1. Complaints and Service Recovery
Chapter 13
Complaints and Service Recovery

2. Chapter Objectives
Discuss the four different categories of service failure types.
Explain customer complaining behavior, including the reasons customers do and do not complain and the outcomes associated with customer complaints.
Describe the issues involved in mastering the art of service recovery.
Understand the value of tracking and monitoring service failures and employee recovery efforts.
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3. Opening Vignette: Business Week Article
The customer has taken justice into their own hands and become a consumer activist.
BusinessWeek devoted a recent cover story to Consumer Vigilantes and the tagline: “Memo to Corporate America: Hell now hath no fury like a customer scorned.”
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4. Types of Complaints Instrumental Noninstrumental Ostensive Reflexive
expressed for the purpose of altering an undesirable state of affairs
Noninstrumental
expressed without the expectation that an undesirable state will be altered
Ostensive
outer-directed complaints
Reflexive
Inner-directed complaints
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5. Types of Complainers The Meek Customer The Aggressive Customer
The High-Roller Customer
The Rip-Off Customer
The Chronic Complainer Customer
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6. Why Do Customers Complain?
Correct the problem
Emotional release from frustration
Regain some measure of control by spreading negative word-of-mouth
Solicit sympathy
Test for consensus
Create an impression of being more intelligent and discerning
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7. Why Don’t Customers Complain?
Don’t know who to complain to
Don’t think it will do any good
May doubt their own subjective evaluation
May accept part of the blame
May want to avoid confrontation
May lack expertise
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8. Complaining Outcomes Voice Exit High => store manager
Medium => sales clerk
Low => no one associated with the store
Exit
High => never purchases again
Medium => only purchases if other alternatives are not available
Low => continues to shop as usual
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9. Complaining Outcomes Retaliation
High => tells lots of people and attempts to physically damage the store
Medium => tells a few people and created minor inconveniences
Low => does not retaliate at all
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10. Figure 13.2: Developing a Service Recovery Management Program
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11. Figure 13.3: Types of Service Failure
Primary Failure Type
Failure Subgroups
Service Delivery System Failures
Customer Needs and Requests
Unprompted/Unsolicited Employee Actions Problematic Customers
Unavailable Service
Unreasonably Slow Service Other Core Service Failure
“Special Needs” Customers
Customer Preferences
Admitted Customer Error
Disruptive Others
Level of Attention
Unusual Action
Cultural Norms
Gestalt
Drunkenness
Verbal and Physical Abuse
Breaking Company Policies
Uncooperative Customers

12. Service Failure Attribution: Indentifying the Root Cause
Locus: the possible source of the failure including the service provider, the firm, the customer, or external forces
Stability: the likelihood the service failure will recur
Controllability: whether or not the firm had control over the cause of the failure
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13. Recovery Strategy Selection
What Should the Customer Receive to Offset the Failure?
Compensatory Strategies
Restoration Strategies
Apologetic Strategies
Reimbursement Strategies
Unresponsive Strategies
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14. Recovery Strategy Implementation
How Should the Recovery Strategy Be Presented to the Customer?
Perceived Justice
Distributive justice
Outcomes (compensation)
Procedural justice
Process (time)
Interactional justice
Human content (empathy, friendliness)
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15. Art of Service Recovery
Service recovery paradox
Situation in which the customer rates performance higher if a failure occurs and the contact personnel successfully recover from it than if the service had been delivered correctly in the first place
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16. Improve Service Recovery efforts
Measure the costs
Actively encourage complaints
Anticipate needs for recovery
Respond quickly
Train employees
Empower the front-line
Close the loop
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17. Copyright © 2011 Cengage Learning.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Printed in the United States of America.
Copyright © 2011 Cengage Learning.  
©2011 Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.