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The purpose of this study is to present a systematic review of the online service failure (OSF) literature and conduct an exhaustive analysis of academic research on this emerging research area.

The current study has adopted a structured systematic literature review approach to synthesize and assess the OSF literature. Further, the study uses the Theory-Context-Characteristics-Methodology (TCCM) framework to propose future research directions in the OSF domain.

This systematic review shows that OSF research is still developing and remains mainly incoherent. Further, the study develops a conceptual framework integrating the frequently reported antecedents, mediators, moderator and consequences in the extant literature. This review also synthesizes the theoretical perspectives adopted for this domain.

The study followed specific inclusion and exclusion criteria to shortlist articles. Further, articles published only in the English language were considered. Hence, the findings of this review cannot be generalized to all OSF literature.

This systematic review has classified antecedents into customers' and service providers' roles which will enable online service providers to understand all sets of factors driving OSF. It also synthesizes and presents service recovery strategies and emphasizes the role of online customer support to fix OSF.

The OSF literature is still developing and remains highly incoherent, suggesting that a synthesized review is needed. This study has systematically reviewed and synthesized the OSF literature to study its development over time and proposes a framework which provides a comprehensive understanding of OSF.

The purpose of this paper is to identify types of service failures in a double deviation scenario within the contexts of online retailing.

Critical incident technique; customer complaints to online third parties; and four‐factor justice dimensionality.

Findings of this paper show distinctive sets of service failures in two separate service failure stages of double deviation (i.e. the initial service failure and recovery failure stages) within online retailing. Initial service failures mainly reflect cognitive issues generated from an online‐specific store atmosphere and threaten distributive or procedural justice perceptions. In comparison with distributive and procedural justice perceptions still being dominant, service failures in the recovery failure stage consist of interpersonal and emotional issues generated from customer‐company interactions, threatening interpersonal justice perceptions.

This paper contributes to broadening the current understanding of the dynamics of online customer dissatisfaction, by first identifying types of service failures that occur in both stages of online double deviation. This paper also introduces customer complaints to online third parties as a useful data resource for the study of service failure/recovery.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of online service failure on online customer satisfaction and offline customer loyalty, and the moderating role of brand strength is also examined. While extant research on brick and click service mode recognizes the positive spillover effect from offline stores to online stores, this study analyzes the negative spillover effect from online stores to offline stores.

This paper tests the hypotheses by two studies. Study 1 is based on a 2 (failure severity: mild vs severe) × 2 (brand strength: strong vs weak) between-subjects experimental design using scenarios in a brick and click retailer context, while study 2 is based on data collected from a scenario-based questionnaire survey and analyzed through the structural equation modeling.

The results indicate that participants exposed to severe online service failure show lower online satisfaction as compared to their counterparts exposed to mild online service failure, but they show the similar level of offline loyalty in both degrees of online service failure. Nevertheless, these results are not moderated by brand strength significantly.

An experimental design and a scenario-based questionnaire survey are used to test the framework. However, the generalizability of the research findings is still limited to a specific study setting. Future research in a different setting is needed to further validate the presented findings.

The findings suggest that physical service providers should adopt aggressive online expansion strategy to seize the market and pay more attention to online service quality rather than online marketing only.

This is one of few studies to explore the risk of brick and click service mode, and provide a clear understanding of the likely occurrence of online service failure and its impact on online customer satisfaction and offline customer loyalty. It extends prior research by exploring non-existence of negative perceptual effect from online service failure to offline customer loyalty in the short run and weakening brand effect, which contributes to cross-channel spillover effect in the integrated multi-channel context and brand building in the internet era.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate consumer responses to online retailer service recovery remedies following a service failure and explores whether the phenomenon of the service recovery paradox exists within the context of online retailing.

This paper reports on the results of two studies. Study I explores the main and interaction effects of the various dimensions of service recovery justice (i.e. distributive justice, procedural justice, and interactional justice) on customer satisfaction, negative word‐of‐mouth (WOM), and repurchase intention based on the justice theory. Study II investigates whether the phenomenon of the service recovery paradox exists (i.e. whether customers have higher satisfaction, higher repurchase intention, and lower negative word‐of‐mouth after experiencing an effectively remedied service failure as compared to if the service failure had not occurred). A laboratory experimental design is used to test the research hypotheses.

