Accessibility-Related Service Failures Online
Authors:   , Cohen Alex Howard , Anderson Rolph Ely 
Published: July 2021

This three-part study examines how online accessibility-related service failures adversely impact a retailer through avoidance behaviors by directly offended disabled consumers (30 million Americans), their proximal networks learning of the service failure by both direct and indirect word of mouth, and those who have no existing relationship with a disabled person learning of incidents through direct and indirect online communication, e.g., blogs and reviews. A preliminary test sheds light on the widespread issue of inaccessible websites by rating the top 100 retailers on accessibility conformance using globally accepted standards for accessible site design. The first study develops a scale based on the concept of "consumer normalcy" which is composed of four dimensions: (1) ability to participate in the marketplace, (2) demonstrating competence and control, (3) achieving distinction, and (4) being perceived as an equal. This important new construct can be used as a tool to more fully understand the experience of an individual who feels he or she has been discriminated against in the marketplace based on demographic characteristics such as gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation/preference, or disability. The scale is tested in six different populations including the LGBT, African American, and disabled communities respectively, as well as a random student population, and two random non-student samples where one sample shows how Consumer Normalcy is directly connected to complaint behavior, repurchase intention, and word of mouth. Using blind and vision impaired participants, the second study compares the differences in avoidance behaviors toward a retailer due to accessibility-related and non-accessibility related service failures by using high and low effort online service failure conditions to elicit feelings of disconfirmed expectations of "consumer normalcy, and how this effect is mediated by the negative emotions of anger and frustration. In addition, we analyze how these avoidance behaviors are moderated by prior expectations of accessibility, feelings of helplessness, living alone versus living with others, and prior patronage versus no prior patronage. In an effort to examine how NWOM is received when the receiver could not share the experience being relayed, in study three the disabled participants from study one email the survey to non-disabled people in their proximal networks such as family, friends, and coworkers. After learning about the service failure either from direct communication where the disabled person who is known or unknown to the receiver, or from indirect electronic word of mouth where the source is again unknown or known to the receiver, we proffer that the relationship to the disabled consumer, along with the perceived closeness of the relationship with that disabled individual, will lead to higher levels of substitutional empathy than general empathy resulting in greater levels of avoidance behavior toward the retailer. We propose "substitutional Empathy" occurs when person A learns of the plight of unknown person B which could not be shared by person A. Person A then substitutes known person C who could share the experience of person B into the role of unknown person B, instead of typical empathy studies where person A puts themselves in the role of person B. Additional tests seek to examine differences in reactions between proximal or nonexistent relationships by having random participants asked to read about an accessibility-related service failure imagining that they learned of the failure either directly from someone they know or don't know, or from indirect E-WOM where the source is known or unknown. We predict the existence of substitutional empathy to be the driving force behind empathetic reactions when the source is unknown to the receiver, and levels of avoidance behavior will be determined based on the strength or absence of a relationship with a disabled person. Both studies are replicated in the Transgender community where Transgender individuals share the survey with non-Transgender individuals they know as well as testing the theory in a random sample. Extensions of assimilation-contrast, attribution, and intergroup contact theories are presented to better understand potential outcomes of the studies. Finally, we discuss current disability legislation along with the societal and economic impacts of online accessibility issues. Our goal is to show that an accessibility-related service failure can adversely impact a retailer not only by the directly affected disabled consumer but also by those individuals in his or her social network who will empathetically change their purchase behavior with that retailer.