Open Access Open Access  Restricted Access Subscription Access
Open Access Open Access Open Access  Restricted Access Restricted Access Subscription Access

Service Failure and Recovery in Select Industries


Affiliations
1 Faculty of Management Studies University of Delhi, Delhi
     

   Subscribe/Renew Journal


There is a growing realisation that customer satisfaction is necessary but not sufficient for survival. The firms must organise efforts to create a completely satisfied customer. The issue is whether marketers really act upon this prescription. This study is aimed at discovering the incidents of failures in the context of service marketing. An attempt is made to identify failure incidences; their perceived severity and adequacy of recovery efforts in select service industries. It has been found that firms stumble in doing a good job at basic or core service level what to talk about augmentations. Besides, inter-personal failures are perceived to be the most severe. The firms are not able to make effective recovery in most of the cases from the customer's point of view.

Keywords

Recovery Management, Total Satisfaction, Service Failure
User
Notifications

  • Anderson, Eugene W., Claes Fornell and Don Lehman, "Perceived Quality, Customer Satisfaction, Market Share and Profitability", Working Paper, Department of Marketing, University of Michigan, 1992.
  • Berry, Leonard, "Services Marketing is Different”, Business Magazine, May-June, 1980.
  • Buzzell, Robert D. and T. Gale Bradley, The PIMS Principles: Linking Strategy to Performance, New York: The Free Press, l987, Ch. 6.
  • Carlzon, Jan, "Putting The People First", Mckinsey, Quarterly, Summer, 1987.
  • Drucker, Peter F., Management Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices, New York: Harper & Row, 1973, pp. 64-65.
  • Hart, Christopher W.L., James L. Herkett and W. Earl Sasser Jr., "The Profitable Art of Service Recovery", Harvard Business Review, July-Aug 1980.
  • Heskett, James L., Thomas O. Jones, Gary W. Loveman, W. Earl Sasser Jr. and Leonard A Schlesinger, "Putting the Service Profit Chain to Work", Harvard Business Review, March-April 1994, pp. 164-74.
  • Jones, Thomas O. and W. Earl Sasser, Jr., "Why Satisfied Customers Defect", Harvard Business Review, Nov-Dec. 1995, pp. 92-93.
  • Levitt, Theodore, "Marketing Success Through Differentiation - Of Anything", Harvard Business Review, Jan-Feb. 1980.
  • Levitt, Theodore, The Marketing Imagination, New York: The Free Press, 1983, pp. 6-7.
  • Lisser, Eleena De, "Today's Specials Include Customer Satisfaction", The Wall Street Journal, June 7, 1993.
  • Oliver, Richard L., Satisfaction: A Behavioural Perspective, New York: The McGraw Hill, 1997, p. 13.
  • Oliver, Richard L., "Processing of Satisfaction Response in Consumption: A Suggested Framework and Research Propositions", Journal of Consumer Satisfaction/Dissatisfaction and Complaining Behaviour, Vol. 2 (1989), pp. l-l6.
  • Oliver, Richard L., "A Cognitive Model of Antecedents and Consequences of Satisfaction Decisions", Journal of Marketing Research, Vol. l7 (1980), pp. 460-67.
  • Price, Linda L., Eric J. Arnould and Patrick Tierney, "Going to Extremes: Managing Service Encounter and Assessing Provider Performance", Journal of Marketing, Vol. 59 (1995), pp. 83-97.
  • Reichhel, Frederick F. and W. Earl Sasser Jr., "Zero Defections: Quality Comes to Services", Harvard Business Review, Sept-Oct. l990, p. 108.
  • Ronan, William W. and Gary P. Lantham, "The Reliability and Validity of Critical Incidents Technique: A Closer Look", Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 70, No. 3 (1974), pp. 423-33.
  • Schlesinger, Leonard A. and James L. Heskett, "Breaking Cycle of Failure in Services", Sloan Management Review, (Spring, 1991), pp. l7-21.
  • Shostack, Lyn G., "Planning the Service Encounter," The Service Encounter, New York: Lexington Books, 1985, pp. 243-54.
  • Tax, Stephen S. and Stephen W. Brown, "Recovering and Learning from Service Failure", Sloan Management Review, (Fall, 1998), pp. 75-88.
  • Tse, David K. and Peter C. Wilson, "Models of Customer Satisfaction Formation: An Extension", Journal of Marketing Research, May 1988, pp. 204-212.
  • Vavra, T., “Learning from Your Losses”, Brand Week, Dec. 7, 1992, p. 20(2).

Abstract Views: 260

PDF Views: 3




  • Service Failure and Recovery in Select Industries

Abstract Views: 260  |  PDF Views: 3

Authors

Harsh V. Verma
Faculty of Management Studies University of Delhi, Delhi

Abstract


There is a growing realisation that customer satisfaction is necessary but not sufficient for survival. The firms must organise efforts to create a completely satisfied customer. The issue is whether marketers really act upon this prescription. This study is aimed at discovering the incidents of failures in the context of service marketing. An attempt is made to identify failure incidences; their perceived severity and adequacy of recovery efforts in select service industries. It has been found that firms stumble in doing a good job at basic or core service level what to talk about augmentations. Besides, inter-personal failures are perceived to be the most severe. The firms are not able to make effective recovery in most of the cases from the customer's point of view.

Keywords


Recovery Management, Total Satisfaction, Service Failure

References