The results show that distributive justice, procedural justice, and interactional justice have a significant positive influence on customer satisfaction. Among the three dimensions of service recovery justice, only distributive justice has a significant positive influence on repurchase intention, and only interactional justice has a significant negative influence on negative WOM. Additionally, both the interaction between distributive justice and procedural justice and the interaction between distributive justice and interactional justice are found to significantly influence customer satisfaction, negative WOM, and repurchase intention. The results also indicate that the service recovery paradox does not appear to exist in the online retailing context.

The findings will allow online retailers to develop more effective strategies for preventing service failure and improving customer satisfaction, negative WOM, and repurchase intention.

This study contributes to the understanding of consumer responses to online retailer's service recovery after a service failure.

Despite having been widely studied in traditional (bricks‐and‐mortar) services, the effect of service failures and recovery (SFR) on customer loyalty has received only limited attention in the context of e‐services. This paper sets out to empirically test the following set of hypotheses in an e‐service setting: H1, service failures have a negative effect on customer loyalty intentions; H2, failure resolution has a positive effect on customer loyalty intentions; H3, satisfaction with the recovery has a positive effect on customer loyalty intentions; H4, outstanding recovery results in loyalty intentions which are more favorable than they would be had no failure occurred (service recovery paradox).

The paper is based on an online survey of actual customers of a commercial e‐banking service.

H1‐H3 are supported, suggesting that: the detrimental effects of failures are also present online; problem resolution leads to increased loyalty; despite the challenging nature of online failures and the reduced degree of human interaction, it is possible to achieve effective recovery in e‐services. H4 is also supported. We observes a recovery paradox effect but it only take place for a small proportion of “delighted” customers, i.e. those who perceived an outstanding recovery. Although unlikely, the impact (size effect) of outstanding recovery on loyalty is substantial.

Future research should examine other types of e‐services.

E‐service delivery systems should be designed with a strong failure‐prevention mindset and include effective service recovery mechanisms. However, in general, e‐service providers should not look at superior recovery as a substitute for error‐free service. Despite not being a viable strategy in general, delighting customers in the recovery may make sense for the most profitable customers.

The paper provides empirical evidence of the effects of SFR in the context of online service, an area which has received limited attention to date. Unlike other research, this paper draws on data from customers of an actual e‐service and therefore benefits from increased external validity.

The internet has changed the way services are delivered and has created new forms of customer-firm interactions. Whilst online service failures remain inevitable, the internet offers opportunities for delivering efficient service recovery through the online channel. Notwithstanding, research evidence on how firms can deliver online service recovery remains scarce. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of two online service recovery strategies – online information and technology-mediated communication – on customer satisfaction, switching and word of mouth intentions.

A scenario-based experiment is employed. Data are analysed using partial least squares structural equation modelling.

Online information and technology-mediated interactions can be used as online service recovery strategies. When fair, online service recovery can restore customer satisfaction, lower switching and enhance positive word of mouth. Interactional justice delivered through technology-mediated communication is a strong predictor of satisfaction with online service recovery. Yet, customers in subscription services show greater expectations of online service recovery than those in non-subscription services.

Further research could examine the impact of online service recovery on relational constructs, such as trust. Since customers participate in the online recovery process, future research could investigate the role of customers as co-creators of online service recovery.

Service managers should design online recovery strategies that meet customer need for interactional justice, for example, bespoke e-mails, and virtual chat communications with genuine customer care.

Online information and technology-mediated communication function as online service recovery strategies. Customer perceptions of justice towards online service recovery restore satisfaction, and encourage loyal behaviour.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the differences in consumers' attributions of blame for service failures and its affect on their expectations for recovery in both online and offline settings.

A sample of non‐student adults participated in a 2 (service type) by 2 (shopping medium) experimental design testing the affects of on‐ and offline shopping on consumers' attributions of blame for a service failure. Specifically, regression is employed to test the effects of on/offline medium on blame and expected service failure recovery in both the airline and banking industries.

