This research was conducted in order to examine the effect of comparative price on consumers’ reactions to service failure in the loyalty program. The current study finds that under condition of lower level of persuasion knowledge, compared to single retail price, comparative price would mitigate consumers’ negative emotion in the context of service failure, which in turn improves customers’ tolerance. The authors test this prediction in two experiments. Experiment 1 aimed to provide an initial exploration of hypothesis by employing a between-subjects design. This experiment recruited undergraduate students at Suzhou University to complete an online survey. After reading the scenario of service failure, participants were asked to answer a series of questions about their intension of spreading negative word of mouth (NWOM). A one-way ANOVA on intention of spreading NWOM suggested that the NWOM activity was significantly lower in the group of comparative prices than in the group of single retail price. In experiment 2, the authors measured angry and intension to complain when participants finished reading the scenario of service failure. Furthermore, one week later the authors measured price tactic persuasion knowledge of participants. The bootstrap method (number of bootstrap samples = 5000, level of confidence = .95) was used. The results showed that customers’ angry level mediated the effect of comparative price on intension of complaint. The authors further conducted a mediated moderation analysis with the participants in the high- and low-persuasive-knowledge conditions. The results indicated the indirect effect of the comparative price on intention to complain was mediated by customers’ angry when they have low persuasive knowledge, whereas the mediation effect of customer’s angry level was no longer significant in the higher persuasive-knowledge condition. To summarize, this research suggested that comparative price would exert a marked impact on the tolerance of members of loyalty program in the context of service failure. The present paper adds to the existing comparative price literatures by confirming its impact on consumers’ judgment in the context of service failure even if they are all members of loyalty program and informed with information of discounted size in advance. Given the special meaning of NWOM and complaint, current paper provides implications for marketing practices.

The purposes of this study were to a) find out the operational characteristics of the contract-managed highschool foodservice in Seoul, b) investigate the expected level of meal-price and facilities investment cost perceived by contract-managed highschool foodservice managers c) compare the present level and expected level of meal-price and facilities investment cost. From October 12 to November 13 in 2001, the questionnaires were mailed to 249 high schools which was managed by contract foodservice company with respondent rate 40.2%. Data were analyzed using SPSS Win(10.0) for descriptive analysis and one group paired t-test. The results of this study were as follows ; 1. The student enrollment of highschools run by contract-managed foodservice was 1,243 with 72.6% participation rate of school lunch program. The average meal-price was 2,138 won. The average annual period of school foodservice operation was 156.78 days per year. The average contracting period was about 3 years. 2. The average cost concerned in the facilities investment amounts 169,578,180 won at the initial investment and 25,204,092 won at the repairs and maintenance cost in the course of operation. 3. The present level of meal-price and facilities investment cost were respectively 2,136won/meal and 171,157,336.72 won. And expected level of meal-price and amount of facilities investment cost were 2,418.75 won and 121,353,215.19 won. Comparing the present level with the expected level of the meal- price and facilities investment cost, expected level of meal-price was significantly higher than the present level of meal-price(p<.001) and expected level of facilities investment cost was significantly lower than present level of facilities investment cost(p<.001).