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The purpose of this paper is to examine when (i.e. after a shorter or longer length of time) organizations should offer an apology or a promise of non-recurrence of a failure to recover trust following a failed service recovery (a double deviation).

This paper reports the results of a pilot study with a convenience sample and two experiments with samples from different populations, students and employees of a financial institution in one study and workers recruited through Mechanical Turk in the other.

An apology was most effective to recover trust when offered shortly after the double deviation (e.g. Study 1: after two days; Study 2: immediately and after two days), while making a promise was most effective when offered at a later time after the double deviation (e.g. Study 1: after 30 days; Study 2: after 15 days). Consumers consider an apology offered shortly after the double deviation as a sign of integrity and a promise communicated sometime after the double deviation as a sign of competence.

This paper complements prior research that demonstrates the effectiveness of apology and promise as trust recovery tactics. The findings show that managers should carefully consider the time at which they use these tactics to recover trust following a double deviation.

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.

This paper aims to compare the relative importance of tangible compensation across the offline and online service mediums, and assess tangible compensation as a trust recovery tactic.

This study is based on a 3 (compensation level: 20%, 50%, 100%) × 2 (compensation type: refund, coupon) × 2 (service medium: offline, online) scenario-based experimental design.

The offline and online customers exhibit different satisfaction for the respective values of both the immediate and delayed compensation types. Moreover, offline customers exhibit more trust in the firm when they receive a refund, whereas their online counterparts demonstrate a higher trust when provided with a coupon.

For a service failure such as the one presented in the experimental study’s scenario, a lower (higher) value coupon will generate more (less) satisfaction compared to providing the same value as a refund. Firms will be better off by providing partial compensation in the form of a coupon, rather than a refund.

Unlike most studies of service recovery, this research takes into account the perceived differences of various tangible compensations to provide a comparison of offline and online customers’ recovery preferences. Furthermore, the previous studies have not focused on trust restoration and assessed causes and effects of trust based on trust at one point in time i.e. trust after recovery. While this study has included restored trust as a variable in the conceptual model.

Esta investigación tiene como objetivo comparar la importancia relativa de la compensación tangible en los medios de servicio offline y online, y evaluar la compensación tangible como táctica de recuperación de la confianza.

Este estudio se basa en un diseño experimental basado en 3 (nivel de compensación: 20%, 50%, 100%) x 2 (tipo de compensación: reembolso, cupón) x 2 (medio de servicio: offline, online).

Los clientes offline y online muestran una satisfacción diferente para los valores respectivos de los tipos de compensación inmediata y diferida. Además, los clientes offline muestran más confianza en la empresa cuando reciben un reembolso, mientras que sus homólogos online demuestran una mayor confianza cuando se les proporciona un cupón.

Para un fallo del servicio como el presentado en el escenario del estudio experimental, un cupón de menor (mayor) valor generará más (menos) satisfacción en comparación con proporcionar el mismo valor como reembolso. Las empresas saldrán ganando si ofrecen una compensación parcial en forma de cupón, en lugar de un reembolso.

A diferencia de la mayoría de los estudios sobre la recuperación de servicios, esta investigación tiene en cuenta las diferencias percibidas de varias compensaciones tangibles para ofrecer una comparación de las preferencias de recuperación de los clientes offline y online. Además, los estudios anteriores no se han centrado en el restablecimiento de la confianza y han evaluado las causas y los efectos de la confianza basándose en la confianza en un momento determinado, es decir, la confianza después de la recuperación. En cambio, este estudio ha incluido la confianza restaurada como una variable en el modelo conceptual.

本研究旨在比较有形补偿在离线和在线服务媒介中的相对重要性, 并评估有形补偿作为一种信任恢复策略。

本研究基于3（补偿水平：20%, 50%, 100%）×2（补偿类型：退款, 优惠券）×2（服务媒介：线下, 线上）的情景实验设计。

线下和线上的顾客对即时和延迟补偿类型的各自数值表现出不同的满意度。此外, 离线顾客在收到退款时表现出对公司的更多信任, 而他们的在线顾客在得到优惠券时表现出更多的信任。

对于像实验研究中提出的那种服务失败, 与提供相同价值的退款相比, 价值较低（较高）的优惠券会产生更多（更少）的满意度。企业通过以优惠券的形式提供部分补偿, 而不是退款, 会有更好的效果。

与大多数关于服务恢复的研究不同, 这项研究考虑到了各种有形补偿的感知差异, 以提供离线和在线顾客恢复偏好的比较。此外, 以前的研究没有关注信任的恢复, 而是基于一个时间点的信任, 即恢复后的信任来评估信任的原因和影响。而本研究将恢复的信任作为概念模型中的一个变 量。

This research investigates whether and how perceived firm remorse (PFR) influences consumers’ coping behaviors in the digital media service recovery context. It also examines how an apology should be delivered to generate PFR.

