The Long-term Impact of Service Recovery

This article examines customers’ short-term attitudinal and long-term behavioral responses to service failures and recovery efforts. Our data from a tracking study of casual dining restaurants customers indicate that those who did not experience any failure were more satisfied than those who experienced successful recovery following a failure. The satisfactory recovery group, in turn, was more satisfied than customers who either did not complain or were not successfully recovered following their complaints. Importantly, the pattern of brand patronage over the medium and long run differed substantially from the short-term variation in satisfaction levels across the four customer groups. In the medium term, the brand visitation frequency for those who never experienced failure was similar to those of customers who were successfully recovered. The visitation frequencies of customers who did not complain or were not successfully recovered were lower. However, over the long run, the visita