Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 42 (2018) 65–77

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Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jretconser

How to influence consumer mindset: A perspective from service recovery T

a,⁎ b c a
Ahasan Harun , Md Rokonuzzaman , Gayle Prybutok , Victor R. Prybutok
a
Department of Information Technology and Decision Sciences, College of Business, University of North Texas, Denton, TX, USA
b
Department of Management and Marketing, College of Business, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, Eau Claire, WI, USA
c
Department of Rehabilitation and Health Services, College of Health and Public Service, University of North Texas, Denton, TX, USA

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: This research examines a theoretical framework that evaluates the effectiveness of service recovery strategies in
Service failure influencing post-complaint consumer mindset. Based on the Justice Theory (Adams, 1963), this study in-
Positive word-of-mouth vestigates the interrelationships among the focal constructs related to consumers’ behavioral and attitudinal
Perception of justice factors after experiencing service failure. We evaluate the proposed framework through the partial least squares
PLS-SEM
structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). This study contributes to the extant literature by: a) identifying the
IPMA
antecedents of positive word-of-mouth in service recovery context, b) helping service industry practitioners by
showing a way to tailor their service recovery strategies through the use of importance-performance map
analysis (IPMA) at both the construct and indicator levels, and c) providing a unique platform by analyzing real
consumer experiences as opposed to the most extant researches which examine simulated consumer behaviors
based on hypothetical scenarios. The results of this study indicate that through effective execution of service
recovery strategies, it is possible to create strong sense of justice in a consumer's mind, which then service
industry practitioners can leverage through loyalty to create more impact on post-complaint consumer mindset.
This study also provides several theoretical and managerial implications.

1. Introduction
Avoiding service failure and consumer complaint is almost im-
possible (Mattila and Cranage, 2005; Kau and Loh, 2006; Shapiro and
Nieman-Gonder, 2006; Sengupta et al., 2015). If a service failure oc-
curs, a business's response can either strengthen loyalty or worsen the
situation by driving the consumer to a competitor (Smith et al., 1999;
Knox and Van Oest, 2014; Hazée et al., 2017). Thus, service failures and
ineffective recovery steps are influential in provoking consumers’
switching behavior (Gelbrich and Roschk, 2011; Bougoure et al., 2016).
As a result, the service industry must effectively address service re-
covery situations to continue positive relationships with consumers (del
Río-Lanza et al., 2009; Wen and Chi, 2013). This study seeks to provide
an operational guideline and strategic decision-making process for
service failure and recovery, thereby helping industry practitioners to
maintain consumer relationships and subsequently, achieve superior
financial performance.
Although there has been a proliferation of research works in service
recovery domain, there are many issues that remain unclear and worthy
of further investigation. First, service recovery literature considers
perception of justice a critical antecedent in influencing post-complaint
behavior. However, the extant research findings regarding the influ-
ences of various service recovery strategies on justice are inconsistent
(Bradley and Sparks, 2012). Moreover, service recovery literature has
not sufficiently investigated the comparative effects of various service
recovery strategies on perception of justice. Therefore, it is necessary to
delve deeper into the subject matter and to understand the comparative
effects of service recovery strategies. Second, extant literature has
analyzed perception of justice's effects on various post-complaint be-
haviors through different mediators such as satisfaction and trust.
However, no research on service recovery has yet examined the relation
between perception of justice and positive word-of-mouth through
loyalty as a mediator. Especially, we separate positive word-of-mouth
from traditional word-of-mouth concept, which is a mix of both positive
and negative word-of-mouth. In addition, studies on the effects of jus-
tice on behavioral outcomes are not conclusive (Wang et al., 2011;
Urueña and Hidalgo, 2016). Therefore, more insights are necessary for
researchers and industry practitioners alike. Third, extant research
mainly focuses on laboratory experiments involving hypothetical sce-
narios rather than actual experience. As a result, although consumers
are exposed to manipulated circumstances, these may have little rela-
tion to what they will express in a real service-recovery situation based

