD, Associate Professor, Institute of Public Affairs Management, National Sun Yat-Sen University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan, ROC. Appreciation is due to anonymous reviewers. Please address correspondence and reprint requests to: Cheng-Neng Lai, Assistant Professor, Department of Public Relations and Advertising, Shih Hsin University, 1 Lane 17 Sec. 1 Mu-Cha Rd., Taipei 116, Taiwan, ROC. Phone: ext. 3236; Fax: ; layjn@cc.shu.edu.tw 509

2 510 REVISIT ON POSTCOMPLAINT SERVICE RECOVERY theme parks reflects the mindset of tourists who seek something new and exciting. Theme parks use science, culture, or history as their themes, and artificial amusement facilities combined with customer service translate this concept into entertainment (Wylson & Wylson, 1994). Tourists base their decision to revisit a park on their interaction experience with the physical facilities or staff, and their resulting degree of satisfaction (Chen & Gursoy, 2001). Service quality and tourists overall satisfaction are critical for the success of a theme park which has made a costly investment in physical facilities and equipment (Baker & Crompton, 2000). In the aggressively competitive tourism market, it is crucial to increase the number of potential revisit tourists. Theme parks can identify the number of revisits in their tourist population as a measure of success (Darnell & Johnson, 2001). Tourists who are dissatisfied will probably decide to use an alternative destination in the future. Therefore, a service recovery strategy to promote tourists satisfaction and strengthen their willingness to return should be implemented. In this study we investigated theme park tourists perception of service recovery and its impact on revisit intention. The factors that influence a tourist to visit a destination include attitude towards that site, comments by relatives and friends, past travel experiences, and limitations of time and budget (Ajzen & Driver, 1992; Sirakaya & Woodside, 2005). From a tourism perspective, Darnell and Johnson (2001) found that higher levels of satisfaction led to the intention to return to the destination. The theory of planned behavior (TPB) is that behaviors are decided by an individual s behavioral intention, and there are three factors which influence an individual s rational behavioral intention: attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control (Ajzen, 1991). In applying the theory of planned behavior to tourism behavior, Mansfeld (1992) shows that tourists attitude has a significant influence on behavioral intention. Ajzen shows that there is a direct relationship between subjective norms and behavioral intention. However, Ajzen and Driver also find that subjective norms influence behavioral intention and attitude mediates that relationship. In sports and leisure behaviors, people s perceived behavioral control significantly influences their behavioral intention (Bozionelos & Bennett, 1999). During service delivery, it is inevitable that service failures and subsequent customer complaints occur. Organizations should identify points of dissatisfaction before attempting service recovery. Customers evaluations about fair treatment are usually centered on outcome and interactive fairness. Outcome fairness indicates customers perception of how fair the specific organizational approaches are to compensate them for service failures (Blodgett, Hill, & Tax, 1997), and whether the actual compensation gives them redress for their total loss. Interactive fairness indicates the perception of fairness exhibited by the organization during the process of resolving conflicts. Thus, the characteristics

3 REVISIT ON POSTCOMPLAINT SERVICE RECOVERY 511 of staff behavior, such as empathy, politeness, and visible effort, all influence the perception of interactive fairness (Duffy, Miller, & Bexley, 2006). Figure 1 shows the framework that depicts the variables of attitude in the theory of planned behavior with outcome fairness and interactive fairness. It should provide an explanation for the tourist business that values customer complaints and satisfaction. Outcome fairness 0.32 Attitude R 2 = ** Interactive fairness 0.83 ** 0.45** Subjective norms * Revisit intention R 2 = Perceived behavioral control Figure 1. Measurement of effects in hypothesized framework. Note: * p < 0.05; ** p < 0.01 METHOD Janfusun Fancyworld (JFF), the most popular private amusement park in Taiwan, receives over a million tourist visits per year. Tourists who made complaints were asked to fill out a questionnaire describing their negative experiences and complaining behavior, which resulted from their dissatisfaction while visiting JFF. An initial set of constructs was generated from extensive study of the literature in related fields (service recovery, dissatisfaction behavior, and theory of planned behavior) in order to create a data collection instrument. Respondents were asked to complete questions relating to all items (except revisit intention) using a 5-point Likert scale that ranged from strongly agree to strongly disagree. For the questions on revisit intention, respondents were asked to complete a 5-point Likert scale that ranged from very willing to very unwilling. After 42 incomplete surveys were removed from the 250 questionnaires that were distributed, a valid sample of 208 (83.20%) was available.

