# When and why signaling frontline employee inexperience can prove to be an asset: Effects on consumer forgiveness for service failure

Michael Flacandji, Julien Cusin, Renaud Lunardo

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Michael Flacandji, Julien Cusin, Renaud Lunardo. When and why signaling frontline employee inexperience can prove to be an asset: Effects on consumer forgiveness for service failure. Psychology and Marketing, 2023, 40 (12), pp.2728-2742. 10.1002/mar.21897. hal-04409076

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When and why signaling frontline employee inexperience can prove to be an asset:

Effects on consumer forgiveness for service failure

Michaël Flacandji

Associate Professor of Marketing

IAE Bordeaux – Univ. Bordeaux, IRGO

35 avenue Abadie, 33100 Bordeaux, France

Tel : +33 6 74 85 24 34

Email: michel.flacandji@u-bordeaux.fr

Julien Cusin

Professor of Strategic Management

IAE Bordeaux – Univ. Bordeaux, IRGO

35 avenue Abadie, 33100 Bordeaux, France

Tel : +33 6 20 30 06 73

Email: julien.cusin@u-bordeaux.fr

Renaud Lunardo

Professor of Marketing

KEDGE Business School

680 cours de la liberation, 33405 Talence, France

Tel : +33 35 556 84 55 19

Email: renaud.lunardo@kedgebs.com
The extant literature on service failure focuses mainly on how to recover from such incidents.

However, companies can act before a service failure occurs in order to mitigate its negative effects. Building on signaling theory, we adopt a mixed-method approach based on five studies using different types of analyses (textual and content analysis, and multivariate analysis) to investigate the effect of signaling frontline employee inexperience on customer responses to service failure due to an error committed by an employee. Five studies provide evidence that highlighting inexperience—either informally (through a conversation) or formally (through an in-training badge)—can act as a signal that prompts customers to be more forgiving toward frontline employees, and such consumer forgiveness then serves as an underlying mechanism to explain repatronage intention. This research also tests and explores the boundary conditions for the effectiveness of the inexperience signal. Our findings have various implications for professionals showing how useful it can be to signal the inexperience of a frontline employee who makes an error that leads to a service failure in order to be given a second chance, and how certain precautions should be taken to avoid the pitfalls of such a signaling strategy.

**Keywords:** service failure; frontline employee; consumer forgiveness; signaling theory; inexperience; attachment; service recovery.
# 1. Introduction

The average turnover rate of frontline employees in the retail industry is one and a half times higher than the rate observed in other industries.¹ Such high turnover is liable to lead inexperienced frontline employees to make more knowledge-based mistakes (Kacmar et al., 2006), which are a major cause of service failure. Service failure occurs when service performance is perceived by customers as being below their expectations (McCollough et al., 2000). It is harmful to firms (Sharifi & Spassova, 2020) that must subsequently engage in a recovery process in order to mitigate negative customer emotions, dissatisfaction, avoidance, negative word-of-mouth, or revenge intention (Fouroudi et al., 2020; Obeidat et al., 2017).

Whereas a wide body of research has focused on service failure (for a review, see Khamitov et al., 2020), it has tended to examine failures attributable to the company as an entity (Sajtos et al., 2010) or to service technology (Choi et al., 2021), leaving service failures caused by identifiable frontline employees underexamined. The lack of research on this particular topic is surprising given how severely it is judged by customers (Belanche et al., 2020) and how difficult it is for businesses to recover (Hoffman et al., 1995). Moreover, by focusing primarily on how customers react to a service recovery (Khamitov et al., 2020), the prior literature has neglected two important points. First, it has paid little attention to certain aspects of the organizational perspective of service failure management (Van Vaerenbergh & Orsingher, 2016). Second, in focusing on customer reactions to a service recovery, it has overlooked the potential for organizations to act proactively (Mattila, 2006)—that is, before a failure occurs—or to mitigate the negative effect of future failures. Such proactivity could nonetheless modify consumer perceptions of service failures (Greenberg, 1996; Mattila, 2006), suggesting that more research is needed on how service organizations can act earlier to prevent consumers from responding negatively to such failures.
To bridge these gaps, and with the aforementioned turnover in the retail industry in mind, this article examines a common driver of service failure by frontline employees, namely, inexperience. More specifically, and following Van Vaerenbergh and Orsingher's (2016) recommendation to integrate human resource management factors into service failure research, we examine whether having frontline employees highlight their inexperience can increase consumer forgiveness and repatronage intention following a service failure due to an error committed by a frontline employee. Building on signaling theory (Spence, 1973), we adopt a mixed-method research design that enables us to benefit from quantitative as well as qualitative approaches for the broad purpose of a more in-depth understanding of our results (Harrison & Reilly, 2011). To this end, four experiments and 15 semi-structured interviews offer insights about the consequences that signaling inexperience has on customer responses to an incident. Our results indicate that signaling inexperience prompts customers to be more forgiving (Study 1). More specifically, signaling inexperience through an in-training badge does not increase service failure expectations, but incites people to be more forgiving and subsequently more likely to repurchase the product or service at a later date (Study 2).

Further, our results provide evidence that customer attachment to the retailer (Study 3) and service failure repetition (Study 4) are boundary conditions for the positive effects of an in-training badge, with respectively stronger positive effects of inexperience when attachment is high and less positive effects when service failures are repeated. A follow-up qualitative study (Study 5) helps us to better understand the quantitative findings and the boundary conditions for the positive effects of the inexperience signal.

