The art of service recovery: fact or fiction?

Hocutt, Mary Ann; Bowers, Michael R.; Donavan, D. Todd

doi:10.1108/08876040610665652

Cited by 156 publications

(138 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…They maintain that the literature on consumer complaints has predominantly concentrated on identifying variables that influence complaining behaviour such as the likelihood of successful redress (Singh, 1990), attribution of blame (Folkes, 1984) or the customer's attitude toward complaining (Richins, 1982). In a similar vein, authors such as Hocutt et al (2006), Holloway and Beatty (2003) and McCollough et al (2000) argue that little is known about how customers evaluate recovery efforts and what the potential limits of recovery to convert dissatisfied customers into satisfied ones are. Winsted (2000) maintains that companies will only be able to deliver service encounters that will satisfy customers if they understand the critical contact employee behaviours from a customer's point of view.…”

Section: Role Of Complaint Satisfactionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Revealing the expectations and preferences of complaining customers by combining the laddering interviewing technique with the Kano model of customer satisfaction

Gruber

Reppel

Szmigin

et al. 2008

Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal

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PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to focus on complaint satisfaction with a particular emphasis on the qualities and behaviours that affect customers during personal complaint handling encounters.Design/methodology/approachFollowing a literature review of complaint satisfaction and the role of customer contact employees in complaint encounters, an exploratory study using both the laddering interviewing technique and Kano questionnaires is presented.FindingsThe laddering results indicate that being taken seriously in the complaint encounter and the employee's friendliness, listening skills and competence are particularly important. The fact that interpersonal factors are highly regarded indicates that customers want to satisfy these process needs first and their outcome expectations second. The Kano results show that employees' active listening skills are the only must‐be requirements while the two concepts “Apology” and “Respectful Treatment” are close to being must‐be criteria. In addition, the employee's feedback after the complaint handling encounter can almost be categorized as an excitement factor.Research limitations/implicationsOwing to the exploratory nature of the study and the scope and size of the chosen sample, the results outlined are tentative in nature.Originality/valueBy combing two research methods, this paper develops an area of research that could reap considerable benefits for researchers interested in the area of customer complaint satisfaction.

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Section: Role Of Complaint Satisfactionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Revealing the expectations and preferences of complaining customers by combining the laddering interviewing technique with the Kano model of customer satisfaction

Gruber

Reppel

Szmigin

et al. 2008

Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal

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“…Authors such as Hocutt et al (2006) argue that we still know relatively little about how customers actually assess a company's efforts to recover and what the limits to recovery of a dissatisfied customer are. Research has also mainly focused on the complaining customer rather than employee characteristics (Mc Alister and Erffmeyer, 2003).…”

Section: The Role Of Frontline Employeesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Analysing the preferred characteristics of frontline employees dealing with customer complaints

et al. 2011

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PurposeThis paper seeks to use the Kano model to gain a deeper understanding of attributes of effective frontline employees dealing with customer complainants in personal interactions. Previous research revealed that excitement factors deteriorate to basic factors over time. This research aims to investigate whether the same phenomenon holds true for attributes of service employees.Design/methodology/approachData were collected using Kano questionnaires from 272 respondents with complaining experience in the UK and Saudi Arabia, these being two countries at different stages of service sector development.FindingsThe analysis of the Kano questionnaires for the UK reveals that complaining customers take the contact employee's ability to listen carefully for granted. The Kano results for Saudi Arabia clearly indicate that complaining customers are (still) easier to delight than their UK counterparts.Research limitations/implicationsEven though the study has a sample size similar to several existing Kano studies, future research studies could still use larger probability samples that represent the broader (complaining) consumer population in the selected countries.Practical implicationsIf companies know what complaining customers expect, frontline employees may be trained to adapt their behaviour to their customers' underlying expectations. For this purpose, the paper gives several suggestions to managers to improve active complaint handling and management.Originality/valueThe study adds to the understanding of effective complaint handling. The findings are the first to show that employee factors that are performance factors in a highly developed service economy can still delight customers in a less developed service economy.

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“…According to Gruber, Szmigin and Voss (2009), being taken seriously in the complaint encounter and the employee's listening skills and competence are important aspects of service recovery for consumers. Hocutt, Bowers and Donavan (2006) found that consumers were most satisfied and less likely to engage in negative word of mouth under conditions of high responsiveness (i.e., least amount of time taken for service recovery) and courtesy. Younas and Jan (2012) also found that prompt response, material compensation and politeness of employees play important roles in service recovery evaluations in the banking industry in Sweden.…”

Section: Customer Evaluation Of Service Recovery Effortsmentioning

confidence: 98%

Service Recovery in The Australian Banking Industry

Valenzuela

Cooksey

Chandralal

et al. 2013

CMR

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Considering the importance of service recovery as a corrective measure for service failures, this paper explores: (a) when Australian customers complain (b) the process they follow to look for solutions to their complaints and (c) how they evaluate banks' service recovery efforts. To address these objectives, 25 in-depth interviews were conducted with Australian retail banking customers. Results show that the main reasons for complaints were incorrect transactions, performance not meeting expectations, and unfair fees. The study also showed that Australian customers perceive two steps of the complaining process are very important to have a control over the complaint: gathering all required information and lodging a complaint in person. In relation to evaluating banks' service recovery efforts, Australian customers felt that banks were not paying much attention to their complaints and that there was a lack of acknowledgement and responsiveness.

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The art of service recovery: fact or fiction?

Cited by 156 publications

References 42 publications

Revealing the expectations and preferences of complaining customers by combining the laddering interviewing technique with the Kano model of customer satisfaction

Revealing the expectations and preferences of complaining customers by combining the laddering interviewing technique with the Kano model of customer satisfaction

Analysing the preferred characteristics of frontline employees dealing with customer complaints

Service Recovery in The Australian Banking Industry

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