Expressions of customer rumination in online posts and firm responses

When faced with service failures, customers tend to ruminate, i.e., engage in repetitive negative thoughts about service failures and their causes/consequences. Some customers express these ruminative thoughts in online posts, making the internal cognitive process of rumination publicly visible to prospective customers who read the posts. This research proposes a novel conceptualization and operationalization of customer expressions of rumination as the repetitive use of words related to (a) service failure aspects and (b) service failure causes/consequences. Across two field studies, one survey, and two experiments, this research demonstrates that rumination expressions in online posts about service failures are linked to lower sales, weaker prospective customers’ purchase intention, and more “likes” of the post. Responses expressing empathetic apologies are more effective in handling rumination expressions about service failure aspects, whereas responses mentioning compensation are more effective in handling rumination expressions about service failure causes/consequences. We urge managers to recognize the visibility and harmfulness of rumination expressions in digital outlets and provide solutions to minimize their damage.