Refusal and Interference of Communication—Analysis of the Effects of a New Phenomenon on Customer Relationships

Abstract

Over the years the development from a transaction-based to a relation-based understanding in the field of marketing has been discussed. In this regard the importance of initiating, remaining and strengthen a two-way dialogue between companies and customers has been a central topic. Interactivity in the communication between customer and company is the most natural thing in the world—in particular since the internet. Therefore customers expect to communicate interactively. Surprisingly more and more companies ask their customers not to reply to their emails—they even send them explicitly do-not-reply emails. Communication, therefore, becomes uni-directional and the pretence to dialogue is abandoned. There is lots of evidence in literature that satisfaction will decrease when expectations are not met. Consequently, to refuse expected interactivity will have negative consequences on customer satisfaction. This study analyses this phenomenon and provides support for the assumptions based on an experimental setting.