There is No 'I' in Recovery: Managements' Perspective of Service Recovery

In the services industry, service failures occur on a daily basis, therefore it has received heightened attention from academia as well as practitioners over the past years. However, the majority of research and practices are based on either the customers' or front line employees' point of view. In the present study, we claim that it is the way that managers approach service recovery strategies that makes the difference between successful and unsuccessful operations. Thus, this case study addressed managements' involvement in the service recovery process by highlighting the effective and efficient service recovery strategies that are implemented by practitioners utilizing justice theories. In order to investigate this issue, a qualitative case study approach was adopted. The findings confirm three distinct service recovery phases, namely, the pre-recovery stage, the immediate recovery stage, and the follow-up recovery stage. Further, we discovered another stage, "lessons learned," which has a direct impact on each phase of the service recovery, guiding managers in shaping their service recovery policies and procedures.