Beyond a Single Firm and Internal Focus Service Failure/Recovery: Multiple Providers and External Service Recoveries

Moving beyond the traditional focus on single service providers and internal service recoveries, this article extends service failure/recovery research by examining the effect on consumer evaluations and behavior of (1) a series of service failures that involve multiple entities in the creation of customer experiences; (2) an external service recovery, that is, a recovery implemented by a firm other than the one that caused the service failure; and (3) a joint service provider recovery, in contrast to the prevalent focus on a single firm service recovery. Employing two experiments, findings confirmed that a firm unaffiliated with the firm that caused the service failure benefits more from an external service recovery than an affiliated firm. Surprisingly, external recoveries by affiliated entities themselves, and compared to the internal recovery by the entity that caused the failure, did not significantly impact consumer evaluations and behavior. Study implications and future research directions are discussed.