The next section presents the relevant literature review on frontline employees, service failure, and signaling theory, which serves as a theoretical basis for our hypotheses. We then present the four experiments and the qualitative study that together investigate the role of an
inexperience signal from the customer perspective. We conclude with the theoretical and
managerial implications of our findings.

## 2. Theoretical background

### 2.1. Experience of frontline employees and customer perceptions of service quality

Frontline employees represent the face of a service organization and play a vital role in the company's success (Schepers & Nijssen, 2018). Interactions with frontline employees provide customers with important clues about the company's service quality and influence their level of satisfaction (Hughes et al., 2019). In addition, more experienced employees are generally better able to understand customers and to serve their needs (McDaniel et al., 1998).

However, employee turnover is very high in the retail sector (Han et al., 2019; Rutherford et al., 2011), leading to immediate efficiency disruptions for customers (e.g., increase in wait time; Kacmar et al., 2006). The loss of firm-specific human capital (Han et al., 2019) is liable to hamper effective customer service (Sunder et al., 2017). Furthermore, when employee turnover is high, new recruits also need to be trained (Rutherford et al., 2011). Following the onboarding process, newcomers will gradually acquire the attitudinal and technical frontline employee skills needed to perform well (Wang et al., 2012), ultimately leading to effective performance. However, although employees are learning the organization's policies, procedures, and methods, their lack of experience is likely to lead to mistakes being made (Kacmar et al., 2006), potentially resulting in negative outcomes for the customer. Given that service failures attributable to sales staff member errors are inevitable and occur on a regular basis (Lindsey-Hall et al., 2023; Van Vaerenbergh & Orsingher, 2016), frontline employee inexperience increases the risk of such failures (Weun et al., 2004).

### 2.2. Experience of frontline employees and service failure
The service failure literature focuses primarily on customer reactions to the service recovery (Khamitov et al., 2020; Lindsey-Hall et al., 2023). Such reactions can take the form of giving companies a second chance when the recovery strategy meets customer expectations in terms of apology, resolving the issue, or offering compensation (Harrison-Walker, 2019; Ringberg et al., 2007). By providing this second chance, consumers forgive the company and agree to look beyond the incident (Cusin & Flacandji, 2022). In a service or retail context, forgiveness is conceptualized as a process that follows a service failure and starts with a cognitive reframing of the failure, resulting in the negative emotions associated with the failure being cast aside, prompting motivational outcomes and, more specifically, less incentive to punish the service provider (Zourrig et al., 2009). Although different situational (McCullough et al., 2010), contingent (Tsarenko & Tojib, 2011), or cultural (Zourrig et al., 2009) factors might facilitate the consumer forgiveness process, forgiveness is consensually recognized as playing an important role in restoring a relationship, increasing repatronage intention (Harrison-Walker, 2019), and mediating the effects of failure on repurchase intention (Tsarenko & Tojib, 2015; Wolter et al., 2019).

Such responses to service failure are substantially affected by the way customers process the incident (Khamitov et al., 2020) and, more specifically, by the attributions made about the reasons for the failure (Folkes, 1988; Van Vaerenbergh et al., 2014). Customers generally seek to attribute a service failure to a specific cause (Mattila, 2006; Van Vaerenbergh et al., 2014), evaluating it through three dimensions: locus of causality, controllability, and stability (Weiner, 2000). Locus of causality and controllability capture whether the failure is firm-related and under the service provider's volitional control, whereas the stability dimension reflects the degree to which a cause is viewed as permanent (Folkes, 1988).
From what precedes, it is likely that in the context of human-related service failures, consumers evaluate how responsible and worthy of forgiveness the company is, depending on the signal the company sends about the frontline employee's inexperience. Service failures might be caused by an employee who lacks experience, so signaling such inexperience before the failure occurs might affect consumer responses to the failure. This study therefore applies signaling theory (Spence, 1973) to examine the extent to which a retailer can influence customer perceptions of a service failure by signaling that the frontline employee is inexperienced.

### 2.3. Signaling inexperience to modify customer perceptions of service failure

Signaling theory involves reducing information asymmetry between two parties (Spence, 1973). Because information affects the decision-making process, signaling theory is useful to describe the behaviors of two interacting parties (here, retailers and customers) with access to different information. On the one hand, the signaler decides whether to communicate the information they hold and to which their interlocutor does not have direct access (e.g., quality of services) and, if so, in what form (e.g., guarantees). On the other hand, the receiver observes the signal and decides how to interpret it (Connelly et al., 2011). Signaling theory has previously been used to explain customer behaviors in service failure contexts (Byun & Jang, 2019). Thus, taking customers' cognitive shortcuts into consideration (Kirmani & Rao, 2000), the company might seek to modify customer beliefs in the hope of prompting a favorable impression and thus fostering desired behaviors (e.g., purchase, loyalty; Zhang et al., 2020).

However, the company might face a dilemma in this regard due to the potentially self-handicapping impact of signaling inexperience, which implicitly warns customers of the higher risk of poor service performance (Greenberg, 1996). With a few rare exceptions
(Shymko & Roulet, 2017), signals studied in the literature are generally of a positive valence (Connelly et al., 2011; Zhang et al., 2020). These signals are used as a lever for differentiation by companies that seek to be more competitive (Byun & Jang, 2019). Here, we argue that signaling inexperience can potentially prove positive when used as an impression management strategy designed to preserve the organization's image of service quality. Signaling inexperience—for instance, through a badge or a specific corporate uniform—personalizes the origin of the service failure, which then becomes attributable to the frontline employee alone in the customer's mind (Greenberg, 1996) and not to the company on a broader level.