In Study 1, 452 mobile application service users were recruited for a survey study, and Structural Equation Modeling was used to test the research hypotheses. In Study 2, 1,255 mobile application service users were recruited for an experimental study.

Study 1 shows that PFR negatively influences blame attribution and positively influences emotional empathy. Emotional empathy negatively affects coping behaviors. According to this study, blame attribution and emotional empathy do not have any serial mediation effect on the relationship between PFR and coping behaviors. Only emotional empathy mediates the effect of PFR on coping behaviors. Study 2 finds that response time and apology mode jointly influence PFR.

This research establishes the relationship between PFR and coping behaviors and shows the mediating role of emotional empathy in this relationship.

Service providers should consider response time and apology mode, as the two factors jointly influence the extent of PFR, which affects consumers’ coping behaviors through emotional empathy. A grace period, in which PFR does not decrease, is present when a public apology is offered. Such an effect does not exist when a private apology is offered.

This research explains how PFR influences coping behaviors and demonstrates how apology mode moderates the effect of response time on PFR in the digital media service recovery context.

This study aims to explore the combined strategies leading to successful repair of two types of trust in Chinese construction projects and provide an effective guidance and control trust repair in construction projects. During the research period, the author interviewed 150 managers from 50 Chinese construction projects and collected details of 125 violations. The research examines the effect of combined strategy of trust repair in Chinese management scenario.

This study adopted a mixed, quantitative, qualitative and exploratory approach. The author first extracted six strategies, namely, apology, denial, penance, communication, promise and compensation, from the literature review and generalization. Then, the author conducted an interview with 150 managers from 50 China construction projects. And the author analyzed the data through qualitative comparative analysis (QCA).

When competence-based trust is broken, violators should adopt communication and promise, demonstrate their competence and qualification, and change the attributions of competence from the trustor. When integrity-based trust is broken, violators should apologize, actively admit the mistake, show a positive attitude and seek the forgiveness from the trustor. After reconstructing trustors' perceptions of competence or integrity, violators should also make a promise to trustors for the future. The result of this research not only illustrates the sufficiency and necessity of a single strategy for trust repair but also explores the combination of trust repair strategies that rebuild the trust.

This study is limited to 50 construction projects in the Chinese construction context, so conclusions are limited in application. Data used in this research did not provide an in-depth analysis of trust repair failures. Thus, additional research is needed to explore why trust was not repaired. The study is also limited to examining the Chinese construction project organizations only, and future studies should incorporate organizations in other nations and regions.

Compared with using a single strategy, a combined strategy provides a contribution to the future practice of repair broken relationship between construction project organizations. This research helps to organize decisions and benefits managers, from Chinese owners and contractors, in choosing which of these strategies repair trust. The author also provides a specific combination of strategies to repair relationships for international companies that have conflicts with Chinese construction companies.

This research is among the early studies in China that preliminary examines the combined strategy of trust repair between Chinese owners and contractors by using causal attribution theory and QCA. This study makes a valuable contribution toward combined strategy in construction project and the knowledge system of trust repair. Future studies could build on the findings from the current study to develop a cross-cultural research on trust repair.

This study aims to explore the recovery performances of chatbots (vs human employees) and help firms use chatbots to carry out effective service recovery.

Two experiments were conducted to test the proposed hypotheses.

The results show that compared with human employees’ recovery, chatbots’ recovery leads to lower customer satisfaction and revisit intention. This effect is more significant for symbolic recovery instead of economic recovery. Perceived distributive and interactional justice mediate the interaction effect of recovery provider and recovery strategy on recovery performance. Using immediate recovery rather than delayed recovery can attenuate chatbots’ poor performances in symbolic recovery.

This study enriches the chatbot research and the service recovery literature by deploying chatbots into the service recovery setting. Using an integrated theoretical model including recovery strategy and recovery timing, this study provides substantive insight into how firms can enhance chatbots’ recovery performances.

本研究旨在探索聊天机器人（与人类员工相比）的服务补救表现, 并帮助公司使用聊天机器人进行有效的服务补救。

本研究进行了两个实验来检验提出的理论假设

结果表明, 与人类员工的服务补救相比, 聊天机器人的服务补救导致顾客满意度和再惠顾意愿降低。 这种效应对于象征补救而非功利补救更为显著。 分配公平和互动公平在服务补救提供者和补救策略的交互作用对补救表现的影响中起到了中介作用。 使用立即补救而不是延迟补救可以减轻聊天机器人象征补救方面的不良表现。

本研究通过将聊天机器人部署到服务补救环境中丰富了聊天机器人研究和服务补救文献。 本研究通过构建包括服务补救策略和补救时机在内的综合理论模型, 为企业如何提高聊天机器人的服务补救表现提供了实质性的见解。

The purpose of this research is the exploration of online complainants' revenge based on their consumer-brand relationship strength and received webcare. The authors introduce inter-failures (i.e. the perceived number of earlier independent service failures that a customer has experienced with the same brand involved in the current service failure) as the central frame condition.