⁎
Correspondence to: College of Business, University of North Texas, 1155, Union Circle #311277, Denton, TX 76201, USA.
E-mail addresses: MdAhasanUddin.Harun@unt.edu (A. Harun), rokonuzm@uwec.edu (M. Rokonuzzaman), Gayle.Prybutok@unt.edu (G. Prybutok),
Victor.Prybutok@unt.edu (V.R. Prybutok).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretconser.2018.01.012
Received 26 October 2017; Received in revised form 9 January 2018; Accepted 24 January 2018
0969-6989/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
A. Harun et al.
on their actual service failure experiences. Therefore, adopting survey
design based on actual service failure and recovery experience is likely
to shed better insights. For these reasons, in this study, we explore the
following research questions:
1) What are the comparative effects of service recovery strategies on
fostering perception of justice in post-complaint consumer mind?
2) Does loyalty mediate the association between perception of justice
and positive word-of-mouth?
To address these questions, we have two goals in this study that are
different from the existing research works in some important ways. The
first objective is to come up with a research framework that in-
corporates various service recovery strategies into one study and si-
multaneously evaluates their comparative influences on perception of
justice. Second, we seek to give industry practitioners insights about the
underlying framework by carrying out importance-performance map
analysis (IPMA) at both the construct and indicator levels. The IPMA
helps to pinpoint the exogenous constructs that have a relatively high
importance or significant influence on the final focal construct but
performs below par. Therefore, this study will help business strategists
to shape their strategies by zooming in on the key constructs and in-
dicators as outlined in our research.
Our work proceeds as follows. After discussing the relevant theo-
retical foundation and background literature, we lay out a sketch of our
framework. Then, by focusing on relevant constructs, we posit our re-
search hypotheses. Afterwards, we discuss the research methodology
and the derived findings from it. At the final phase, we highlight re-
search contributions and lay out avenue for conducting future research.
2. Literature review and theoretical background
2.1. Service recovery strategies
Service recovery effort is the organizational response created to
reduce the negative influences of service failure and to satisfy the
consumer (Danaher and Mattsson, 1994; Wen and Chi, 2013). Previous
studies evaluated various types of service recovery approaches such as
compensation, reaction speed, voluntary remedial measures, excuse,
apology, justification, empathy, discount, coupons, no response, and
explanation (Hart et al., 1990; Greenberg, 1990; Conlon and Murray,
1996; Smith et al., 1999; Bhandari et al., 2007; Gelbrich and Roschk,
2011; Bradley and Sparks, 2012; Mostafa et al., 2015). However, pre-
vious studies evaluated these service recovery efforts in isolation.
Moreover, existing works provide mixed findings concerning the ef-
fectiveness of recovery strategies. Furthermore, strategy like apology
has not been extensively considered (Bradley and Sparks, 2012).
Therefore, in our framework, we incorporate recovery efforts such as
response speed, problem solving, explanation, courtesy, and apology
for several reasons. First, we focused specifically on the roles of cus-
tomer service employees. Strategy like offering compensation is con-
tingent on business policy and therefore, might be outside the control of
such employees. Second, in addition to advancing the existing research,
our study will not only offer a different view of the recovery strategies
but also try to address inconsistent results found in literature (Bolkan
and Daly, 2009; Bobocel and Zdaniuk, 2005; Wang et al., 2011). Third,
by providing a unified framework, our study offers the opportunity to
evaluate these key strategies simultaneously and gives us the scope to
examine their comparative effects. Thus, our study provides a founda-
tion for thorough evaluation and paves a unique perspective for further
substantial exploration. We argue that recovery efforts undertaken by
front line employees convey a willingness to solve the problem and
signals cares about consumers’ wellbeing (Bell and Zemke, 1990;
Migacz et al., 2017). Thus, when a business initiates recovery efforts,
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Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 42 (2018) 65–77
the recovery experience will affect the service experience. Hence, the
behavioral decision-making in terms of evaluation will end on a posi-
tive tone. Thus, when a business carries out effective execution of ser-
vice recovery strategies, these are going to create a sense of perceived
justice on post-complaint consumer mindset.
2.2. Perception of justice
In the service recovery literature, perception of justice, introduced
by Adams in 1963 (Adams, 1963), has been defined as the extent to
which consumers have been fairly treated after launching complaint
about a service failure (Maxham and Netemeyer, 2002; Tax et al.,
