Service recovery in E-commerce

Résumé du document

Service recovery has been found to play a significant role in customer satisfaction and customer loyalty intentions in the online context. Many studies have been conducted on how to manage recovery strategies after a service failures and how it impacts online customers' loyalty. Using the findings from several scientific articles, course literature and textbooks, this study presents the following purpose: to compare service recovery in physical stores with service recovery in e-commerce businesses.

The research identifies how electronic commerce businesses work with their websites and customer service as a tool for service recovery, compared to traditional stores.

The findings show similarities between the two types of service recovery, as well as several differences. Online customers experience different types of service failure relative to traditional retail settings. The studies also expose that the quality of service recovery has a high impact on the customers' behavioral attitudes. A company's responsiveness to requests and complaints may have a positive or a negative influence on the customer's e-loyalty.
 

Extraits

[...] This includes for instance attitudes demonstrated by the frontline staff, such as honesty, politeness and empathy with the customer (Grönroos pp. 126-127) (Lovelock & Wirtz p. 375). According to Lovelock & Wirtz (2011, pp. 378-381) an effective service recovery system is based on three guiding principles. First and foremost it is crucial that giving feedback should be easy and convenient for the customer. This includes the easy access of contact information, as well as a positive experience while giving feedback. Customers should not feel uncomfortable or as if they are not taken seriously. [...]

[...] Further research on the topic of unique elements of e-commerce found that satisfaction is essentially determined by the convenience of use of an online service, the web site design, including content and aesthetics, privacy and financial security for instance in regards to credit card payments the customer service provided and the overall buying experience (Simms, 2002) (Szymanski & Hise, 2000) Technology and Complaint Behavior Technology plays a crucial role in e-commerce. On one hand technology is beneficial for companies, such as when it is used to enhance customer complaint handling (Holloway & Beatty p. 94). In their study, Holloway & Beatty (2003, pp. 101-102) found that the customers' complaint behavior in e-commerce is much higher, compared to regular retailing[2]. Lovelock & Wirtz (2011, p. [...]

[...] Journal of Marketing, Volume 54, January, pp. 71-84. Buttle, F. & Burton, J Does Service Failure Influence Customer Loyalty?. Journal of Consumer Behaviour, Vol Issue pp. 217-227. Chang, D.-S. & Wang, T.-H Consumer Preferences for Service Recovery Options after Delivery Delay when Shopping Online. Social Behavior and Personality, Vol pp. 1033-1044. Chia-Chi Chang, P Choice, Perceived Control, and Customer Satisfaction: The Psychology of Online Service Recovery. CyberPsychology & Behavior, Volume 11, Number pp. 321-328. [...]

[...] The Impacts on Online Retailing Service Recovery and Perceived Justice on Consumer Loyalty. International Journal of Electronic Business Management, Volume 8 pp. 237-244. Forbes, L. P., Kelley, S. W. & Hoffman, K. D Typologies of Commerce Retail Failures and Recovery Strategies. Journal of Services Marketing, Vol pp. 280-292. Goodman, J. & Ward, D The Importance of Customer Satisfaction. Direct Marketing, Vol December, pp. [...]

[...] This way, the service personnel can follow predetermined steps. However, flexibility is sometimes key; especially in unforeseen situations for which no recovery process has been determined. In such a situation the frontline staff needs to have the authority to make decisions by themselves to satisfy the complaining customer (empower employees; also see part 3.1 .2). Lastly, the third guiding principle deals with the appropriate level of compensation. It is not easy to determine the correct level, as it varies for each company, for each failure situation and for each customer. [...]