ORDINARY SERVICE RECOVERY STRATEGIES VERSUS CUSTOMERS’ EXPECTATIONS AND INVOLVEMENT: A CASE STUDY ON SMALL RESTAURANTS.

Abstract

Literature on service described, service recovery as actions that service provider firms takes in response to any service failure or service related problem and considered as one of the fundamental business strategies for the service firms in order to maintain profitable customer relationship. Nevertheless, the managements are also completely aware of the fact that mistakes are an unavoidable and wide awake about the immediate response to complaints and possible recovery after the failure as well. Again allowing for that customer retention is invariably correlated with customer satisfaction; recovery actions also have to be gratifying. Predominantly, this case study is designed to have a comprehensive understanding of consumers’ perception about common recovery policies of restaurant brands and their expectations as the other side of the coin. The paper is qualitative in nature; single case study approach was adopted. Two restaurants named ‘Luchi restaurant’ and ‘Jal Khabar Restaurant’ was considered for the in-depth study. Data were collected through in-depth interviews more specifically in form of ‘Conversation with purpose’. The result shows that even though the managements are very cautious as regards the service recovery strategies, customer’s complaints, but sometimes even the common service recovery falls below the customers’ anticipations. On the other hand, restaurant which are experimental and somehow innovative with their recovery strategies; i.e. designed with a clear understanding of customers’ needs, involving customers to redesigning the recovery strategies and emphasizing on continuous improvement are getting more responses in case of customer satisfaction, positive word-of-mouth and customer loyalty as well.