Recovery Voice and Satisfaction After Service Failure

Abstract

Past research studies on service failures and recovery have conceptualized “voice” in terms of customers having an opportunity to air complaints after failures occur. In contrast, the authors introduce the concept of recovery voice , which entails a service provider asking a customer (after a failure has occurred) what the firm can do to rectify the problem. In a scenario-based experiment carried out in an airline setting and in a hotel setting with 216 and 208 participants, respectively, it was found that customers perceived greater procedural justice when offered recovery voice, which resulted in higher overall postfailure satisfaction. It was shown that perceived procedural justice mediated the effect of recovery voice on overall satisfaction. Furthermore, recovery voice had a greater impact on perceived procedural justice for established customers with long transaction histories than for new ones with short transaction histories. Managerial and research implications based on these findings are also presented.