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The purpose of this research is to investigate the effects of service recovery experiences on customer engagement in negative word-of-mouth (WOM) in the hotel industry and explore the psychological motives and mediating mechanisms driving consumer behavior.

A scenario-based experimental design on Qualtrics was used, with a pre-test (N = 200). The main study data were collected using Amazon's Mechanical Turk platform.

Findings reveal that negative service experiences lead to higher engagement in negative WOM compared to positive and satisfactory recovery service experiences. Even well-executed recovery efforts may not completely eliminate negative WOM. The mediating role of emotional responses is substantiated, as heightened negative service experiences result in more intense negative emotional responses, leading to increased engagement in negative WOM.

The study emphasizes the importance of service recovery strategies and the need for businesses to consistently strive for exceptional service quality. It also highlights the complexity of customer reactions to service experiences, suggesting that further research is needed to explore the factors that minimize negative WOM across various service contexts.

Previous research suggests that the compensation offered to customers after a service failure has to be substantial to make customer satisfaction surpass that of an error-free service. However, with the right service recovery strategy, it might be possible to reduce compensation size while maintaining happy customers. The aim of the current study is to test whether an anchoring technique can be used to achieve this goal.

After experiencing a service failure, participants were told that there is a standard size of the compensation for service failures. The size of this standard was different depending on condition. Thereafter, participants were asked how much they would demand to be satisfied with their customer experience.

The compensation demand was relatively high on average (1,000–1,400 SEK, ≈ $120). However, telling the participants that customers typically receive 200 SEK as compensation reduced their demand to about 800 SEK (Experiment 1)—an anchoring effect. Moreover, a precise anchoring point (a typical compensation of 247 SEK) generated a lower demand than rounded anchoring points, even when the rounded anchoring point was lower (200 SEK) than the precise counterpart (Experiment 2)—a precision effect.

Setting a low compensation standard—yet allowing customers to actually receive compensations above the standard—can make customers more satisfied while also saving resources in demand-what-you-want service recovery situations, in particular when the compensation standard is a precise value.

This study investigates the direct impact of app attachment on service recovery and customer advocacy and their combined impact on recommendation and purchase intention. The mediating mechanisms of service recovery and customer advocacy between app attachment and customer responses are also tested in the context of food delivery apps (FDAs).

Utilizing a quantitative approach, the authors surveyed 207 responses from users of FDAs who had experienced service failures. Structural equation modeling in Smart PLS 3.0 was used to analyze the data.

The results supported direct effects among all constructs in the model. The main contribution of the study confirms the mediating mechanisms of service recovery and customer advocacy between app attachment and customer responses.

Previous studies have mostly relied on the technology acceptance model (TAM). This theory posits that perceived usefulness and ease of use influence the decision of individuals to use a new technology. Although this theory is valuable in terms of accepting new technologies, it neglects psychological phenomena involving the individual and the technological entity – in this case, the FDA. Thus, our study is unique in applying attachment theory and putting emphasis on the importance of building trust in the relationship between FDAs and their customers. Social exchange theory is applied to explain the importance of overcoming the cost of experiencing a failure through service recovery. Thus, we extend the knowledge regarding psychological individual reactions to mobile technologies in the food context, an important sector within the hospitality market.

FDA managers should invest in developing emotional ties with customers. Specific actions include messaging customers on their birthdays or other festive dates. Short testimonial videos on TikTok or other social media with customers advocating in favor of the company could help spread recommendations and the intentions of other customers using the FDAs. To use these practical recommendations properly, we recommend that FDA managers consider the level of quality service recovery delivered and individuals’ cultures, beliefs and values regarding where the company operates to avoid misunderstandings.

This study is original in proposing a model to FDA operators considering app attachment, service recovery, customer advocacy, recommendation and purchase intention. It further supports the mediating effect of service recovery and customer advocacy between app attachment, recommendation and purchase intention on mobile phones.

Although trade volumes in e-retailing have increased significantly in recent years, logistics service failures are inevitable, especially at the delivery stage. Therefore, it is essential to provide customers with effective recovery strategies to increase their satisfaction and repurchase intentions. There is a lack of empirical evidence on whether the response time or the discount offered in compensation is more crucial for customers. Therefore, this study aims to determine whether the response time or the discount offered for high and low criticality failures has a greater impact on customer satisfaction levels and repurchase intentions for female and male customers.