To test our hypotheses, both a scenario-based online experiment (n = 316) and an online survey (n = 492) were conducted.

With an increasing number of inter-failures, online complainants with a high-relationship strength move from the “love is blind” effect (no inter-failures) to the “love becomes hate” effect (multiple inter-failures), when they ultimately become more revengeful than their low-relationship strength counterparts. In addition, the authors show that in the case of no or few inter-failures, accommodative webcare has a lasting positive effect over no/defensive webcare for both low- and high-relationship complainants. More importantly, however, when consumers have experienced multiple inter-failures, accommodative webcare becomes ineffective (for low-relationship complainants) or boomerangs by cultivating revenge towards the brand (among high-relationship complainants), but not strategic avoidance.

The findings have pronounced implications for the literature on customer–brand relationships following service failures and the literature, which predominantly emphasizes the unconditionally positive effects of accommodative webcare.

This study is the first that simultaneously considers the prior customer–brand relationship, inter-failures and webcare to explain online complainants' revenge.

This paper aims to extend the customer complaint behaviour (CCB) knowledge by introducing a visual technique called customer complaint journey mapping as a means of capturing and understanding multi-faceted service failures involving multiple actors.

Research participants were trained to record contemporaneous accounts of future dissatisfactory dining experiences. Minimising issues of memory recall whilst faithfully capturing complainants' raw emotions. These recordings formed the basis for follow up interviews, based on the critical incident technique.

The central finding of this paper was how other actors outside of the traditional service dyad played a dynamic role in co-creating a complainants' emotions and subsequent behaviours.

The resulting customer complaint maps give deep insights into the complex social dynamics involved in CCB, providing a powerful tool for both researchers and staff responsible for recovery strategies.

The mapping framework provides an innovative means of capturing the actual complaint experiences of customers and the role of other actors, utilising a multi-method approach designed to address various limitations of existing CCB research.

This study aims to investigate and test the impact of competitive priorities, in terms of quality, speed, dependability, flexibility, cost and patient engagement, on patient satisfaction with healthcare services. It considers patients’ rather than managers’ points of view to collect responses about competitive priorities.

This research employed a cross-sectional survey design to analyze a sample of customers through an empirical study of 488 patients in Qatar’s healthcare service context.

The confirmatory factor analysis results show that competitive priorities and engagement positively and significantly impact patient satisfaction.

Researchers can use this methodology to explore the role of competitive priorities in different service contexts and sectors. The researchers conducted the study in Qatar; therefore, the results are not generalizable to all healthcare sectors. However, regardless of geographic location, the research approach can be used in healthcare.

Managers can employ the developed scales to diagnose competitive priorities and improve customer service experiences.

The paper is original as it suggests using competitive priorities as a measurement tool for predicting patient satisfaction compared to prior research that mostly measured competitive priorities based on internal perspectives (managers’ perspectives). Further, this paper is original because it depends on the external perspective (customers’ perspective) for the competitive priorities for measuring patient satisfaction.

The purpose of this paper is to examine “nasty” retail shopping experiences. The paper aims to consider implications of distrust related to theft control measures in retail customer service.

Storytelling as a “memory‐work” method draws on phenomenology, hermeneutics, and the narrative. Researchers and participants worked together as co‐researchers to analyze and interpret “lived” experiences contained in their written personal stories. The authors extend this understanding in the context of existing literature.

Distrust pervaded the stories, which focused on shoplifting accusations (real and imagined). As a violation of implicit trust, distrust provoked intense moral emotions, damaged identities, and fuelled retaliation. Findings illustrate a pervasive downward “spiral of distrust” in the retail context.

Results suggest that retailers use store personnel rather than technological surveillance to control theft. Interacting with customers and displaying cooperation builds respect, trust, and relationships and may deter theft. Retailers should add signs of trust and remove signs of distrust from retail environments. They cannot rely on service recovery to appease customers disgruntled by distrust.

When retailers act as if they care, customers reciprocate, creating upward trust spirals and stronger communities.

A dark side to retail loss‐prevention tactics is demonstrated in the paper. Surveillance signals distrust, which repels customers and resists service recovery. Concepts of spirals of distrust and trust to the services marketing literature are introduced. The spirals illustrate how distrust destroys and trust builds relationships and communities. Furthermore, ideas are offered about ways to start upward trust spirals.