A Model of Customer Satisfaction with Service Encounters Involving Failure and Recovery

The importance of different justice dimensions remains unclear; some studies show distributive justice is the most important determinant of post-complaint satisfaction, while others find it weaker than procedural and/or interactional justice.

“Similarly, the importance of different justice dimensions remains unclear.”

Justice perceptions completely mediate the relationship between organizational responses and post-complaint satisfaction.

“It is argued and empirically shown that justice perceptions (distributive, procedural, and interactional justice) completely mediate the relationship between organizational responses and post-complaint satisfaction (Karande, Magnini, and Tam 2007; Maxham III and Netemeyer 2003; Smith, Bolton, and Wagner 1999).”

Customers who perceive the organizational response to a complaint as fair display higher levels of post-complaint satisfaction than those who perceive the response as unfair.

“Justice theory is used in more recent studies, which provide evidence that customers, who perceive the organizational response to a complaint as fair, display higher levels of post-complaint satisfaction than those who perceive the response as unfair (Maxham III and Netemeyer 2002; Patterson, Cowley, and Prasongsukarn 2006; Smith, Bolton, and Wagner 1999).”

Each organizational response may affect the three justice dimensions.

“Research provides evidence that each organizational response may affect the three justice dimensions (Homburg and Fu ¨ rst 2005; Smith, Bolton, and Wagner 1999).”

Extant studies cover only some of the relevant constructs instead of conjointly analyzing the full range of relationships in an overall model.

“First, extant studies cover only some of the relevant constructs (e.g., Liao 2007; Maxham III and Netemeyer 2002; Smith, Bolton, and Wagner 1999) instead of conjointly analyzing the full range of relationships in an overall model.”

Type and level of compensation affect customer responses.

“other research suggests that type and level of compensation affect customer responses (Mount and Mattila 2000; Smith, Bolton, and Wagner 1999).”

The common contention that distributive justice is the most salient determinant of post-complaint satisfaction is true only for transaction-specific satisfaction; for cumulative satisfaction, distributive justice does not play a salient role.

“The results of our study reveal that the common contention of distributive justice to be the most salient determinant of post-complaint satisfaction (e.g., Kau and Loh 2006; Smith, Bolton, and Wagner 1999) is true only for transaction-specific satisfaction. For cumulative satisfaction, however, distributive justice does not play a salient role.”

Research consistently shows that an apology has a positive main effect on justice perceptions.

“Although research consistently shows that an apology has a positive main effect on justice perceptions (Liao 2007; Smith, Bolton, and Wagner 1999)”

Perceptions of justice affect overall satisfaction with the service encounter.

“In addition, in the services literature, it has been found that perceptions of justice affect the overall satisfaction with the service encounter (Mattila and Cranage 2005;Smith, Bolton, and Wagner 1999;Sparks and McColl-Kennedy 2001;Tax, Brown, and Chandrashekaran 1998).”

Others, such as Smith, Bolton, and Wagner (1999), have modeled the effect of recovery attributes such as response speed on procedural justice and procedural justice on satisfaction separately but have not specifically tested for its mediating effect.

“Others, such as Smith, Bolton, and Wagner (1999), have modeled the effect of recovery attributes such as response speed on procedural justice and procedural justice on satisfaction separately but have not specifically tested for its mediating effect.”

The scenario approach eliminates the managerial undesirability of intentionally subjecting customers to failure situations.

“It also eliminates the managerial undesirability of intentionally subjecting customers to failure situations (Smith, Bolton, and Wagner 1999).”

The scenario approach has advantages over asking participants to recall actual service failures and recoveries using a retrospective-type approach.

“Last, this approach has advantages over asking participants to recall actual service failures and recoveries using a retrospective-type approach (Smith and Bolton 1998;Smith, Bolton, and Wagner 1999).”