The effect of service recovery on customer loyalty: the role of perceived food safety

Abstract

Purpose This study aims to focus on the food industry and empirically examine the mediating role of consumers’ perceived food safety on the relationship between a company’s service recovery and customer loyalty. In addition, consumers’ demographic characteristics and their influences on the relationship between perceived food safety and customer loyalty are determined. Design/methodology/approach A survey was carried out through a structured questionnaire which was administered to the public. Using a small intercept interview, a random sample of 836 usable questionnaires was collected in Greece. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were applied to validate the proposed constructs. The causal relationships among constructs were examined using structural equation modeling. Findings According to the findings, consumers’ perceived food safety partially mediates the effect of a company’s service recovery on customer loyalty. The socio-demographic profile of consumers (gender, marital and parenthood status) also significantly influences the underlying factors of product and the loyalty attributes. Practical implications This study enriches the existing literature of food safety by examining the distinct role that consumers’ perceptions play in forming loyalty, highlighting the importance of companies’ recovery efforts. The results obtained from this analysis offer a better understanding of consumer behavior toward food safety – encouraging and supporting food companies to successfully design their marketing strategies. Food safety issues also have become increasingly important in international trade, which makes it essential to understand consumer perceptions and behavior toward food safety. Originality/value This study fills the identified literature gap and contributes to the literature, as no previous study has examined the proposed relationships in the food sector, taking into consideration food safety issues.

Does the Consumer Sociodemographic Profile Influence the Perception of Aspects Related and Not Related to Food Safety? A Study in Traditional Spanish Street Markets

“…This revealed that consumers perceived the efforts made by health authorities and market workers to improve food safety and sale conditions. Notwithstanding, these efforts must continue to improve consumer trust in street markets and similar places worldwide [ 46 , 47 , 48 ]. Consumer training in food safety must continue [ 49 , 50 ] in order to end the circular seller-consumer cycle, which provides self-feedback, and to involve everyone in food safety-related activities [ 51 ].…”

Understanding the impact of the relationship quality on customer loyalty: the moderating effect of online service recovery

“…Indeed, good service recovery can help a company turn a potentially negative situation into a positive one (Gustafsson, 2009). That is, effective recovery not only can restore customer satisfaction and commitment but also can lead to loyalty (Ding and Lii, 2016;Bouranta et al, 2019;. In line with this reasoning, the following hypotheses is proposed:…”

“…Bougoure et al (2016) explained that if firms can handle service failures and complaints well, they can strengthen the relationship between brands and consumers because service failure and complaint management represent critical moments of truth in the relationship between brands and consumers and offer opportunities for firms to communicate with customers. This research thus suggests that effective service recovery not only corrects service failures but also enhances customers' perceptions of service quality, leads to positive word-of mouth communication, builds and maintains strong relationships and ultimately leads to customer satisfaction and loyalty (Chou, 2015;Bouranta et al, 2019). Therefore, e-commerce venders should address service failures and develop service recovery policies to resolve customers' inquiries and complaints and recover their satisfaction (Cheng et al, 2008).…”

“…Service recovery is the process by which service providers attempt to correct a service failure (Kelley et al, 1993;Wang et al, 2011). Service recovery refers to the actions by a service firm to make up for service failure (a case when a customer experiences an unsatisfactory service) in an attempt to cause the customers to return to the firm and to be satisfied (Choi et al, 2014;Bouranta et al, 2019). Chou (2015) defined service recovery as the actions organizations take in response to a service failure or a process intended to handle IJQSS 13,2 mistakes.…”

“…However, there have been few studies done on the relationships among these (Bilgihan and Bujisic, 2015;Baliga et al, 2020;Huang and Ha, 2020). Many studies undertaken to date have only covered the role of social support on relationship quality and social commerce (Hajli, 2014); the relationships among service failure, service recovery and loyalty (Chou, 2015;Bouranta et al, 2019;Lu et al, 2020); the influence of relationship quality on customer loyalty (Choi et al, 2008;Lee and Wong, 2016;Rahman and Ramli, 2016;Zhang et al, 2016); and the relationship between service recovery and reputation (Ozkan-Tektas and Basgoze, 2017). Therefore, to bridge the aforementioned gaps in the literature, this study explores the relationships among service recovery, relationship quality and customer loyalty in the e-commerce context.…”