Engagement and Disengagement in Online Service Failure: Contrasting Problem and Emotional Coping Effects

Abstract

Users are likely to cope with service loss depending on how integrated the services are. In this study, we manipulate the degree of service involvement by comparing users of highly integrated cloud storage services against users of low integration storage services. We find that users of high integration services are more likely to engage with the provider following service failure. When emotional coping mechanisms are used, both high and low integration users are equally prone to disengagement, but low integration users are significantly less likely to display engagement behaviors.