Abstract:

Given that service failures are inevitable in every service contexts, an in-depth understanding of how service failure and recovery affect customer behavior represents a relevant topic for academics as well as for practitioners. This paper explores the role of failure severity in customer’s post-recovery repurchase behavior. Using a sample of 40.813 customers, who had experienced a problem with the service provider and who had not, this research empirically tests the proposed framework in the telecommunications sector. The results indicated that service failure severity has a significant influence in customers’ post-recovery repurchase. Results also provide support for the moderating role of gender and relationship age. These findings offer several relevant insights for practitioners: it is recommended to avoid severe failures and to use moderators’ information in order to enhance customer loyalty and to adopt different service recovery strategies depending upon this segmentation.