The effect of service guarantees on service recovery
International Journal of Service Industry Management
ISSN: 0956-4233
Article publication date: 1 March 2003
Abstract
Service guarantees have been attributed the benefit of improving the overall service of a service provider. However, little research has been carried out within the area. This article focuses on one aspect of the service guarantee, the effects that service guarantees may have on service recovery. Critical incident data were collected using the critical incident interview technique with customers of RadissonSAS, a worldwide hotel chain using a service guarantee. One contribution of this article is that the interviews convey that the implicit guarantee may serve as a risk reducer, which contradicts and adds to previous research. Previous research states that only the explicit guarantee has these benefits. In this case, the guarantee does not reduce risk in the purchase or consumption stage, but after the consumption when the service has failed, as the customer finds out about the guarantee in the recovery situation. Another contribution of this article is that service guarantees are found to influence the outcome of service recovery as they affect how employees behave to recover the customer.
Keywords
Citation
Björlin Lidén, S. and Skålén, P. (2003), "The effect of service guarantees on service recovery", International Journal of Service Industry Management, Vol. 14 No. 1, pp. 36-58. https://doi.org/10.1108/09564230310465985
Publisher
:MCB UP Ltd
Copyright © 2003, MCB UP Limited