In this sense, against the backdrop of a literature that views signals as an offensive strategy with the aim of making the best possible impression, signals here can be understood as a defensive strategy that warn of the potential risk of error by frontline employees, help to defuse potential dissatisfaction in the event of a service failure, and buffer any negative consequences (Mattila, 2006). Given that signals can modify the cognitive framing of a situation, we might thus imagine that customers who face a signal highlighting frontline employee inexperience and are then confronted with a service failure will be more likely to forgive the employee and remain loyal to the company (Tsarenko & Tojib, 2015). From what precedes, we propose our first hypothesis:

**H1.** A signal of frontline employee inexperience will positively influence consumer forgiveness following a service failure caused by a frontline employee (H1a); consumer forgiveness will increase repatronage intention (H1b), making forgiveness mediate the effect of the signal on repatronage intention (H1c).

## 2.4. *The moderating role of attachment*

Attachment refers to an “emotion-laden target-specific bond between a person and a specific object” (Thomson et al., 2005, p. 78). Some authors (Fetscherin & Sampedro, 2019; Grégoire
& Fisher, 2008) argue that because attachment can increase expectations, a negative experience such as a service failure—which might be perceived as a violation of the fundamental norms on which the relationship is built and a source of brand betrayal and disappointment (Tan et al., 2021)—has a stronger negative impact on switching behavior and repatronage intention for those who are highly attached.

However, past research also shows that customers with strong (versus weak) attachment are more willing to be accommodating following a service failure (Ringberg et al., 2007). Brand attachment thus acts as a buffer against the negative effects of a service failure (Mattila, 2001; Wolter et al., 2019). As a result, attachment might mitigate the negative effects of a failure on future behavior toward the brand (Saavedra Torres et al., 2020). This “love is blind” effect (Grégoire & Fischer, 2008)—which suggests that a strong prior relationship facilitates consumer acceptance of a failure and is associated with favorable consumer responses—is widespread in the service failure literature (Khamitov et al., 2020). Hence, and based on what precedes, we predict that retailer attachment should moderate the effect of a frontline employee inexperience signal on repatronage intention, with greater repatronage intention observed among highly attached customers in the presence (versus absence) of a signal of inexperience. Thus, we propose our second hypothesis:

**H2.** Retailer attachment moderates the effects of the frontline employee inexperience signal (versus its absence) on repatronage intention, such that the positive effect of the signal will be stronger in the presence of attachment (versus its absence).

## 2.5. *The moderating role of repeated service failure*

Time represents another dimension that might offer more insights into the effects of frontline employee inexperience signals. Although time enables boundary and dynamic effects to be examined, it is often neglected in the service marketing literature, except with regard to the concept of customer journey (Van Vaerenbergh et al., 2019). We thus posit that service failure
experiences might gain from the adoption of a temporal perspective that considers the effects
of customer-firm interactions before the focal event. Adopting such a perspective, we rely on
prior research showing that customers are often willing to give the company another chance,
but not after two service failures and/or poor handling of the incidents (Maxham &
Netemeyer, 2002), especially if the service failures encountered are similar in each case
(Seiders & Berry, 1998) or occur in close succession (Hornik, 1984). In such cases, customers
attribute repeated failures to permanent flaws in the company and interpret recurring errors as
the firm's inability to improve, which is consequently judged with severity (Maxham &
Netemeyer, 2002; Vázquez-Casielles et al., 2010). If anticipatory excuses are repeatedly
provided, customers will also perceive them as less sincere (Mattila, 2006). What precedes
suggests that the positive effect of a signal of inexperience is unlikely to persist over time in
the event of a repeated service failure. We therefore propose our third hypothesis:

**H3.** Repetition of a service failure moderates the effects of the signal of inexperience (versus no signal) on repatronage intention, such that the positive effect of the signal will be weaker in the presence of a repeated service failure (versus its absence).

This set of hypotheses leads to the theoretical model shown in Figure 1.

[Insert Figure 1 here]

**3. Study 1: The effect of employee inexperience on customer forgiveness**

This exploratory study aims to test our basic prediction that signaling inexperience before a
service failure occurs can increase consumer forgiveness.

**3.1. Participants and design**
Participants (N = 430) were recruited through the market research company Panelabs. They were targeted via quota sampling based on age, gender, profession, and geographical region in France. Using a scenario-based between-subjects design with two conditions (signaling inexperience—"the employee has worked in the store for only a few days"—versus control—"for a couple of years"), the study first instructed participants to imagine a situation in which they go to a store to buy some pants (see Appendix 1 for the scenario). In both conditions, the requested size is no longer available. The frontline employee orders the right size and tells the participants that they will receive a text message to let them know when they can pick up their pants. Participants were then projected into a situation in which they go back to the store on the agreed date to pick up their purchase after receiving the text message. However, the same frontline employee who served them when ordering explains that they mistakenly put the pants back on the shelf and that the product was sold to another customer, thus causing a service failure. The two scenarios are almost identical, except that in the first condition, the frontline employee tells the customer that they had been working in the store for just a few days (versus for a couple of years) when they ordered the pants.

