Don’t Humor Me! Customers’ Moral Perceptions Toward Companies’Humorous Responses in Social Media Service Recovery

Aug 26, 2026

Uploaded by Skyler

Past research proposes humor as a complement to recovery strategies in social media complaint handling, potentially increasing engagement among non-affected customers. However, humorous recovery creates a dilemma for focal customers experiencing the service failure. Using benign violation theory, humorous recovery is predicted to be less favored by focal customers, reducing recovery effectiveness by lowering perceived company morality through perceived sarcasm. Lower morality increases negative affect and reduces forgiveness, with mitigations based on failure relevance and timing: after resolution and when failures are less core to the company.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages19

Reading Time48 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Introduction

Social media as a channel for complaints

Humor as a service recovery strategy

Moral responsibility and potential pitfalls

Journal of Business Ethics [https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-025-06154-y](https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-025-06154-y) Don’t Humor Me! Customers’ Moral Perceptions Toward Companies’Humorous Responses in Social Media Service Recovery Andreawan Honora1 · Arnold Japutra2,3 · Felix Septianto4 Received: 2 April 2024 / Accepted: 15 September 2025 © The Author(s) 2025 Abstract Past research has proposed humor as an innovative complement to recovery strategies in social media complaint handling, as it can bring benefits to the company, such as increased social media engagement from other customers. However, these studies focused on the perspective of customers who are not directly affected by service failures. The current research suggests that humorous recovery poses a dilemma as it may be perceived and responded to differently by focal customers (i.e., those who experience service failures) . Drawing on benign violation theory, we argue that humorous recovery will be less favored by focal customers due to the stressful situations they are experiencing, thereby impeding recovery effectiveness. Findings across a series of experimental studies indicate that humorous recovery reduces focal customers’ perceptions of company morality, primarily due to the increased likelihood of such responses being perceived as sarcastic. This decrease in perceived company morality subsequently heightens negative affect, leading to reduced focal customer forgiveness. Nevertheless, the negative effects of humorous recovery can be minimized under certain circumstances. First, companies should use humorous recovery only when the service failure is less relevant to the company’s core business. When the service failure is highly relevant to the core business, humorous recovery becomes counterproductive, regardless of the cause of the failure. Second, humorous recovery timing is crucial. Specifically, humorous recovery is more morally acceptable after the service failure has been resolved. When used before the service failure has been resolved, humorous recovery is less appropriate, further undermining its effectiveness. Keywords Humorous recovery · Perceived company sarcasm · Perceived company morality · Customer forgiveness · Social media · Ethical complaint handling · Online service recovery * Andreawan Honora [andreawan.honora@uwa.edu.au](andreawan.honora@uwa.edu.au) Arnold Japutra [a.japutra@soton.ac.uk](a.japutra@soton.ac.uk) Felix Septianto [f.septianto@uq.edu.au](f.septianto@uq.edu.au) 1 Department of Marketing, UWA Business School, The University of Western Australia, Perth, WA 6009, Australia 2 Department of Digital and Data Driven Marketing, Southampton Business School, University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK 3 Faculty of Economics and Business, Universitas Indonesia, Depok, Jawa Barat 16424, Indonesia 4 UQ Business School, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia Introduction The widespread adoption of social media in the digital era has provided a prominent channel for customer complaints. The latest National Customer Rage Survey of 1000 U.S. consumers revealed that 74% experienced service problems with businesses in the past year, with many opting to express their disappointment publicly on social media (Customer Care Measurement & Consulting, 2023)—not out of spite but to raise awareness of the issue and seek prompt resolution of their grievances (Das et al., 2022) . Companies are expected to provide complaint handling and service recovery to show they are meeting their moral obligations and responsibilities to customers (Azab & Holmqvist, 2022) . Companies that fulfill their moral obligations by appropriately offering online complaint handling and recovery have much to gain, while those failing to meet their moral obligations have alot to lose. For instance, Npower in the UK lost 300,000 customers within a single year due to billing errors and ineffective complaint handling and r

FAQs

Why might humorous service recovery work for some customers but not focal customers?

Humor may benefit customers not directly affected by service failures, but focal customers can interpret humorous responses differently due to the stress they experience.

How does humorous recovery reduce recovery effectiveness?

It lowers perceived company morality, mainly because responses are more likely to be perceived as sarcastic, which then increases negative affect and reduces forgiveness.

When can companies minimize the negative effects of humorous recovery?

Use humor only when the service failure is less relevant to the company’s core business, and deliver humorous recovery after the service failure has been resolved.

Aug 26, 2026

Uploaded by Skyler

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