Customer evaluations of service failure and recovery encounters

Although there is a substantial literature on customer (dis)satisfaction and complaining behaviour, relatively little progress has been made in developing a theoretical understanding of how consumer evaluate a company’s response to service failure and recovery encounters. Using perceived justice theory as a conceptual foundation, the current research develops and tests a model that (1) explains how customers evaluate service failure and recovery encounters and (2) how these evaluations customer satisfaction and subsequent post-purchase behaviour and attitudes. The study employed a two-stage research strategy. The first phase of the research included an extensive literature review and exploratory research involving semi-structured interviews and experiments. This first stage resulted in the development of a research model establishing the links between perceived justice, consumption emotions, customer satisfaction and post-purchase behaviour and attitudes. In the second phase, the hypotheses were evaluated through a self-administered, cross-sectional survey. Respondents were asked to recall an incident when they complained to a travel and tourism service provider about a problem. Structured questions were used to test the eighteen hypotheses resulting from the proposed conceptual framework for examining customer evaluations of service failure and recovery encounters. The results of this research provide empirical support for proposed conceptual framework suggesting that perceived justice evaluations play an important role in customer evaluations of service failure and recovery encounters. The findings contribute to the understanding of post-purchase decision-making, notably in travel and tourism services marketing settings. Managers should also find the results informative in developing complaint resolution procedures.