After reading the scenario, the participants were first asked, "In at least 50 words, please tell us what you think about the situation you are confronted with. How would you react and why?" By asking such an open-ended question, we were able to use text analyses to examine if and how frontline employee (in)experience emerges in customer explanations of their reactions to the failure. The participants were then asked to report their consumer forgiveness intention on a seven-point, three-item scale (α = .78; Tsarenko & Tojib, 2015), ranging from 1: "Strongly disagree" to 7: "Strongly agree." In total, 187 participants wrote fewer than 50 words about their feelings or failed the attention check, and 41 questionnaires were incomplete. These responses were removed, resulting in a final sample of 202 participants (50.5% female; 64.8% over 34 years old) for further analysis. Finally, the
scenario was rated on a seven-point scale for perceived realism, which was significantly
greater than 4 (i.e., the midpoint on the scale, *p* < .001) and did not differ across the two
manipulated conditions (M<sub>Inexperience</sub> = 5.74, M<sub>Experience</sub> = 5.82, t(200) = .42, *p* = .67).

3.2. Results

First, a t-test for independent samples revealed significantly more forgiveness in the condition of frontline employee inexperience (M<sub>Inexperience</sub> = 3.86, M<sub>Experience</sub> = 3.01, t(200) = -4.89, *p* < .001), supporting H1a.

Data analysis of the open-ended question was then performed through an initial read-
through of the 202 responses. This read-through led to four separate situations being
identified that differed according to whether the participants mentioned the (in)experience of
the frontline employee (or not), and whether they were forgiving (or not). After (1)
eliminating any narratives deemed peripheral to the study and (2) defining a synonym set that
included words and phrases with the same meaning (i.e., “a novice employee” = “a junior
employee”), we applied Gephi, an open-source software used for network analysis, to identify
relationships in the semantic network associated with frontline employee experience and
inexperience (see Figure 2). More specifically, we used the ForceAtlas2 algorithm—which
simulates a physical system to spatialize a network and facilitate data interpretation (Jacomy
et al., 2014)—as in prior marketing research (Donthu et al., 2021). The qualitative data
analysis results confirmed the findings from the t-test. Customers appear far more forgiving
when a frontline employee’s inexperience is mentioned than when the employee’s experience
is mentioned (28.2% versus 5.1%; see Table 1). The network analysis shows that customer
reactions differ across situations. As well as forgiving the novice frontline employee’s error,
customers also tended not to want to cause a scandal in the store so as not to get the
inexperienced employee into trouble with their manager. However, they appeared ready to
give the frontline employee a life lesson (directly or through feedback to the manager) so that
they could learn how to avoid such a failure in the future.

[Insert Table 1 here]

[Insert Figure 2 here]

3.3. *Discussion*

Study 1 shows that signaling inexperience informally (through a conversation) can prove positive, with customers appearing more forgiving when faced with such a signal. In Study 2, we investigated whether signaling inexperience formally in a service failure situation (in this case through the feature of an in-training badge) might be interpreted by customers as a positive signal and lead to greater customer forgiveness and repatronage intention. We also checked whether such an in-training badge could trigger a preliminary negative effect in terms of higher service failure expectations.

# 4. Study 2: The effect of an in-training badge on service failure expectations and forgiveness

4.1. *Participants and design*

Participants (N = 108, 50.90% female; M_Age = 50 years old, SD = 13) were recruited in France through Panelabs to participate in a scenario-based between-subjects experiment with two conditions. The procedure was similar to that of Study 1, except that we introduced an in-training badge as a tool to signal the frontline employee's inexperience (signaling inexperience—presence of an in-training badge—versus control—no badge) and—for external validity purposes—the conversation between the customer and the frontline employee was replaced by a description of the situation.
Importantly, because signals can shape service performance expectations (Houston et al., 2018), and such expectations depend to some extent on perceived employee quality (Homburg et al., 2005), we predicted that the presence of an inexperience signal might increase service failure expectations. Consequently, we sought to ensure that customer expectations did not act as an alternative mechanism to the effects of the inexperience signal. Hence, after reading the first part of the scenario in which the frontline employee orders the pants, participants were asked to report their service failure expectations on a three-item scale ($α = .83$; McCollough et al., 2000; see Appendix 2).

After reading the second part of the scenario, which presented the service failure, the participants were asked to note their repatronage intention using two items ($α = .85$; Harrison-Walker, 2019) and their forgiveness intention on the same scale as in Study 1 ($α = .80$). Perceived realism of the scenario, as previously measured, was high ($M = 5.74$) and did not differ across the two manipulated conditions ($p > .05$; see Table 2).

Each construct's composite reliability and average variance extracted (AVE) respectively exceeded .70 and .50, indicating good convergent validity (Fornell & Larcker, 1981). Discriminant validity of the constructs was also supported, with an HTMT ratio below .90 (Henseler et al., 2015). Appendix 3 presents the psychometric properties of the scales.

## 4.2. Results

A t-test for independent samples revealed significant differences in forgiveness ($M_{Badge} = 4.12, M_{No badge} = 3.48, t(106) = -2.23, p = .03$) and repatronage intention ($M_{Badge} = 4.38, M_{No badge} = 3.71, t(106) = -2.16, p = .03$; Table 2). However, we observed no significant difference in service failure expectations ($M_{Badge} = 3.57, M_{No badge} = 3.56, t(106) = -.04, p = .96$) across inexperience signaling conditions.