Empirical support is found for the hypotheses that online subjects blame themselves more for service failures, and, in turn, expect less of a recovery than offline consumers. The on/offline medium is shown to have a mediated effect on expected service failure recovery through blame in the airline data. In the bank data, on/offline medium has a significant affect on blame, and blame has a significant affect on expected service failure recovery, though on/offline medium does not show a mediated affect on expected service failure recovery.

Because online customers tend to blame themselves more for service failures, managers may be able to offer less of service failure recovery online than offline. Furthermore, online customers may be more willing to recover for themselves, thereby saving the firm money and placing customers more in control of their service experience.

This study allows for the possibility of consumers' blaming themselves for service failures and, to our knowledge, this is the first study to examine how attribution for service failure affects expected service failure recovery in both on‐ and offline settings. Managers should find our results useful in developing service failure recovery strategies.

This study examines the different effects of service recovery strategies on customers' future intentions when online shoppers were experiencing delivery failures. Two types of problem severity are evaluated: wrong-product delivery (issues with the product quality or quantity) and late delivery. This study also investigates the impact of service criticality on the relationship between service recovery strategies and customers' future intentions.

This study employs experimental research with 123 online shoppers as participants. Following the results, a subsequent test is conducted to examine the effect of participants' demographics on future intentions. Finally, the current study elaborates the findings using qualitative research, interviewing both sides impacted by the service failures: online shoppers and e-retail managers.

The findings show that complementing product replacement with monetary compensation is the most effective strategy to improve repurchase intention after a dissatisfaction moment. This effect is indifferent to service criticality and severity. Age influences the participants' repurchase intentions, in which younger people are less tolerant of service failures. In contrast, gender and education level do not provide any differences. To prevent delivery failures, managers participating in this study suggest several best practices regarding systems and infrastructure, people and coordination and collaboration with logistics partners.

The study mainly examines a limited type of service and service failures. Further studies are encouraged to expand the variables and scenarios, as well as to employ more distinctive methods, to enrich the findings related to recovery strategy in the e-commerce industry.

Given proper compensation, service failure could create momentum for online retailers to boost customer loyalty. This study suggests that managers design the most effective service recovery to win customers back to the business.

This paper enriches the literature related to a service recovery strategy, particularly within the online shopping context.

Despite scholarly effort to understand customers’ recovery evaluation, little progress is evident in deciphering how customers develop online failure/recovery perception. This paper aims to address this issue.

Social constructivism was the epistemic choice for this study. This approach is holistic and offers a comprehensive understanding of each side of the phenomena. This provided social scientific descriptions of people and their cultural bases and built on, and articulated what was implicit in interpretations of their views.

Online banking customer groups were identified as: exigent customers, solutionist customers and impulsive customers. Customers’ position in each group determined failure perception, recovery expectation and evaluation, and post-recovery behaviour. Comparisons were observed and discussed in relation to Albania and Kosovo. It was suggested that banks should expand their presence in social media platforms and offer a means to manage online customer communication and spread of online WOM.

For exigent customers, the failure/recovery responsibility is embedded within the provider. This explains their high sensitivity and criteria to define a failure.

Online banking customers’ request of a satisfactory recovery experience included: customer notifications, customer behaviour, customer determination, and the mediator of request. 10;Providers should examine customer failure/recovery experiences in cooperation with other banks which should lead to a higher order understanding of customer withdrawal and disengagement activities.

Post-recovery behaviour is linked to the decline of online banking usage, switching to new providers, and the spread of negative online and off-line word-of-mouth.

This is the first empirical study on online service failure and recovery strategy to provide information on customers’ unique preferences and expectations in the recovery process. Online customers are organised into a threefold customer typology, and explanation for the providers’ role in the online customer failure-recovery perception construct is presented.

Using a video revealing unhygienic practices in Chinese five-star hotels as the case study, this study aims to understand the impact of service failure online exposure on hotel revenue performance in terms of seriousness, magnitude and duration, as well as to identify the hotel-characteristics and hotel-responsiveness factors that influence revenue recovery.

