Customer dissemination of negative word-of-mouth: Influence of expected or unexpected events

We examined how expected or unexpected costs affect restaurant customers’ attitudes toward the dissemination of negative word-of-mouth (WOM) when service failure occurs. A 2 (customer punishment: expected and unexpected) × 3 (relationship type: encounter, pseudo, and intimate) mixed factorial experimental design was adopted to examine the dissemination of negative WOM. The results indicated that service failure exerted significant and nonsignificant primary effects on expected punishment and relationship type, respectively. A significant interaction was observed between expected punishment and both encounter and intimate relationship types, but not between expected punishment and the pseudo relationship type. In sum, expected punishment and relationship type influenced negative WOM.