The Effect of Service Guarantees on Service Recovery

• Service guarantees have been attributed the benefit of improving the overall service of a service provider. However, little research has been carried out within the area. This article focus on one aspect of the service guarantee, the effects that service guarantees may have on service recovery. Critical incident data were collected using the critical incident interview technique with customers of RadissonSAS, a worldwide hotel chain using a service guarantee. One contribution of this article is that the interviews convey that the implicit guarantee may serve as a risk reducer, which contradicts and adds to previous research. Previous research states that only the explicit guarantee has these benefits. In this case, the guarantee does not reduce risk in the purchase or consumption stage, but after the consumption when the service has failed, as the customer finds out about the guarantee in the recovery situation. Another contribution of this article is that service guarantees are found to influence the outcome of service recovery as it affects how employees behave to recover the customer. Keywords: Service guarantee, Service Recovery, RadissonSAS

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Ekonomi och näringsliv -- Företagsekonomi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Economics and Business -- Business Administration (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Business Administration

Företagsekonomi

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)