The impact of service failure on brand credibility

Ursula Sigrid Bougoure, Rebekah Russell-Bennett, Syed Fazal-E-Hasan and Gary Mortimer

Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 2016, vol. 31, issue C, 62-71

Abstract: Recent studies have examined the consequences of brand credibility, with the majority of works embedded in physical goods. Despite the growing attention service branding receives, little is known about how service failure and recovery efforts impact on brand credibility in service organisations. The purpose of this study is to examine how brand credibility is affected by service failure and an organisations recovery efforts. An online self-completion survey of airline consumers (n=875) was employed to test the relationships between the focal constructs. The results show that a service firm’s effective complaint handling positively impacts satisfaction with complaining, overall satisfaction and service brand credibility. The study also finds that the higher the perceived magnitude of failure, the more difficult it is to satisfy a customer. These results demonstrate that it is possible to maintain service brand credibility during a service failure, provided brand managers develop and implement effective complain handling procedures.

Keywords: Service branding; Consumer services; Brand credibility; Service recovery; Satisfaction; Airlines (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:joreco:v:31:y:2016:i:c:p:62-71

DOI: 10.1016/j.jretconser.2016.03.006

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