A scenario-based experimental design method has been adopted to collect data, and 697 participants aged 18 and 58 years have been reached. The research utilized a between-subjects design, incorporating three factors: gender (female vs male), criticality (high vs low) and compensation (7 days: 10% discount, 10 days: 20% discount and 14 days: 30% discount). Six scenarios depicting the failure of an online retailer were created, and factorial univariate ANOVA was conducted to test the hypotheses.

The study's results show that in terms of customer satisfaction, female customers attach more importance to the response time in the case of high criticality and the amount of discount offered in the case of low criticality. On the other hand, male customers give more importance to the response time in terms of customer satisfaction when they experience a high or low criticality failure. In the case of low criticality, response time is more important for male customers to increase their repurchase intentions, while the amount of the discount is more important for female customers.

The study demonstrates the relative importance of the response time and discount amount according to the criticality level of failures and to guide business managers in terms of the recovery strategies they will implement. It focuses on gender differences and determine whether the response time or discount amount is more important for male and female customers in high or low-criticality situations.

Given the fierce competition in financial services, service failure management and trust restoration tactics are becoming strategic priorities. Studies investigating trust restoration have increased over the years due to the significance of trust in services and the frequency of trust violations. Drawing on the sense-making and defensive approaches of attribution theory, this study aims to explore the effectiveness of various trust recovery tactics (e.g. apology, explanation, and investigation) in financial services considering the prevalence of service failure severity.

Based on a scenario-based survey, this study gathered data from 402 consumers of different banks in Pakistan. The study analyzed the data using ordinary least square regressions and structural equation modeling.

The study indicated that explanation is more effective in repairing character-competence and commitment-based trust, while investigation remained highly effective for inducing congruence-based trust. Interestingly, an apology was more effective for communication-based trust repairing, while context-based trust recovery was unaffected against all recovery tactics. Despite the prevalence of severe service failure, recovery actions proved fully effective for character-competence and commitment-based trust while partially effective for congruence-based trust recovery. This study also found that severe service failure undermines the effectiveness of recovery actions in repairing communication and context-based trust.

The study extends the literature on trust recovery by integrating sense-making and defensive attribution theory. The sense-making approach contributes to the existing knowledge on trust recovery by elucidating how consumers and service providers develop a shared understanding to facilitate the recovery mechanism of multidimensional trust in financial services.

There is considerable interest in the value of user-generated content (UGC) and its antecedents. Despite its growing importance, existing studies have largely ignored the effects of UGC on customers’ responses to recovery efforts in the fashion industry. The aim of this paper is to examine the extent to which UGC influences customers’ responses to providers’ service failure and recovery efforts, particularly how millennials’ interactions impact recovery efforts.

The study uses a phenomenological hermeneutics and adopts theoretical sampling to collect empirical data from three European countries (France, Italy and the UK). The authors interviewed 60 millennials who had online service failure experiences in online fashion. This methodological framework was designed to illustrate the close relationships between subject and object as well as identify that data analysis and collection are undertaken in relation to consistent iterative interpretations in an evolving process of study. Drawing on multi-theoretical lenses, using actor–network and social influence theories, this study advances understanding through the development of a new conceptual model relating to individual characteristics.

Using actor–network theory and social influence theory, this study developed a conceptual model of four customer groups’ responses to service failure based on the severity of service failure and the level of customers’ online response following service failure.

The authors suggest some pragmatic implications of their conceptual model and explain how awareness of different customer groups can lead to effective decision-making for marketers. This study provides a set of practical insights that brand managers can use to recover service failures.

This study investigates two moderators of the effects of manufacturers' recovery efforts following a product defect on customers' perceptions of product quality: the severity of the product defect and whether the recovery efforts were covered under warranty or not.

A total of 478 USA customers who purchased a new car from a cooperating manufacturer participated in a survey. Customers reported the most important product defect (if any) the customers had experienced with the customers' vehicle during the past year. Three linear regressions (OLS) were used to test the proposed hypotheses.

