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The critical role of customer forgiveness in successful service recovery

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  • Harrison-Walker, L. Jean

Abstract

Service failures occur when the service provided is less than adequate or fails to live up to the customer's expectations. When service failures inevitably occur, providers implement recovery strategies such as apologizing, offering compensation, or allowing customers to voice their concerns. However, such strategies do not always lead to desired outcomes such as repatronage intentions, reduced negative WOM, or reconciliation. The current research explores the very rich concept of forgiveness with regard to service recovery and empirically examines the links among recovery strategies, customer forgiveness and recovery outcomes. Although differences in terms of optimal recovery strategies depend on industry type, forgiveness is demonstrated to mediate the relationship between recovery strategies and desirable outcomes, suggesting that forgiveness be included in all future models of service recovery.

Suggested Citation

  • Harrison-Walker, L. Jean, 2019. "The critical role of customer forgiveness in successful service recovery," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 376-391.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:95:y:2019:i:c:p:376-391
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2018.07.049
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    15. Papadopoulou, Christina & Vardarsuyu, Merve & Oghazi, Pejvak, 2023. "Examining the relationships between brand authenticity, perceived value, and brand forgiveness: The role of cross-cultural happiness," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 167(C).
    16. Kaur, Puneet & Talwar, Shalini & Islam, Nazrul & Salo, Jari & Dhir, Amandeep, 2022. "The effect of the valence of forgiveness to service recovery strategies and service outcomes in food delivery apps," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 147(C), pages 142-157.
    17. Xu, Xing'an & Liu, Juan & Gursoy, Dogan, 2022. "Emotional intelligence similarity in service recovery," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 96(C).
    18. Gong, Taeshik & Wang, Chen-Ya, 2022. "The effects of a psychological contract breach on customer-directed deviance," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 374-386.
    19. Li, Jinhua & Liu, Li & Qing, Qiankai, 2022. "Differentiated consumer forgiveness for different corporate social irresponsibility domains: The moderating role of corporate reputation and patriotism," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    20. Vasileios Davvetas & Aulona Ulqinaku & Constantine S. Katsikeas, 2024. "Brand transgressions: How, when, and why home country bias backfires," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 52(4), pages 976-997, July.
    21. Ryoo, Yuhosua & Jeon, Yongwoog Andy & Kim, WooJin, 2024. "The blame shift: Robot service failures hold service firms more accountable," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 171(C).
    22. Wei, Chuang & Liu, Maggie Wenjing & Keh, Hean Tat, 2020. "The road to consumer forgiveness is paved with money or apology? The roles of empathy and power in service recovery," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 321-334.
    23. Koc, Erdogan & Hatipoglu, Sercan & Kivrak, Oguzhan & Celik, Cemal & Koc, Kaan, 2023. "Houston, we have a problem!: The use of ChatGPT in responding to customer complaints," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).

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