As an increasing number of customers choose to interact with service firms via technology, there is an urgent need to understand whether consumers react differently to technology-based failures/recovery efforts than human failures/recovery efforts. Using resource exchange theory as a framework, the present investigation examined the role of failure mode (SST vs. face-to-face encounter) and recovery mode on customers' fairness perceptions. Results from Study 1 suggest that compensation offered by a front-line employee might be more effective in restoring justice with traditional failures (match condition) than with SST failures (mismatch condition). Findings from Study 2 further support the matching hypothesis in terms of distributive justice. On the other hand, human touch seems more effective in restoring interactional fairness than on-line recovery. The follow-up study extends the matching hypothesis to satisfaction with problem handling and repurchase intent. Managerial implications of these findings are discussed.
A growing body of service recovery literature suggests that an effective recovery is linked to positive outcomes such as loyalty, positive WOM, trust, service quality and value (Goodwin and Ross, 1992, Tax et al., 1998, Boshoff, 2005 and Gustafsson, 2009). Given the rapid increase in on-line and self-service technology (SST) encounters, there is an urgent need to understand whether consumers react differently to technology-based failures than to human failures This issue is particularly important since the reasons for dissatisfying experiences tend to differ across on-line and off-line environments (Holloway and Beatty, 2003, Harris et al., 2006a and Harris et al., 2006b). Some evidence also exists to suggest that traditional service recovery strategies might not be directly transferable to on-line environments (Shapiro and Nieman-Gonder, 2006, Harris et al., 2006a, Harris et al., 2006b, Meuter et al., 2003 and Sousa and Voss, 2009). Although these prior studies suggest that differences exist between the two delivery modes, they have failed to systematically examine the nature of such differences. Moreover, underlying theory for explaining the effects is lacking.
To bridge these gaps, the purpose of the present investigation is to contrast consumers' reactions to human and technology-based service failures and consequent recovery efforts. Specifically, the authors seek to understand the role of two frequently employed recovery efforts (compensation and apology) on customers' fairness perceptions by comparing SST failures and on-line recoveries with their human counterparts. Relying on resource exchange theory (Smith et al., 1999, Foa, 1971, Brinberg and Castell, 1982 and Rosenbaum and Massiah, 2007), the authors propose that the recovery mode (technology-based vs. human) needs to match the failure type (on-line vs. off-line). People tend to favor exchanges that are in kind; therefore, a mismatch between failure type and recovery mode should reduce the positive impact of compensation and apology on customers' fairness perceptions. The study focuses on fairness because customer responses to service recovery efforts are heavily guided by their perceptions of fairness in the recovery effort (e.g., Smith et al., 1999 and Hocutt et al., 2006).
