Effects of dissatisfaction in tourist services: The role of anger and regret

Dissatisfied customers due to a service failure probably will switch the provider, will complain and/or will spread negative word-of-mouth. However, to what extent some specific emotions triggered by dissatisfaction can mediate between the latter and the previous mentioned behaviours? A sample of 359 users of restaurants and 308 users of hotel services has shown that, whereas anger has a significant influence on the three behaviours under study, regret only affects switching and negative word-of-mouth. Furthermore, slight differences between hotels and restaurants have been found because, in the case of restaurants, anger is not an antecedent of switching whereas regret has an inverse effect on complaining. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.