침묵은 금? 고객 침묵, 강력하고 영향력 있는 고객의 또 다른 메시지 (Is Silence Golden? Customer Silence is Another Strong, Influential Message of Customer)

서지정보

· 발행기관 : 한국경영학회
· 수록지 정보 : 경영학연구 / 45권 / 2호 / 557 ~ 592페이지
· 저자명 : 김상희

초록

본 연구는 서비스실패시 고객침묵과 그에 따른 행동반응, 그리고 침묵의 영향요인에 대해 살펴보고자 한다. 지금까지 서비스실패에 관한 선행연구들은 고객불평, 회복노력, 공정성 지각, 그리고 고객행동 등에 관해 논의해 왔으며, 불평고객을회복시키기 위한 기업의 회복노력, 이러한 노력에 대한 고객의 지각된 공정성을 파악하고 이를 통해 차후의 고객행동을예측하고자 하였다. 그러나 서비스 실패를 경험한 대부분의 고객들이 불평하지 않고 침묵한다는 것은 기업이 회복의 기회조차 가질 수 없음을 의미한다. 고객침묵은 단순한 발언의 부재가 아니라 매우 많은 의미를 함축하고 있다. 이러한 의미에 대한 파악은 왜 고객이 침묵하는가에 대한 해답을 제공해 줄 수 있으며 그러한 침묵이 고객행동에 어떠한 영향을 미치는가를 파악할 수 있도록 해준다. 침묵이 아닌 불평을 통해 서비스실패를 회복시킬 수 있고 이를 통해 더 충성스런 고객을 만들 수 있다는 사실은 고객으로 하여금 침묵하지 않고 불평하도록 조장하는 것이 매우 중요하다는 것을 시사하고 있다. 그럼에도 불구하고 실무적 측면에서 그리고 이론적 측면에서 대부분의 연구들은 침묵이 아닌 불평에 집중하여 왔다.
따라서 본 연구는 고객침묵에 초점을 두고 침묵을 그 동기에 따라 다양한 차원으로 구분하고 각 차원의 침묵이 고객의 행동(전환, 부정적 구전)에 미치는 영향을 검토하고자 한다. 또한 고객침묵에 영향을 미치는 요인들을 살펴보고 침묵을 감소시킬 수 있는 요인들을 제시하고자 한다.
연구결과 침묵은 방어적 침묵, 체념적 침묵, 그리고 친사회적 침묵으로 차원화 되었다. 방어적 침묵은 전환의도에 유의한영향을 미치지 않는 것으로 나타났고 부정적 구전의도에 유의한 정(+)의 영향을 미치는 것으로 나타났다. 체념적 침묵은전환의도와 부정적 구전의도에 유의한 정(+)의 영향을 미치는 것으로 나타났다. 또한 방어적 침묵과 체념적 침묵의 상대적 영향력을 비교한 결과 체념적 침묵이 방어적 침묵보다 전환과 부정적 구전의도에 더 큰 영향을 미치는 것으로 나타났다. 긍정적인 침묵인 친사회적 침묵은 부정적 구전의도에 유의한 부(-)의 영향을 미치는 것으로 나타났고 전환의도에는유의한 영향을 미치지 않는 것으로 나타났다. 부정적 침묵인 방어적 침묵과 체념적 침묵을 유발시키는 요인은 불평처리디자인에 대한 고객의 지각된 품질이며, 기업이 불평처리에 대한 명확한 가이드라인을 제시하고 이에 대한 고객의 지각된품질이 높을 경우 방어적 침묵과 체념적 침묵이 감소하는 것으로 나타났다. 또한 고객과 종업원의 유대강도가 높을수록방어적 침묵은 감소하는 것으로 나타났다. 긍정적 침묵인 친사회적 침묵은 고객과 서비스종업원의 유대강도가 높을 경우증가하는 것으로 나타났다.
이러한 연구결과는 이론적, 그리고 실무적 측면에서 말로 표현되는 불평뿐만이 아니라 말로 표현되지 않는 침묵에 대해서도 관심을 가져야함을 제시하고 있다. 즉 서비스실패시 고객불평을 어떻게 대처하고 이를 어떻게 회복시켜 줄 것인가에대한 관심뿐만이 아니라 고객이 실패에도 불구하고 침묵을 선택하는 이유를 검토하고 이러한 침묵이 고객행동에 어떠한영향을 미치는가에 대한 관심 또한 중요함을 제시하고 있다. 본 연구는 고객침묵은 단순한 말의 부재 그 이상을 의미하는고객의 또 다른 강력한 메시지임을 강조하고 있다.