Defect severity moderates the effects of recovery efforts on quality perceptions. The well-known recovery effect occurs only for product defects of minor severity. Experiencing a severe product defect damages the customers' perceptions of product quality even if the product defect is completely fixed. Double deviations (failed recovery of a product defect) do not damage quality perceptions for defects of minor severity. Finally, warranty coverage of repairs can attenuate the adverse effects of a failed recovery of severe defects on customers' quality perceptions. Additionally, only non-complainers who have experienced a severe product defect correspond to the prevailing conceptualization of an at-risk customer group.

Despite the pervasiveness of product defects, research on the effects of experiencing product defects on customers' product quality perceptions is scarce. Furthermore, the authors' findings reconcile inconsistent results and provide a more nuanced understanding of the well-known recovery and double-deviation effects. Finally, the role of warranty coverage in the recovery process as a buffer for customers' perceptions of product quality is novel.

This study examined the links between user-generated content (UGC), dissatisfied customers and second-hand luxury fashion brands. A central premise of luxury fashion brands is the perceived status and privilege of those who own such items. Despite their marketing logic emphasising exclusivity and rarity, they have broadened their reach by integrating new digital marketing practices that increase access to luxury brand-related information and create opportunities for consumers to purchase products through second-hand sellers.

Building on an inductive qualitative study of 59 millennials from three European countries (France, Italy and the UK) and by examining the mediating role of UGC and dissatisfied customers, this paper develops a conceptual framework of three clusters of second-hand luxury fashion goods customers: spiritual consumers, entrepreneurial recoverer consumers and carpe diem consumers.

The proposed SEC framework (spiritual consumers, entrepreneurial recoverer consumers, and carpe diem consumers) illustrates how the emerging themes interconnect with the identified consumers, revealing significant consumer actions and attitudes found in the second-hand luxury goods sector that influence the usage of UGC and its integration into service failure and recovery efforts

This study suggested that the perceptions of consumers seeking second-hand luxury fashion products differ from those who purchase new or never previously owned luxury fashion products. Overall, this research sets the stage for scholars to forge a path forward to enhance the understanding of this phenomenon and its implications for luxury fashion companies.

This study aims to explore the influence of customer contact employees (CCEs) competencies (social, emotional and professional) on their service recovery performance (SRP) with mediation effect of internal marketing and moderation effect of industry/sector.

This study used survey-based dyads of 210 CCEs and their managers/supervisors in three service sectors (hotel and hospitality, automobile service centers and organized retail stores). Repeated-measures analysis of variance, confirmatory factor analysis and PROCESS macro of Hayes (2013) was used to assess reliability, validity and to test mediation, moderation and moderated-mediation.

CCEs competencies influenced SRP. The relationship between CCEs competencies and SRP was mediated by internal marketing. The industry/sector was found to be a significant moderator between the internal marketing and SRP. Additionally, a significant moderated-mediation effect was found between CCEs competencies and SRP.

Longitudinal studies could be particularly helpful to evaluate the impact of internal marketing on SRP. The future researcher may benefit from replicating and extending the model in different industries or can study other factors as mediators or moderators for further contribution to the SRP literature.

Firms striving for consumer retention and aiming to extend their consumer life cycle can greatly benefit from the results of this study to provide effective SRP. The study also suggests that policymakers and management should adopt properly designed and well-articulated human resource management practices for excellence in SRP in their organizations.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, there is no study in the past which has addressed employee and organizational factors with the dyadic sample. In addition, it has used a moderated-mediation model in the context of SRP and also contributes to the extant literature by researching in a non-Western setting like India.

Customer participation (CP) in service recovery is one of the ways to co-create value with the service provider. Most existing studies assume that customers are willing to participate in service recovery, provided the firm offers them the opportunity. In this study, the authors propose the construct named customer intention to participate in service recovery (CIPSR), develop a scale for it and argue that it is not always implicit but rather is dependent on the consumer's perceived control.

A multi-method approach was used with a combination of qualitative interviews, literature review, unaided dimension identification, correspondence analysis, exploratory factor analysis (EFA), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modelling to develop the CIPSR scale. The authors used structural equation modelling to test the proposed effect of perceived control on CIPSR.

The study proposes a four-dimensional scale for CIPSR. The authors also found support for the effect of perceived control on CIPSR, with anxiety and failure controllability attribution as intermediate variables.

This study develops a comprehensive scale to measure CIPSR using a rigorous multi-method technique, as well as establishes its importance in the existing literature.