The Impacts of Online Retailing Service Recovery and Perceived Justice on Consumer Loyalty

Effective service failure recovery has been recognized as an important strategic tool for online retailers due to the dramatic growth of the online retail sector and the importance of service failures recovery in online environment. This study investigates the impacts of service failure recovery and perceived justice on consumer loyalty for online retailing service. By conducting a scenario-based experiment, it is found that perceived distributive justice positively affects recovery satisfaction and positive word-of-mouth; and that procedural justice has a positive impact on recovery satisfaction and repatronage intention. A comparison between researches on online service failure recovery and researches for offline setting is then presented. The research findings can provide valuable insights for online retailers to develop effective service recovery policies and procedures.

[1]  F. Wangenheim Postswitching Negative Word of Mouth , 2005 .

[2]  D. F. Blankertz,et al.  Risk taking and information handling in consumer behavior , 1969 .

[3]  T. Tyler,et al.  The Social Psychology of Procedural Justice , 1988 .

[4]  James G. Maxham Service recovery's influence on consumer satisfaction, positive word-of-mouth, and purchase intentions , 2001 .

[5]  J. E. Swan,et al.  Consumer perceptions of interpersonal equity and satisfaction in transactions: A field survey approach. , 1989 .

[6]  Holly M. Rotalsky,et al.  Tracking service failures and employee recovery efforts , 1995 .

[7]  James G. Maxham,et al.  Firms Reap what they Sow: The Effects of Shared Values and Perceived Organizational Justice on Customers’ Evaluations of Complaint Handling , 2003 .

[8]  Ruth N. Bolton,et al.  A Model of Customer Satisfaction with Service Encounters Involving Failure and Recovery , 1999 .

[9]  Paul A. Pavlou,et al.  Psychological Contract Violation in Online Marketplaces: Antecedents, Consequences, and Moderating Role , 2005, Inf. Syst. Res..

[10]  W. Sasser,et al.  The profitable art of service recovery. , 1990, Harvard business review.

[11]  L. J. Harrison‐Walker The Measurement of Word-of-Mouth Communication and an Investigation of Service Quality and Customer Commitment As Potential Antecedents , 2001 .

[12]  Amy Wrzesniewski,et al.  Convierta el trabajo que tiene en el trabajo que sueña , 2010 .

[13]  Stephen S. Tax,et al.  The effects of distributive, procedural, and interactional justice on postcomplaint behavior , 1997 .

[14]  Dhruv Grewal,et al.  Consumer responses to service recovery strategies: The moderating role of online versus offline environment , 2006 .

[15]  Mary Jo Bitner,et al.  The Service Encounter: Diagnosing Favorable and Unfavorable Incidents: , 1990 .

[16]  R. Westbrook Product/Consumption-Based Affective Responses and Postpurchase Processes , 1987 .

[17]  Leonard L. Berry,et al.  Service fairness: What it is and why it matters , 1998 .

[18]  Peter A. Dacin,et al.  Spreading the word: Investigating antecedents of consumers’ positive word-of-mouth intentions and behaviors in a retailing context , 2005 .

[19]  Michael A. McCollough,et al.  An Empirical Investigation of Customer Satisfaction after Service Failure and Recovery , 2000 .

[20]  A. Parasuraman,et al.  The Behavioral Consequences of Service Quality , 1996 .

[21]  L. J. Harrison‐Walker E‐complaining: a content analysis of an Internet complaint forum , 2001 .

[22]  Mary Jo Bitner,et al.  Self-Service Technologies: Understanding Customer Satisfaction with Technology-Based Service Encounters , 2000 .

[23]  Celso Augusto de Matos,et al.  Service Recovery Paradox: A Meta-Analysis , 2007 .

[24]  C. Boshoff An experimental study of service recovery options , 1997 .

[25]  Ruth N. Bolton,et al.  An Experimental Investigation of Customer Reactions to Service Failure and Recovery Encounters , 1998 .

[26]  Stephen S. Tax,et al.  Customer Evaluations of Service Complaint Experiences: Implications for Relationship Marketing , 1998 .

[27]  C. Fornell,et al.  Evaluating structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement error. , 1981 .

[28]  Lukas P. Forbes,et al.  Typologies of e‐commerce retail failures and recovery strategies , 2005 .

[29]  Jochen Wirtz,et al.  Consumer responses to compensation, speed of recovery and apology after a service failure , 2004 .

[30]  Matthew Dixon,et al.  Stop Trying to Delight Your Customers , 2010 .

[31]  G. Zinkhan,et al.  Determinants of retail patronage: A meta-analytical perspective , 2006 .

[32]  Mark A. Davis,et al.  A Typology of Retail Failures and Recoveries , 1993 .