Underscoring trainer's lack of effort or talent in service failure of personal fitness training: customers' negative word-of-mouth response

Underpinned by attribution theory and relationship norm theory, this study investigated whether, why, and when provider attribution of service failure influences negative word-of-mouth. Our first experiment verified that trainers' attribution of their service failure to lack of effort (vs. lack of talent) causes greater negative word-of-mouth intention and that this effect is mediated by perceived responsibility. Our second experiment confirmed that to customers with more communal (vs. exchange) norms, the effect of perceived responsibility on negative word-of-mouth intention becomes weaker (vs. stronger). These findings advance service failure and performance attribution literature and provide insights into how to address service failure.