An extended reciprocity cycle of gratitude: How gratitude strengthens existing and initiates new customer relationships

Customers who feel gratitude toward a firm are motivated to engage in direct reciprocity. However, does gratitude's effect extend beyond the original dyadic interaction to affect relationships with other potential customers? Drawing from indirect reciprocity theory, we propose an extended reciprocity cycle of customer gratitude in which existing customer relationships are strengthened through direct reciprocity and new customer relationships are initiated through indirect reciprocity. Through an experiment, Study 1 demonstrates that employee‐centric reviews are written by grateful customers because they desire to help the firm. Utilizing another experiment, Study 2 reveals that gratitude‐driven employee‐centric reviews significantly increase other consumers' attitudes toward helpful service firms (i.e., positioned as having a sincere brand personality). Study 3 extends the prior findings using field data from Yelp, revealing that employee‐centric reviews are perceived as more useful when shown for sincere rather than sophisticated brands. Collectively, results indicate that customer gratitude fosters not only direct reciprocity, but also indirect reciprocity by encouraging other consumers to reward firms that help customers, signaling to practitioners the importance of managing customers' emotional experiences and strategically placing gratitude‐driven content.