Get Acceptance if Breakdowns Common

When you live and work in Taiwan, retailing service failures are common and consecutive. That’s the conclusion from a research team who should know. They’re based at China University of Science and Technology in Taiwan and National Taiwan University of Science and Technology.
     The researchers found that, in their situation, the strength of negative emotions after a second service failure were less than those after the first. This seems to conflict with other research which says that resolving a customer complaint after a first failure can strengthen store loyalty, but if there’s a second failure, often the bond is sharply broken.
     In my opinion, the explanation is that the consumers of Taiwan accommodate themselves to service failures. Successive failures acquaint them with the reality that tolerating breakdowns is the only game in town.
     The story, dating from the early 1900s, credited with originating the term “the only game in town” sticks any recipient of that designation with negative associations: A traveler asks the hotel desk clerk to recommend a place to play some high stakes poker. The desk clerk says, “The bar next door has high stakes poker going all the time. But I’ll tell you that the dealer there cheats people blind.”
     “My goodness, why do people from around here play poker there?,” the traveler asks.
     The clerk replies, “Well, it’s the only game in town.”
     Still, it’s not all negative. The hotel desk clerk’s answer to the traveler was incomplete. People played poker at that bar because it was the only game around going on whenever you wanted to play, and people were willing to accept losing their money in order to have fun playing cards, drinking, and socializing. The customers kept coming back because they received value, even though, with being cheated blind, they probably wouldn’t describe themselves as high in customer satisfaction.
     Researchers at Southern Methodist University, University of California-Riverside, and Boston College found that under certain circumstances, customer satisfaction has little effect on repurchase behavior. This happens with products and services you provide and products you carry which are essential commodities—like automobile repair services and groceries. It was less true when the objects of acquisition were luxury, pleasure-centered products—such as high fashion.
     If you’re selling commodities to consumers and failures are nearly inevitable, get acceptance from your customers by empathizing with the inconvenience and then preparing the customers to deal with breakdowns.

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