The Perils of Using Self-Deprecating Humor: Customer Evaluations of the Firm after a Service Failure

The current study investigates the firm’s potential use of self-deprecating humor in response to a service failure and examines resulting consumer evaluations. This study utilizes two scenario-based experiments conducted in the contexts of online retailing and restaurant service. The findings indicate that self-deprecating humor leads to customers’ negative evaluations of the company by decreasing forgiveness intentions toward the company. The mechanism which explains low forgiveness intentions is found to involve heightened perception of dishonesty. Moreover, when perceived benignness of the failure is low (vs. high), self-deprecating humor has a stronger adverse effect on perceived dishonesty. This study suggests that firms need to be mindful of the negative consequence of using self-deprecating humor if they are to implement it as a tool for service recovery.