영어초록

The purpose of this study are to investigate customers’ silence in case of service failure, the resultant behavioral responses, and the factors influencing silence. The previous research on service failure has discussed customers' complaints, efforts to recover, equity perception, and customer behaviors and aimed to understand company efforts to recover complaining customers and equity perceived by customers in these efforts and predict future customer behaviors.
However, the situation in which most of the customers experiencing service failure become silent, instead of making a complaint, means that a company cannot have even a chance of such recovery. Silence is not simply absence of voice but has lots of meanings. Understanding these meanings may lead to an answer to the question of why customers keep silent and to the understanding of how the silence affects their behaviors. The fact that it is possible to recover from service failure through complaints, thereby making customers more loyal implies that it is very important to encourage customers not to become silent but to make a complaint. Nevertheless, most studies have focused on complaints, not on silence, in both practical and theoretical respects. Focusing on customers' silence, this study aimed to divide silence into several types according to its motives and analyze the effects of the silence on their behaviors. It also intended to examine the factors affecting customers' silence and identify the ones promoting silence.
The purposes of this study are as follows: First, it aimed to classify silence types on the basis of the theoretical consideration of customers' silence. Silence was divided into positive and negative types: the former included prosocial silence and the latter included defensive and acquiescent silence. The motives and backgrounds of the silence and the characteristics of several types of silence were reviewed. This study can suggest that customers' silence could be caused by a diversity of motives and that the silence might be divided into various types according to these motives. Second, it aimed to discuss the factors that could reduce negative types of silence and increase positive ones. These factors were presented at the levels of companies and employees: companies' quality of complaint handling design at the former level and customer-employee tie strength at the latter level. An attempt was made to determine if these two factors could reduce the negative types of silence―defensive and acquiescent silence ―and increase prosocial silence. This study can make strategic suggestions concerning the measures companies might need to take to reduce negative types of silence. Third, it aimed to review the relationships between customers' silence and their behavioral responses. The switching intention and the word-of-mouth intention were suggested as customers' behavioral responses and an attempt was made to determine how each type of silence affected customers' behavioral responses. Another attempt was made to review the relative influence of the negative types of silence-defensive and acquiescent silence-on customer behavior. This study can determine what type of silence might more strongly encourage customers to do negative behaviors and serve as a greater determinant.
This study obtained the following results: First, companies' quality of complaint handling design significantly affected customers' defensive and acquiescent silence. Quality of complaint handling design allowed customers to be less afraid of occurrence of negative situations, such as face loss and others' sharp look, which could accompany complaints, and to make unengaged thinking that expressing their opinions would be meaningless and that there would be little possibility of improvement. Therefore, high quality of complaint handling design encouraged customers to reveal the problems they experienced, thereby reducing the possibility of becoming silent. Second, customer-salesperson tie strength significantly affected prosocial silence. This is because the stronger customer-salesperson tie strength, the higher level of emotional intimacy between the customer and the salesperson and the greater possibility of the customer's considering and understanding the salesperson despite a bad situation. Accordingly, the customer may choose to become silent from an altruistic perspective. Third, customers' defensive silence significantly affected their negative word-of-mouth intention but had no significant effect on their switching intention. In contrast, customers' acquiescent silence significantly affected both their switching intention and negative word-of-mouth intention. Defensive silence is self-protective one, which may be chosen due to face loss, embarrassment, and blame but involve a desire to resolve their negative experience by telling it to someone. This is because they can be given comfort through conversation with members of a social network and have their wound cured. Fourth, as for the relative influence of defensive and acquiescent silence on customers' switching intention and negative word-of-mouth intention, the latter more strongly affected customers' switching intention and negative word-of-mouth intention than the former. This result implies that although both defensive silence and acquiescent silence are negative types of silence, the latter may more negatively affect customer behavior than the former. Fifth, prosocial silence had no significant effect on the switching intention but significantly affected the negative word-of-mouth intention.
That is, prosocial silence reduced the negative word-of-mouth intention and caused them not to speak ill of the company or the employee to other customers. This is because prosocial silence is based on understanding and consideration in a tie and may cause them to think that negative word-of-mouth regarding the employee or the company is inappropriate for the established relationship. However, the finding that prosocial silence had no effect on the switching intention implies that although prosocial silence is positive one induced by positive motives, it cannot reduce all of the negative customer behaviors.
These results suggest the need to take interest in the non-verbal expression, silence, as well as in verbal complaints in both theoretical and practical respects. In other words, it is important to review the reasons why customers choose to become silent despite failure and to take interest in the effects of the silence on customer behaviors as well as in how to cope with customers' complaints in case of service failure and recover from them. In this study, emphasis is placed on the fact that silence is not simply absence of voice but another strong message of customers, which has lots of meanings.

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