[Insert Table 2 here]
We then performed a mediation analysis (Hayes, 2018, model 4, 5,000 bootstrap samples) to test whether consumer forgiveness and service failure expectations mediate the impact of an inexperience signal on repatronage intention. Specifically, we included the signaling condition as the independent variable (no badge = 0, badge = 1), with consumer forgiveness and service failure expectations as the mediating variables, and repatronage intention as the dependent variable. As expected, the results yielded a positive indirect effect of the frontline employee inexperience signal on repatronage intention through the mediating effect of consumer forgiveness (B = .47, 95% CI = .05; .92). More specifically, the results revealed a positive effect of the signal on consumer forgiveness (B = .65, *p* = .03), which in turn increased repatronage intention (B = .73, *p* < .001). Of note, we observed no direct effect of the employee inexperience signal (B = .19, *p* = .40). Hence, the results support H1 and the notion that signaling inexperience prompts customers to exhibit greater forgiveness and makes them more likely to return to the service provider.

Further, because forgiveness has been shown to vary with gender and age (Brown, 2004), a similar analysis was conducted with these variables included as covariates. The results remain significant, with gender not affecting service failure expectations (B = -.27, *p* = .37), consumer forgiveness (B = .11, *p* = .71), or repatronage intention (B = -.07, *p* = .75). We observed the same lack of effect with age (B*Expectation* = .01, *p* = .27; B*Forgiveness* = -.01, *p* = .68; B*Repatronage* = -.01, *p* = .99).

Finally, given the lack of difference in service failure expectations across signaling conditions, the results showed no negative indirect effect of the employee inexperience signal on repatronage intention through the mediating effect of service failure expectations (B = -.01, 95% CI = -.05; .06). More specifically, the signal did not increase service failure expectations (B = .01, *p* = .96), which in turn did not increase repatronage intention (B = -.02,
$p = .80$). Finally, we observed no direct effect of the frontline employee inexperience signal ($B = .20, p = .40$). Consequently, service failure expectations can be ruled out as an alternative explanation for the effects of an employee inexperience signal in this case.

### 4.3. Discussion

Study 2 shows that signaling inexperience provides a signal that is more positive than negative, such that customers appear more forgiving after an incident and more inclined to give the retailer a second chance and return to the store. Further, signaling inexperience does not increase customer expectations of service failure. Thus, Study 2 provides reassuring evidence of the practical relevance of signaling an employee's inexperience, such as by formally displaying an in-training badge.

In the next study, we address past research, highlighting the fact that retailer attachment acts as a buffer against the negative effects of a service failure (Mattila, 2001; Wolter et al., 2019). Hence, in Study 3, we first aim to replicate the mediating effect of forgiveness and, second, to examine how retailer attachment affects the ties with a signal of frontline employee inexperience, consumer forgiveness, and repatronage intention following a service failure.

## 5. Study 3: The moderating role of retailer attachment

### 5.1. Procedure and sample

A total of 253 French individuals (47.4% women, $M_{Age} = 46$ years old, range = 18-84), recruited via Panelabs, took part in the 2 (Signaling inexperience: presence of a badge versus control: no badge) × 2 (attachment toward the retailer: attachment versus no attachment) between-subjects experiment. The procedure was similar to that of Study 2, except that consumer attachment to the retailer was manipulated in this case. In the attachment condition,
the participants read, “Imagine you are shopping in the clothes store of a retailer that you are attached to” (versus “not attached to”). Respondents then completed the same consumer forgiveness ($α = .85$) and repatronage intention ($α = .88$) measures as previously. For the purpose of manipulation checks, we further controlled for the scenario’s comprehensiveness by asking the respondents about the frontline employee’s experience, and if they were depicted as attached to the retailer or not (–1 = no information available, 0 = no, 1 = yes).

## 5.2. Manipulation checks

Participants in the signaling condition reported being significantly more aware of the frontline employee wearing a badge ($χ^2 = 227.57, p < .001$). Further, those in the high attachment condition reported being significantly more aware of being depicted as attached ($χ^2 = 22.30, p < .001$). These results support the manipulation of both signaling inexperience and attachment.

## 5.3. Results

To replicate the mediating role of consumer forgiveness observed in Study 2, we performed a similar mediation analysis (Process, model 4, 5,000 bootstrap samples) to test the indirect effect of signaling frontline employee inexperience on repatronage intention. As expected, and giving further support to H1, the results yielded a similar pattern, with a positive impact of the signal on consumer forgiveness ($B = .65, p < .001$) and forgiveness—as evidenced previously—increasing repatronage intention ($B = .67, p < .001$). Thus, here again, we observed a positive indirect effect, with a signal of employee inexperience indirectly increasing repatronage intention through forgiveness ($B = .44, 95\% CI = .191; .707$). Of note, we observed no direct effect of the signal ($B = .12, p = .47$).
In order to test H2, a moderated mediation analysis was performed (Hayes, 2018, model 8, 5,000 bootstrap samples; Table 3) with the signaling manipulation as the independent variable (0 = no badge, 1 = badge), consumer forgiveness as the mediator, retailer attachment manipulation (0 = no attachment, 1 = attachment) as the moderator, and repatronage intention as the dependent variable. As expected, the results revealed an interaction effect of the frontline employee inexperience signal and attachment manipulations on repatronage intention (B = .74, p = .03), supporting H2 (see Figure 3). More specifically, we observed no significant direct effect of a frontline employee inexperience signal (versus no signal) on repatronage intention in the condition of no attachment (B = -.19, 95% CI = -.669; .289), but one did emerge in the condition of attachment (B = .55, 95% CI = .082; 1.031), whereby the presence (versus absence) of a frontline employee inexperience signal led to stronger repatronage intention.

