--- - |2 Abstract Previous research in retailing contexts finds customers feel guilty after violating a social norm and that such customer‐induced guilt leads to increased repatronage intention, despite guilt being a negative emotion. However, prior research has neither identified the mechanism through which this occurs nor how relationship type may influence this process. Additionally, previous work has not considered how service providers should react when a customer experiences guilt. This paper advances research on guilt by first proposing that affective and normative commitment are intermediate e‐motivations, mediating the effect of guilt on repatronage intention, but that these e‐motivations differ depending on the strength of the customer's commercial friendship with the service provider. Second, this research investigates whether service providers, when faced with a guilty customer, should emphasize or downplay the customer's norm violation (CNV). Survey findings reveal that affective commitment fully mediates the relationship between guilt and repatronage intention for those in strong commercial friendships, whereas guilt directly affects repatronage intention for those in weak commercial friendships. Normative commitment does not play a mediating role. Additionally, experimental findings suggest that enhancing the CNV increases guilt. However, doing so also increases perceived guilt induction, which ultimately decreases repatronage intention. - Psychology & Marketing, EarlyView.