4 512 REVISIT ON POSTCOMPLAINT SERVICE RECOVERY Table 1 Summary of Reliability Analysis Variables CR AVE Mean (SD) Questionnaire items Factor SE loading Outcome fairness (1.06) JFF provided complaint compensation which I expected JFF was willing to provide complaint compensation Interactive fairness (1.10) JFF empathized with my complaint JFF dealt with my complaint sympathetically Attitude (0.94) I consider that visiting JFF can enhance my knowledge I consider that visiting JFF is a meaningful activity Subjective norms (1.20) I may be influenced by friends or colleagues to visit JFF I may be influenced by mass media to visit JFF Perceived behavioral control (0.91) I have enough money to visit JFF I have enough energy to visit JFF I have enough time to visit JFF Revisit intention (0.93) I will revisit JFF within a year I will revisit JFF despite the inconvenience of coming here

5 REVISIT ON POSTCOMPLAINT SERVICE RECOVERY 513 RESULTS Cronbach s alphas ranged from for revisiting intention to for subjective norms. The scales were satisfactory when measuring the constructs of interest. We adopted structural equation modeling (SEM) to examine linkages in our hypothesized framework. LISREL 8.50 was used to assess variables. The assessment of the measurement model includes composite reliability (CR) and average variance extracted (AVE), and the constructs demonstrate satisfactory reliability and validity (see Table 1). All the indicators were within the acceptable ranges (X 2 /df = 1.4, GFI = 0.95, AGFI = 0.91, RMSEA = 0.044, NFI = 0.91, NNFI = 0.96, CFI = 0.97). The data were considered a reasonably good fit to the proposed model. The relationships between attitude, subjective norms, and revisit intention, as suggested by TPB, are all supported. The results show that the effect of perceived behavioral control on revisit intention is insignificant. As the typical Taiwanese tourism pattern is that of short holidays (i.e., one or two days) tourists do not consider time, money, and energy spent to be significant. DISCUSSION Subjective norms have a negative relationship with revisit intention. With ready access to communication media (e.g., the Internet), it is easy for dissatisfied tourists to publicize negative reports after poor service delivery. Therefore these negative reports affect not only their own revisit intention, but also have a negative influence on others also. We found no significant relationship between the perception of outcome fairness in handling service recovery and the attitude towards the theme park. This result suggests that tourists who visit theme parks may have different characteristics from consumers in other industry sectors. The tourism pattern of theme parks reflects the mindset of tourists who seek something new and exciting. Consequently service recovery in theme parks should be oriented towards listening to and empathizing with tourists complaints and offering improvement in service delivery, rather than being overly focused on financial compensation. There is a negative relationship between interactive fairness and tourists attitude towards the theme park. However, the mean for interactive fairness was only 2.83, which is lower than 3, the mean of the aggregated constructs. This shows that tourists had a degree of dissatisfaction with interactive fairness in the handling of their complaints, and this creates a negative attitude towards revisiting the theme park. Frontline employees, who handle tourists complaints, need to be empathetic and well-trained so that they can respond satisfactorily to

6 514 REVISIT ON POSTCOMPLAINT SERVICE RECOVERY increasing expectations regarding the handling of complaints. It is important to increase revisit intentions of tourists who have had cause to complain and experienced service recovery. In order to consider this issue further we developed a model of tourist revisit behavior in the context of service recovery. Outcome fairness and interactive fairness issues, as service recovery strategies, are included within the framework. Owing to the premise that it is becoming increasingly important, interactive fairness needs to be improved to the point at which tourists are aware of it in order to reduce their dissatisfaction. Some tourists may maintain a certain level of revisit intention owing to the anticipated outcomes from a complaint process. The results from this study show that customers have a positive attitude when the service recovery situation is perceived to be fair. However, if customer service staff deal with complaints inadequately, the number of tourists evaluations showing satisfaction is likely to decline. Consequently, standard operating procedures (SOP) should be established for staff, so that they can perform service recovery steps adequately and effectively to exceed tourists expectations. Questionnaires were distributed while tourists were still on site at the theme park. This limitation could be addressed by the use of a longitudinal approach in future studies. These could focus on postexperience evaluations (e.g., a few days after their visit) to ensure a more complete evaluation of the tourist experience. REFERENCES Ajzen, I. (1991). The theory of planned behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 50, Ajzen, I., & Driver, B. L. (1992). Application of the theory of planned behavior to leisure choice. Journal of Leisure Research, 24(3), Baker, D. A., & Crompton, J. (2000). Quality, satisfaction, and behavioral intentions. Annals of Tourism Research, 27(3), Blodgett, J., Hill, D., & Tax, S. (1997). The effects of distributive, procedural, and interactional justice on postcomplaint behavior. Journal of Retailing, 73(2), Bozionelos, G., & Bennett, P. (1999). The theory of planned behaviour as predictor of exercise: The moderating influence of beliefs and personality variables. Journal of Health Psychology, 4(4), Chen, J. S., & Gursoy, D. (2001). An investigation of tourists destination loyalty and preferences. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 13(2), Darnell, A., & Johnson, P. (2001). Repeat visits to attractions: A preliminary economic analysis. Tourism Management, 22(2), Duffy, J., Miller, J., & Bexley, J. (2006). Banking customers varied reactions to service recovery strategies. International Journal of Bank Marketing, 24(2), Mansfeld, Y. (1992). From motivation to actual travel. Annals of Tourism Research, 19(4), Sirakaya, E., & Woodside, A. G. (2005). Building and testing theories of decision making by travelers. Tourism Management, 26(6), Wylson, A., & Wylson, P. (1994). Theme parks, leisure centres, zoos, and aquaria. New York: John Wiley & Sons.