[Insert Table 3 here]

[Insert Figure 3 here]

## 5.4. Discussion

Study 3 provides further evidence of how in-training badges can be of interest to retailers. The results first replicate consumer forgiveness as the underlying mechanism explaining the effect of a signal of inexperience on repatronage intention. Further, the results reveal a moderating effect of attachment, such that when customers are attached, signaling inexperience leads to an increase in repatronage intention. Such an effect is not observed when customers are not attached, with signaling inexperience not affecting repatronage intention.

# 6. Study 4: The moderating role of repetition of a service failure
Study 4 examines whether the positive effect of signaling inexperience observed in Studies 1–3 persists over time if a service failure is repeated.

## 6.1. Procedure and sample

A total of 430 individuals (French, 57.4% women, $M_{Age} = 47$ years old, range = 18–84) were again recruited through Panelabs to take part in this 2 (signaling inexperience: presence of a badge versus control: no badge) × 2 (repeated service failure: yes versus no) between-subjects experiment. The procedure was identical to Study 2, except that service failure repetition was manipulated as well as frontline employee inexperience (signaled through an in-training badge). In the repeated (versus not repeated) service failure condition, the participants were told, “You already encountered (never encountered) a problem with this retailer during previous shopping experiences,” and then they completed the same measures of consumer forgiveness ($α = .77$) and repatronage intention ($α = .91$). The measures again showed satisfactory validity (see Appendix 3). We controlled for comprehensiveness of the scenario by asking the respondents whether they had encountered a service failure in the past or not in the scenario (0 = no, 1 = yes).

## 6.2. Manipulation checks

Participants in the signaling condition reported being significantly more aware of the frontline employee wearing a badge ($χ^2 = 358.79, p < .001$), and those in the repeated service failure condition reported that they were significantly more aware of having already experienced a service failure ($χ^2 = 429.99, p < .001$). These results support the manipulation of both signaling inexperience and repetition of the service failure.

## 6.3. Results
As previously, the results gave support to the mediating effect of forgiveness, with a
significant indirect effect of the signal of inexperience on repatronage intention (B = .46, 95%
CI = .246; .696). More specifically, the signal of inexperience positively affects forgiveness
(B = .58, t = 4.23, p < .001), whereas forgiveness increases repatronage intention (B = .79,
t = 17.16, p < .001). Here again, we did not observe any direct effect of the signal (B = -.08,
t = -.64, p = .52).

The next analysis tested the moderating role of service failure repetition. The
moderated mediation analysis (Process, model 8, 5,000 bootstrap samples; Table 3) revealed
significant interaction between a signal of inexperience and repeated service failure
manipulations on repatronage intention (B = -.60, t = 2.31, p = .02; see Figure 4), supporting
H3. More specifically, the results showed no significant direct effect of the signal of
inexperience (versus no signal) on repatronage intention in the absence of a repeated service
failure (B = .21, t = 1.16, 95% CI = -.147; .570), but a significant direct negative effect when
the service failure is repeated (B = -.39, t = -2.06, 95% CI = -.761; -.018). As a result, in the
event of a further service failure, the presence (versus absence) of a signal reduces
repatronage intention.

[Insert Figure 4 here]

6.4. Discussion

Study 4 investigates the role of a repeated service failure as a boundary condition for the
effectiveness of signaling employee inexperience. As with Studies 1–3, forgiveness is
identified as an underlying mechanism of the effect of a signal of inexperience on repatronage
intention. Further, the results show that a repeated service failure reduces both consumer
forgiveness and repatronage intention. More specifically, the effect of the signal on consumer
forgiveness persists, even if it loses some strength compared to a situation in which the
customer has experienced a repeated service failure in the past. However, repatronage
intention does not differ across the conditions of presence or absence of a signal in cases of a
repeated service failure. The results therefore suggest that signaling frontline employee
inexperience is not a permanent advantage, and that service failure repetition has a strong
negative effect that the presence of a signal cannot compensate for.

**7. Study 5: Exploring other boundary conditions**

As in prior research (Kunkel et al., 2021), Study 5 aims to move away from measuring intentions and instead attempts to add further insights into the effects previously demonstrated whereby consumers are more willing to forgive a service failure and to remain loyal when frontline employee inexperience is signaled.

7.1. *Procedure and sample*

Following saturation criterion (Nelson, 2017), we interviewed 15 customers in sessions
averaging 48 minutes (Appendix 4). Their diverse profiles serve to improve the external
validity of our findings. Data were collected via semi-structured interviews that were divided
into three main parts: (1) the most recent unsatisfactory experience caused by a frontline
employee (thus using the critical incident method), (2) frontline employee inexperience, and
(3) attitude toward a signal of inexperience. We used projective techniques to illuminate
experiences of service failure that respondents might be reluctant or unable to express
directly. Specifically, four images of real in-training badges or corporate uniforms (in this
case, a t-shirt) were presented to the respondents in the second part of the interview because
imagery can be used as an effective tool in research to offer respondents some concrete points
of reference on which to base their responses (Hofstede et al., 2007).

7.2. *Data analysis*
After a full transcript of interviews, we analyzed the data using an iterative coding process. In the first sequence, one member of the research team performed open coding, analyzing the whole database in order to identify the main themes associated with inexperience signaling. Following a discussion with the rest of the research team, four main themes were then identified: the nature of the inexperience signal, the objectives assigned to this signal by the company, the customer reactions potentially induced by this signal, and, finally, the boundary conditions for the successful use of signaling inexperience. We then decided to focus on just two reactions to inexperience signals identified in Studies 1–4, namely, forgiveness and repatronage intention, and more specifically, their underlying mechanisms and boundary conditions, in order to confirm and gain further insights into our prior results. In the second sequence, the aforementioned researcher performed axial coding, analyzing the data a second time and identifying all the boundary conditions. A second researcher examined the categorization proposed, allowing the inter-coder reliability of the two researchers to be calculated based on Perreault and Leigh's (1989) index of reliability (see Table 4). Differences in coding were refereed by the last member of the research team.