This study uses the actual Revenue per Available Room data of ten hotels involved in the incident and five different market segments during 2016–2019. Event study method is used to investigate the effect of online exposure on hotel revenue performance.

This study confirms the significant negative effect of online exposure and that hotels take nearly nine months to fully recover. The results indicate that hotel size, hotel age and response strategy play an important role in reducing negative impacts. Moreover, this study reveals the dynamic spillover effects of online exposure on different hotel market segments. These effects change from a competitive to a contagious effect with a decrease in class ratings.

Low-class hotel managers should take effective actions to avoid possible negative spillovers from others’ service failure incidents. Hotel managers could consider the synergy of different strategies rather than a single response strategy to minimize losses.

This study theoretically broadens knowledge about the negative impact of online exposure on Chinese hotel revenue. Additionally, the findings examine the dynamic spillover effects on hotels in different segments. Furthermore, they extend the existing findings on the negative impact of online public opinion crises.

本研究以一段揭示中国五星级酒店不卫生行为的视频为案例, 旨在了解网上曝光的服务失败事件在严重程度、规模和持续时间方面对酒店收入绩效的影响, 并确定影响收入恢复的酒店特征和酒店回应因素。

本研究使用了2016–2019年期间10家涉及酒店和5个不同的细分市场的实际每间可用房收入（RevPARs）数据。采用事件研究法（ESM）来研究网上曝光对酒店收入绩效的影响。

本研究证实了网上曝光的显著负面效应, 酒店需要近9个月的时间才能完全恢复。结果表明, 酒店规模、酒店年龄和回应策略在减少负面影响方面发挥了重要作用。此外, 本研究还揭示了在线曝光对不同酒店细分市场的动态溢出效应。这些效应随着酒店星级的下降而从竞争效应变为传染效应。

低星级酒店管理者应采取有效行动, 避免其他酒店的服务失败事件可能带来的负面溢出效应。酒店管理者可以考虑不同策略的协同作用, 而不是单一的回应策略来减少损失。

本研究从理论上拓宽了关于网上曝光对中国酒店收入绩效的负面影响的知识。与此同时, 本研究的结果考察了不同细分市场的酒店的动态溢出效应。此外, 还扩展了现有的关于网络舆情危机的负面影响的研究结果。

Este estudio utiliza los datos reales de ingresos por habitación disponible (RevPAR) de 10 hoteles implicados en el incidente y cinco segmentos de mercado diferentes durante 2016-2019. Se utiliza el método de estudio de sucesos (ESM) para investigar el efecto de la exposición en línea en el rendimiento de los ingresos de los hoteles.

Utilizando como caso de estudio un vídeo que revela prácticas antihigiénicas en hoteles chinos de cinco estrellas, este estudio pretende comprender el impacto de la exposición online de fallos en el servicio sobre el rendimiento de los ingresos hoteleros en términos de gravedad, magnitud y duración, así como identificar las características y los factores de respuesta del hotel que influyen en la recuperación de los ingresos.

Este estudio confirma el importante efecto negativo de la exposición online, tardando los hoteles casi nueve meses en recuperarse totalmente. Los resultados indican que el tamaño del hotel, su antigüedad y la estrategia de respuesta desempeñan un papel importante en la reducción del impacto negativo. Además, este estudio revela los efectos indirectos dinámicos de la exposición online en diferentes segmentos del mercado hotelero. Estos efectos cambian de un efecto competitivo a un efecto contagioso con una disminución de las calificaciones de la categoría o clase hotelera.

Los revenue managers de los hoteles de categoría baja deberían tomar medidas eficaces para evitar posibles repercusiones negativas de los fallos en el servicio de otros hoteles. Los directores de hotel podrían considerar la sinergia de diferentes estrategias en lugar de una única estrategia de respuesta para minimizar las pérdidas.

Este estudio amplía teóricamente los conocimientos sobre el impacto negativo de la exposición online en los ingresos de los hoteles chinos. Además, los resultados examinan los efectos indirectos dinámicos en hoteles de diferentes segmentos. Además, amplían los resultados existentes sobre el impacto negativo de las crisis de opinión pública online.