Consumer responses to compensation, speed of recovery and apology after a service failure

This experimental study examined how the three dimensions of fairness (distributive, procedural and interactional) influence consumers' attributional processes, their post‐recovery satisfaction and behavioral responses (repatronage intent and negative word‐of‐mouth) in a service failure context that does not involve monetary costs to the consumer. Our results indicate that recovery outcomes (e.g. compensation), procedures (e.g. speed of recovery) and interactional treatment (e.g. apology) have a joint effect on post‐recovery satisfaction. Specifically, our findings suggest that compensation may not enhance satisfaction when the recovery process is well‐executed (an immediate response combined with an apology).…