Consumers' Service Cancellation: Examining the Influence of Payment Timing, Refunds and Consumption Enthusiasm

Consumers often purchase and pay services long before these services are actually performed (e.g., concert tickets). However, due to exogenous influences, consumers may decide to cancel the service. Our research focuses on how to explain the consumers’ likelihood of service cancellation as a function of the timing of payment in terms of payment depreciation, the offer of refunds in case of cancellation, the price of the service, and consumption enthusiasm. Using experiments, we find that service cancellation is influenced by payment depreciation, refunds, and price of the service as well as consumption enthusiasm.

Citation:

Martina Steul and Thorsten Posselt (2007) ,"Consumers' Service Cancellation: Examining the Influence of Payment Timing, Refunds and Consumption Enthusiasm", in E - European Advances in Consumer Research Volume 8, eds. Stefania Borghini, Mary Ann McGrath, and Cele Otnes, Duluth, MN : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 404-405.