Service Failure, its Recovery and Client Loyalty

Abstract

A customer facing service failure can respond by becoming our competitor’s customer, complaining, or staying with the service provider and not reacting (Levesque & McDougall, 2000). Customers can react by spreading negative impressions and in this way affect the reduction of a restaurant’s reputation. According to Bell and Luddington (2006), the opinion expressed by the customer during his complaint has a great value for the service provider. This paper is based on a study in culinary industry considering restaurants in Durres area, Albania. The study is quantitative and the sample has been carefully analyzed to include and represent restaurants in the area. The purpose of this study is to analyze the perception of service failure and what the factors influencing perception are. We aim to understand what would push a customer to return to a restaurant, even after facing service failure. In this study we will identify the factors that affect service failure and recovery. The findings include the statistical significant relationship that customer satisfaction has in perception of service failure, and in its subsequent recovery efforts. In the same logic, variables such as demographic indicators play a role in the perception of customers in service failure and recovery.