According to Battaglia, Daniel, et al (950-51); conducted studies recorded that many jobs
are results of service encounters. Thus during service rendering to customers, sometimes
customers may feel and raise concerns on dissatisfaction with the service given. The concerns
may be associated with some failures such as not delivering a service at the agreed time, workers
being unethical during an engagement with customers or even the service being of a low quality
than expected. Therefore, due to these predictable or arising service failures, organizations tend
to respond immediately to these issues. Hence, measures and process that is taken by the
organization to solve the problem of service failure is referred to as service recovery. Therefore,
service recovery is a systematic organization strategy properly designed and implemented in a
business that offers service. The process enables an organization to identify its weakness in
service rendered to its customers to improve on them and be able to retain the customers
(Battaglia, Daniel, et al 952-956). Thus, we are going to discuss service recovery stages, its
benefits, and its application.
Service Recovery Stages
Services recovery stages can be first well be explained by the recovery paradox theory
which states that a customer will tend to paradoxically value more an organization that corrects
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problems associated with given services than the organization that offers services with no faults.
Therefore, organizations that face service failures undergo various steps in order to attain service
recovery maturity. These stages include;
a) Stage One- Moribund whereby there is no action taken, no complaint from the client
is handled and more so the angry clients are ignored. All raised concerns from
customers in the form of letters, mail go unanswered.
b) Stage Two- Reactive Stage this is where customer’s complaints are listened to and a
response given. Though responses are given to customers raise issues, this stage
doesn’t go into detail and specification on solving the problem.
c) Stage Three- Active Listening Stage this is where an organization comes up with a
structure that entails selected people in an organization. The people are guided on
how to respond to the customer with issues on services rendered.
d) Stage Four-Solicitous Stage is when an organization will conduct an event survey to
the public most especially to its customers. The survey aims at getting feedback from
customers who may have not complained due to poor service from the organization.
This is because many customers will opt to go looking for the same service elsewhere
rather than complaining. Therefore in order for an organization to retain those
customers, it’s important to conduct such a survey.
e) Stage Five- Infused Stage this is the final step whereby an organization merges all
feedback and responses from customers, find solution and formulates service
recovery strategies that can be incorporated with other organizational strategies. This
ensures that the same service failure doesn’t occur in a future event.
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Benefits of Service Recovery to a Marketer/ Organization
The value of having service recovery in an organization cannot be overlooked due
to the benefit it offers. With the appropriate service recovery method, a marketer is able
to mitigate any negative reputation associated with after service rendering processes. A
marketer whose organization embraces service recovery is able to turn angry and
unsatisfied clients into happy and loyal customers. In fact, service recovery creates more
goodwill in customers who were angry at first service failure than the customers who
service that succeeded. This improves the level of trust in customers and propagates a
positive public image of an organization. Therefore, a marketer is able to retain a
customer and able to get more customers on referrals. Thus, in the long run, an
organization will record an increase in returns as opposed to a decrease associated with
service failures. Moreover, in the service recovery process, an organization or marketers
are able to identify their weaknesses. This enables them to conduct a SWOT analysis in
their service rendering industry which helps them achieve a competitive advantage in a
competitive market. Therefore, service recovery is a vital marketing strategic tool and it’s
the main determinant of organization profitability (Komunda & Aihie 82-103).
Example Organization That Apply Service Recovery
(Steven, Zou, and Petrick 83-98) Airline Company is one of many companies that
apply service recovery to win disappointed customers. Once a flight is canceled, delayed
or even rebooked the company has various ways to compensate customers and make
them less angry. For the hour delayed flight they offer beverages and food as well as
regular updates on the flight through their App. In case of flight cancellation the company
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offers the customer a chance to choose another same day flight and in addition they give
discount vouchers in case of future flight. These are some of service recovery strategies
which create a more enhanced relationship between the airline company and their
customer. This makes frustrated and angry customers calm down and continue having
flights from the company. In contrast, if the airline company could have just canceled or
delays the customer’s flight without any course of action in responding to these issues,
customers would be angry and disappointed. This leads to loss of customers and a poor
public image reputation which results in decreased profits.
Conclusion
To sum up, service recovery is an important tool in the current service market that
comes with the competitive pressure of improving service given. Failures and
dissatisfaction will mainly arise from an industry that renders services hence it will be
wise to be prepared on how to overcome them. Thus, for a firm to remain relevant in the
market and retain loyal customers there must be various steps to follow to gain service
recovery maturity which creates trust and goodwill from customers (Nikbin, Davoud, et
al 47). Moreover, the firm should weigh the benefits that come with service recovery
toward achieving its long term objectives. That in the long run, a firm is able to have
more growth in terms of customers and sales.
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Works Cited
Battaglia, Daniel, et al. "Service recovery: a method for assessing performance." Business
Process Management Journal 18.6 (2012): 949-963.
Komunda, Mabel, and Aihie Osarenkhoe. "Remedy or cure for service failure? Effects of
service recovery on customer satisfaction and loyalty." Business Process
Management Journal 18.1 (2012): 82-103.
Migacz, Steven J., Suiwen Zou, and James F. Petrick. "The “terminal” effects of service
failure on airlines: Examining service recovery with justice theory." Journal of
Travel Research 57.1 (2018): 83-98.
Nikbin, Davoud, et al. "Perceived justice in service recovery and recovery satisfaction:
the moderating role of corporate image." International Journal of Marketing
Studies 2.2 (2010): 47.
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