Customer Rage Spectrum Emotions in Service Failure Encounters: Linking Experience, Expression, Behaviour and Organisational Responses (2006-2008)

Incidents of customer rage are increasing, yet current conceptualisations of consumption-related emotions are inadequate. Thus, organisations are ill-equipped to appropriately respond. The proposed project will identify and measure customer rage spectrum emotions (as triggered by service failure encounters); determine how customers express these emotions; examine how these experiences and expressions map onto specific behaviours directed toward the organisation; and provide organisations with guidelines for effectively responding to customer rage episodes. The research will be conducted in four different countries (individualistic and collectivist) to enable increased cross-cultural understanding of this new customer rage phenomenon.