'We' want apology! Tailoring service recovery and self-construal to earn customer forgiveness

Eugene Cheng-Xi Aw, Stephanie Hui-Wen Chuah, Mohamad Fazli Sabri and Han-Xi Chong

International Journal of Services, Economics and Management, 2022, vol. 13, issue 3, 225-242

Abstract: The purpose of this study is to examine the impacts of service recovery strategies and self-construal on customer forgiveness. A 2-service recovery (manipulated: apology vs. economic) × 2-self-construal (median: independent vs. interdependent) between-subject experiment was conducted with 164 subjects. Results showed: 1) when apology is given, customers with interdependent self-construal are more likely to forgive compared to customers with independent self-construal; 2) forgiveness negatively influences negative-word-of-mouth. This study provides insight to the literature by indicating that service recovery strategies need to be compatible with customers' self-construal in order to earn forgiveness following a service failure.

Keywords: service recovery; service failure; forgiveness; self-construal; negative word-of-mouth; hotel. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.inderscience.com/link.php?id=126216 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ids:injsem:v:13:y:2022:i:3:p:225-242

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in International Journal of Services, Economics and Management from Inderscience Enterprises Ltd
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sarah Parker ().