The Effect of Customers’ Emotional Responses to Service Failures on Their Recovery Effort Evaluations and Satisfaction Judgments

Abstract

This study examines the role of customer emotions in the context of service failure and recovery encounters. It investigates how customers’emotional responses to service failures influence their satisfaction judgments after accounting for cognitive antecedents of satisfaction. The study also considers how customers’emotional responses to service failures influence how they evaluate an organization’s recovery efforts. The research is conducted by surveying customers about their satisfaction judgments in two service settings, restaurants and hotels. The results suggest that customers’ emotional responses to service failures will influence their recovery effort evaluations and satisfaction judgments in some circumstances and that the effects of emotion vary across industry settings. This study identifies the types of efforts that are most effective in helping customers “recover” from the negative emotions caused by service failures.