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.

当面临服务故障时，客户往往会反刍，即对服务故障及其原因/后果进行重复的负面思考。一些客户在网上帖子中表达了这些反刍的想法，使阅读帖子的潜在客户可以公开看到反刍的内部认知过程。本研究提出了一种新的概念化和操作化，将客户反刍的表达定义为重复使用与 （a） 服务故障方面和 （b） 服务故障原因/后果相关的词。通过两项实地研究、一项调查和两项实验，这项研究表明，在线帖子中关于服务失败的反刍表达与销售额下降、潜在客户购买意愿减弱以及帖子的 “点赞” 增加有关。表达同理心道歉的响应在处理有关服务故障方面的反刍表达时更有效，而提及补偿的响应在处理有关服务故障原因/后果的反刍表达时更有效。我们敦促管理者认识到数字渠道中反刍表达的可见性和危害性，并提供解决方案以尽量减少其损害。