ServiceFriday: How Customer Involvement and Perceived Control Shape Service Recovery
In service research, much attention has been paid to the role of the customer when it comes to service delivery and service evaluation. However, less attention has been paid to the role of the customer in service recovery. In service recovery, the research tends to focus on two aspects of a company’s response to service failures: compensation in the form of refunds or replacements, and the attributes and behaviors of service employees. A study in the Journal of Service Research explores the role of the customer as an active participant in their service recovery, and the various ways in which service firms can engage customers in their own service recovery to enhance their service experience and improve satisfaction.
“Treating customers as passive recipients of service recovery does not account for their naturally elevated desire for control following a service failure. Focusing on value cocreation by customers in service recovery, this study conceptualizes three types of customer perceived control in service recovery: process control, decision control, and information control.”
The researchers found that by examining these three types of perceived control on the part of the customer, managers can identify the opportunities presented in service recovery and then understand where and when to involve the customer in their service recovery process. “Specifically, firms can enhance customers’ evaluations of service recovery and increase their repurchase intentions by involving them in the decision-making process when resolving service failures, facilitating their participation in determining the outcome of service recovery, and providing information to assist their appraisal of and adaptation to service failures.”
Attention is also paid to the role that justice seeking behaviors play in cocreation service recovery. “Our findings of the dual psychological process inform marketing managers that in seeking justice, customers may not solely care about the economic benefits that can be enhanced by their control in service recovery. Offering customers opportunities to appeal the firm’s compensation decision or informing them of the recent progress of service recovery can enhance their perception of the service recovery outcome, and it can also communicate a symbolic meaning that the firm cares about them and values their relationship. Thus, customers’ self-esteem and social standing with the firm may be restored after service recovery.”
To access the full article in the Journal of Service Research, visit Sage Journals at this link: https://bit.ly/2wc3ypx