The Effect of Customer Perception of Service Failure and Recovery on Relationship Dissolution Behavior: Evidence in Airline Services

Abstract

Many previous studies have been conducted on service failure and recovery, but the existing preceding studies are mainly focused on positive behavioral intentions such as loyalty, word of mouth intention and recommendation intention. Therefore, there is relatively little interest in customers’ negative behavioral intentions.

In today’s society where SNS is very developed, customers’ complaints or retaliatory actions can be spread to other customers without time and space limitations, which can have a great negative impact on the company’s image. In this respect, it is a very important task for service companies to examine the impact of service failure and recovery on customers’ relationship-disconnection behavior and to establish a management plan for the factors that cause customer relationship-disconnection behavior.

When a service failure occurs, double deviation and recovery paradox effects appear depending on how service recovery is performed. Identifying the influencing factors for this is very important to understand service failure and recovery process. In this study, the formation process of customer’s relationship dissolution behavior after experiencing service failure is identified from the perspective of double deviation and recovery paradox, and the theoretical understanding of service failure and recovery is broadened through the study results.