Antecedents of customer participation in service recovery
(A2020-63284)

AUTHORS

Isabella Maggioni, ESCP Business School; Yelena Tsarenko, Monash University; Cheryl Leo, Murdoch University

KEYWORDS

Service recovery; Customer participation; Service Excellence Signalling

ABSTRACT

Drawing on customer participation and service failure and recovery theories, this study investigates the impact of service failure severity, service excellence signalling, and consumer entitlement on customer participation in the aftermath of service failure. Two studies reported in this article demonstrate: (a) the positive mediation effect of customer participation (CP) between service failure severity and service outcomes (Study 1) and (b) the interaction of signalling of service excellence and customer entitlement on customer participation in service failures (Study 2). While severe service failure is a driving factor of CP, there were no differences in CP across highly entitled consumers regardless of the degree of service failure severity. Conversely, differences were observed among lowly entitled consumers in low service failure situations; this indicates that service excellence signalling triggered their motivation to participate in service recovery.