[Insert Table 4 here]

## 7.3. *Results*

In line with an explanatory design that included follow-up explanations, specific qualitative results were used to explain and expand on previous quantitative results (Harrison & Reilly, 2011; Kunkel et al., 2021). Qualitative data analysis identified 11 themes, of which the first two themes—consumer forgiveness and repatronage intention—reflected consumer reactions after a service failure in the presence of an inexperience signal. Importantly, the narratives reflecting these two themes were consistent with the results observed in Studies 1–4, in which customers exhibit greater forgiveness, which might explain repatronage intention when faced with a signal of inexperience.
The nine remaining themes highlighted boundary conditions for the effects of a
frontline employee's inexperience signal that goes beyond the two conditions manipulated in
the quantitative studies, namely, retailer attachment and repetition of the failure. Following
Kunkel et al. (2021), Table 4 presents a short description of each theme identified as a
boundary condition—signal perception, signal timing, product/service category, customer
profile, problem-solving, perceived severity, inappropriate frontline employee posture,
attachment, and service failure repetition—as well as a representative quote to provide context
and meaning. Table 4 also presents the percentage of respondents mentioning the item, and
the coding reliability index.

7.4. Discussion

Study 5 underscores the findings of the first four studies. First, the results show that forgiveness and repatronage intention as responses to signaling inexperience are replicated because they are salient in participant narratives. Second, attachment and service failure repetition are again revealed to be important conditions for the effect of the signal of inexperience. Finally, Study 5 extends the results of Studies 3–4 by identifying other potential boundary conditions. Product/service category and signal timing are by far the two main boundary conditions. Regarding the product/service category in particular, Study 5 provides an explanation as to why service failure expectations did not mediate the effect of a signal of inexperience in Study 2. In effect, the product category (pants) was not a high involvement product item, whereas the results of Study 5 suggest that employee inexperience might increase service failure expectations when a high involvement product is concerned, impeding forgiveness and repatronage intention in the event of an actual service failure. Further, Study 5 highlights the role of timing in signaling inexperience, such that inexperience signaled after the service failure is less effective, prompting instead perceptions of deception.
To be perceived as a sign of transparency and to encourage forgiveness, inexperience must be signaled at the beginning of the exchange, before occurrence of the failure.

# 8. General discussion

Given the growing evidence that a worrying percentage of frontline employees are undertrained (Singh, 2000), this research investigated whether signaling inexperience would prompt customers to be more forgiving and more likely to return to the store if a service failure occurs or, on the contrary, if such a practice would be detrimental to service providers by raising service failure expectations. Building on signaling theory (Spence, 1973), we addressed the issue through five studies, whose results and implications are discussed in the next sections.

## 8.1. *Theoretical contributions*

Our research contributes to the service failure literature by studying the effects of signaling inexperience as an organizational practice. The decision to investigate the effects of an inexperience signal derives from the extant literature's overfocus on the recovery process following a service failure (Harrison-Walker, 2019; Van Vaerenbergh et al., 2019) and the subsequent lack of service failure literature on signals that can be sent to consumers before a service failure occurs. Our contribution thus proposes a preventive rather than a curative (e.g., excuse, compensation) approach to addressing service failure.

Moreover, signaling theory enables us to examine the mechanisms by which signaling frontline employee inexperience affects customer responses following a service failure. Customers are more likely to adopt a forgiving attitude toward the service failure when confronted with a signal of inexperience and to subsequently react in a positive way by exhibiting stronger repurchase intention. In other words, we highlight a buffering effect of
inexperience signals, showing that when a frontline employee inexperience signal is perceived
(seen and/or heard) by customers, it can be interpreted positively, making them feel more
forgiving toward the novice employee. Our conclusions are consistent with the literature that
considers—with a few rare exceptions (Shymko & Roulet, 2017)—signals as positive in
valence (Connelly et al., 2011; Zhang et al., 2020). Although retailers might hesitate to signal
frontline employees’ inexperience through fear of negative expectations, we demonstrate that
signaling inexperience through a conversation, an in-training badge, or a corporate uniform is
more positive than negative in terms of outcome because it prompts customers to forgive a
potential service failure.

In addition, we provide empirical evidence that the positive effects of employee
inexperience signals occur under specific conditions. In line with prior research indicating that
attachment mitigates the negative effect of a failure (Mattila, 2001; Wolter et al., 2019),
evincing the “love is blind” effect (Grégoire & Fisher, 2008), we first identified the absence
of retailer attachment as a condition that can buffer the signal’s effect. Beyond attachment, we
identified service failure repetition as another boundary condition for the effects of a signal of
inexperience. More specifically, our results showed weaker positive effects when service
failures are repeated, which is consistent with the existing literature, suggesting that
customers are willing to give the company a second chance after a failure, but not a third one
(Maxham & Netemeyer, 2002). Signaling employee inexperience thus appears to be a one-
shot tool in recovering a customer’s repatronage intention following a service failure.

