Application of Fairness Theory to Service Failures and Service Recovery

TLDR

The article argues that a service failure triggers an emotional response, prompting consumers to assess procedural, interactional, and distributive justice while engaging in counterfactual thinking and apportioning accountability. It proposes a fairness‑theory based conceptual framework to study and manage consumers’ emotions during service recovery attempts. The framework emphasizes counterfactual thinking and accountability, detailing how customers evaluate whether the provider could have remedied the problem and how they would have felt if such actions were taken. Five focus‑group findings show that when providers appear to lack effort, consumers attribute indifference, leading to anger and frustration, and the study discusses managerial implications.

Abstract

This article presents a fairness theory-based conceptual framework for studying and managing consumers’ emotions during service recovery attempts. The conceptual framework highlights the central role played by counterfactual thinking and accountability. Findings from five focus groups are also presented to lend further support to the conceptual framework. Essentially, the article argues that a service failure event triggers an emotional response in the consumer, and from here the consumer commences an assessment of the situation, considering procedural justice, interactional justice, and distributive justice elements, while engaging in counterfactual thinking and apportioning accountability. More specifically, the customer assesses whether the service provider could and should have done something more to remedy the problem and how the customer would have felt had these actions been taken. The authors argue that during this process situational effort is taken into account when assessing accountability. When service providers do not appear to exhibit an appropriate level of effort, consumers attribute this to the service provider not caring. This in turn leads to the customer feeling more negative emotions, such as anger and frustration. Managerial implications of the study are discussed.