Introduction
Attributions guide consumers' meaning-making in customer experiences (CX) from need recognition through the post-purchase stage; that is, throughout the customer journey (CJ) (Puccinelli et al., 2009). Hoffman et al. (2016) noted the importance of consumers' attributions as well as the response to those attributions by the firm's employees. Attribution theory is widely used in consumer behavior research, but less is known about how managers' attributions color their interpretation and response to consumers' attributions in the dynamic process of the CX/CJ (Bharti etal., 2015; Frow& Payne, 2007; Gronroos, 2012; Kranzbuhler etal., 2019; McColl-Kennedy etal., 2015).
So, even though they are...