Further, the results from Study 5 point to other boundary conditions that must be
satisfied to prevent the signal from being self-handicapping, one being that the signal must be
communicated and perceived (seen and/or heard) before the failure occurs. Similar to the way
that repeatedly given anticipatory excuses are perceived as less sincere (Mattila, 2006),
providing information about a frontline employee's inexperience after a service failure
appears to come too late to generate forgiveness. The effects of signaling inexperience in the
case of a service failure might also vary depending on the product/service category and the
perceived severity of the failure. These results are consistent with the service failure recovery
literature, which highlights the impact of the severity and type of negative event on customer
responses (Khamitov et al., 2020; Maxham & Netemeyer, 2002). Moreover, in accordance
with Hocutt et al. (2006), who demonstrate that employee responsiveness and courtesy can
have a substantial impact on customer responses, our results suggest that the signal's power is
useless if the company is unable to resolve the service failure or if the frontline employee
demonstrates inappropriate behavior. Another potential boundary condition for customer
forgiveness following a service failure by an inexperienced employee might be culture. In this
regard, Zourrig et al. (2009) distinguish between allocentric and idiocentric customers,
arguing that because allocentric consumers aim to keep relations harmonious, they are less
willing to complain or to outwardly express their negative emotions. However, because
idiocentric consumers value self-expression, they are more likely to want to punish the firm
and not to forgive.

Beyond the specific context of this research, our study also enriches signaling theory
itself. The use of a signal is often viewed in the literature as a strategic action aimed at
providing customers with key information, especially with regard to the company's positive
attributes (Byun & Jang, 2019). Our research highlights the existence of a signaling strategy
that is defensive rather than offensive, designed to protect the retailer and frontline employees
from the negative consequences of a service failure.

8.2. *Managerial implications for retailers*

One suggestion for retailers drawn from our results would be to convince their inexperienced
frontline employees not to be ashamed of making their inexperience obvious—such as by
wearing an in-training badge, for instance—but rather to view such a device as reassuring
because it can afford them a temporary shield that protects both the employee and the
company in the event of a service failure (as long as the frontline employee respects the basic
rules of conduct in the commercial relationship). If frontline employees do not signal their
inexperience, they might feel the need to justify themselves in the event of an error leading to
a failure. However, verbally informing a customer of their inexperience after a service failure
occurs might be perceived as bad signal timing. In this respect, providing information upfront
about an employee's relative inexperience can make customers aware of potential errors and
be more forgiving as a result. In demonstrating the positive effects of an inexperience signal
on customer forgiveness, our research shows the value for retailers of not simply focusing
their attention on the service recovery when a failure occurs, but of acting upstream of the
incident and modifying the way the customer frames the error through the use of frontline
employee inexperience signals.

Relatedly, our findings also emphasize the need to consider the aspect of attachment in
the effects of signaling inexperience. We noted that the effect of a signal remains the same
whether customers are attached or not, and more specifically, it increases forgiveness, again
regardless of whether or not the consumers are attached to the retailer. However, when it
comes to repatronage intention, only consumers who are already attached to the retailer
respond more favorably to the presence of a signal. Retailers should therefore consider how
attached their customers are, and if such attachment is high, they might consider introducing
signals of inexperience such as in-training badges to make repatronage intention more likely
in the event of a service failure.

However, our results indicate that such practices do not remain effective in the case of
a customer experiencing repeated service failure with the company, or if the inexperience is
signaled after the service failure occurs. In other words, timing is a particularly important
factor for a signal of inexperience to be useful because it acts as a single-use trump card and must be communicated at the right moment. This finding indicates that such a signal is inseparable from a rigorous training process. Because mistakes cannot be repeated, the organization must learn from its mistakes by implementing a strong feedback culture. Thus, not only should retailers be cautious in signaling the inexperience of newly recruited frontline employees who are likely at the origin of service failures but also they should ensure that their employees are trained to avoid repeat mistakes.

### 8.3. Limitations and future directions

The current research has some limitations that offer potentially useful avenues for future research. First, although we adopted some temporal approaches by examining the effects of previous failures, our research did not dig deeper into the effects of time. It might be useful, for instance, to investigate whether the effects of a frontline employee inexperience signal persist over time, or, more specifically, how long employees can be considered as inexperienced. We would assume that after a certain period of signaling their novice status, there comes a point when frontline employees can no longer be considered as inexperienced, and the effects of the signal will therefore dissipate.

Another potentially important boundary condition for the occurrence of forgiveness following a service failure due to an inexperienced employee relates to the customer's profile. Given the aforementioned difference in propensity to forgive between allocentric and idiocentric customers (Zourrig et al., 2009), we would expect forgiveness of a service failure due to an inexperienced employee to vary across cultures. Takaku et al. (2001), for instance, demonstrate that individuals from Eastern cultures might be more forgiving than individuals from Western cultures. Further research is thus needed to address such culture differences as a boundary condition for the effects of inexperience on customer forgiveness.
Further, this research did not consider the option that some customers might be
visiting the service setting for the first time. As a first-time shopper with no prior experience
of the retailer, they will not be attached to the retail brand and are thus potentially less likely
to forgive in the case of a service failure. In this situation, we cannot know if the effects of the
signaling of frontline employee inexperience observed in the present research would hold.
Without prior experience and attachment, would a first-time shopper experiencing a service
failure attribute the blame to the retailer, be less forgiving, and exhibit lower purchase
intention? Further research could investigate the moderating role of first-time shopper
attitudes, helping companies to gain a better understanding of the benefits provided by
signaling inexperience on people who differ in their prior experiences with a given store.
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