Service recovery, satisfaction and behaviour intentions: analysis of compensation and social comparison communication strategies

Abstract

In the marketing literature, there is a great interest in learning how companies should behave after a service failure. From this perspective, different service recovery strategies have been proposed. This experimental study of the airline industry deals with this topic, indicating the benefits of carrying out, after a service failure, a financial compensation and/or an explanation based on social comparison. The results indicate when financial compensation and social comparison increase satisfaction and when they have a positive impact on different behaviour intentions (repurchase intentions, positive or negative word of mouth communication, and complaints to the company and/or third parties). There predictions on the effects of the service recovery strategies are developed on the basis of failure stability and the emotions (anger) brought on by it.

Keywords:

• service failure
• service recovery strategies
• social comparison
• attributions
• emotions
• satisfaction
• post-purchase behaviour intentions

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación for financially supporting this research under Contract No. ECO2008-03698/ECON.