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Free upgrades with costly consequences: Can preferential treatment inflate customers’ entitlement and induce negative behaviors?

Alexandra Polyakova (University of Sussex Business School, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK)
Zachary Estes (Department of Marketing, Bocconi University, Milano, Italy)
Andrea Ordanini (Department of Marketing, Bocconi University, Milano, Italy)

European Journal of Marketing

ISSN: 0309-0566

Article publication date: 13 April 2020

Issue publication date: 13 April 2020

735

Abstract

Purpose

Companies often provide preferential treatment, such as free upgrades, to customers. The present study aims to identify a costly consequence of such preferential treatment (i.e. opportunistic behavior) and reveal which type of customer is most likely to engage in that negative behavior (i.e. new customers).

Design/methodology/approach

Across two experimental studies, the authors test whether preferential treatment increases customers’ entitlement, which in turn increases their propensity to behave opportunistically. Moderated mediation analysis further tests whether that mediated effect is moderated by customers’ prior relationship with the company.

Findings

Preferential treatment increases feelings of entitlement, which consequently triggers customers’ opportunistic behaviors. New customers are more likely to feel entitled after preferential treatment than repeat customers, and hence new customers are more likely to behave opportunistically. Preferential treatment also increases customers’ suspicion of the company’s motives, but suspicion was unrelated to opportunistic behavior.

Research limitations/implications

Future research may focus on other marketplace situations that trigger entitlement and explore whether multiple occurrences of preferential treatment provide different effects on consumers.

Practical implications

Present findings demonstrate that preferential treatment can evoke opportunistic behaviors among customers. The authors suggest that preferential treatment should be provided to customers who previously invested in their relationship with a company (i.e. repeat customers) rather than new customers.

Originality/value

Prior research has focused more on the ways companies prioritize their repeat customers than how they surprise their new customers. The present research instead examines preferential treatment based on customers’ relationship with a firm (i.e. both repeat and new customers) and demonstrates behavioral and contextual effects of entitlement.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the financial support from the Centre for Research on Marketing and Services of Bocconi University ( CERMES). The second author would like to acknowledge a receipt of a small grant from CERMES.

Funding: Funded by CERMES, the Centre for Research on Marketing and Services of Bocconi University.

Citation

Polyakova, A., Estes, Z. and Ordanini, A. (2020), "Free upgrades with costly consequences: Can preferential treatment inflate customers’ entitlement and induce negative behaviors?", European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 54 No. 4, pp. 691-712. https://doi.org/10.1108/EJM-03-2018-0168

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited

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