1998). We argue that perception of justice is the base for measuring
effectiveness of the recovery process. Extant research suggests that
perception of justice is a key criterion in a consumer's evaluation of the
firm's post-complaint performance (Tax et al., 1998; Hazée et al., 2017).
Perception of justice is nothing but subjective evaluation of the orga-
nizational responses (Smith et al., 1999). Perception of justice is a
three-dimensional construct that consists of distributive, procedural,
interactional justice (Tax et al., 1998). Distributive justice is the per-
ceived result of an exchange. It embraces the subjective benefits a
consumer receives to counter the inconvenience resulting from a firm's
service failure (Smith et al., 1999). Procedural justice refers to how a
consumer with a complaint views conflict resolution and the decision-
making process of the firm (Lind and Tyler, 1988; Wen and Chi, 2013).
A consumer considers a complaint procedure just if it is easily acces-
sible, flexible, and is resolved in an appropriate and well-timed way
(Tax et al., 1998). Interactional justice refers to how a consumer per-
ceives the way she/he has been treated (Bies and Shapiro, 1987;
Swanson and Hsu, 2011). A consumer considers treatment fair if in-
formation is exchanged and the outcomes are obtained in a respectful
way (Patterson et al., 2006). According to some studies in the literature,
among the five selected service recovery strategies for this study, pro-
blem solving represents distributive justice; response speed corresponds
to procedural justice; the other three strategies- explanation, courtesy,
and apology usually represent interactional justice (Smith et al., 1999;
Mostafa et al., 2015). However, such categorization has been called into
question by other scholars because research suggests that each recovery
strategy can affect all three dimensions simultaneously (Homburg and
Fürst, 2005; Gelbrich and Roschk, 2011). In addition, extant researches
also express doubt about the separation of the three justice dimensions
(Davidow, 2003; DeWitt et al., 2008) for various reasons. First, it has
been argued that various dimensions of consumers’ perception of justice
are likely to be correlated (Liao, 2007). Second, halo effects prevent
consumers from such differentiation (Gelbrich and Roschk, 2011).
Therefore, following the recommendations of Ambrose and Dan arnaud
(2005), Colquitt et al. (2005), and Liao (2007), and in line with the
works of DeWitt et al. (2008), De Matos et al. (2009), Urueña and
Hidalgo (2016) in our framework, we have decided to represent per-
ception of justice as one latent construct. This approach of giving less
emphasis among various justice dimensions allows us to acknowledge
their interdependence. Moreover, it allows giving more emphasis on
perception of justice's contribution on consumer's behavioral outcomes.
2.3. Loyalty
We also want to investigate the perception of justice's impact on
loyalty. Loyalty refers to a consumer's intent to carry on transactions
with a business (De Ruyter and Wetzels, 2000). More often than not, as
the relation between a business and its loyal consumers lengthens, they
spend more (Levesque and McDougall, 1992). Successful service re-
covery helps to increase consumer loyalty (Kelley et al., 1993; Kim
et al., 2012; Migacz et al., 2017). It is also helpful that loyal consumers
may tolerate deviation to a certain extent from usual performance
A. Harun et al.
(Hirschman, 1970; Bhandari et al., 2007). Businesses that have a
greater ability to create positive perception of justice in the consumers’
mind will be able to maintain a consistent relationship with consumers.
This is because positive perception of justice creates an impression in
the consumers’ mind that the business cares about the consumer. As
such, perception of justice fosters a sense of assurance about the quality
of products or services (DeWitt et al., 2008). Therefore, consumers are
more likely to maintain affinity with such a business. Thus, through
effective service recovery strategies, a business helps consumer to have
confidence in the provider. It fosters perception of justice based on the
consumer's view of the organization's competence. Therefore, when
consumers develop a positive perception of justice about a particular
transaction, they are more likely to be loyal to the service provider. As
such, service recovery researches such as Chebat and Slusarczyk (2005),
Urueña and Hidalgo (2016) posit that perception of justice positively
influences consumer's loyalty.
2.4. Relationship between loyalty and positive word-of-mouth (PWOM)
Some researches consider word-of-mouth as a part of loyalty
(Bloemer et al., 1999; Lam et al., 2004; Sirdeshmukh et al., 2002).
Nevertheless, Söderlund (2006) argued that word-of-mouth should not
be measured as part of unidimensional loyalty construct. Following the
empirical outcomes of Söderlund (2006) and the stream of research
conducted embracing the idea that loyalty and word-of-mouth con-
structs are separate (Sichtmann, 2007; De Matos and Rossi, 2008), we
decided to zoom in on the specific relation between loyalty and positive
word-of-mouth. PWOM is distinct from the concept of word-of-mouth.
Word-of-mouth refers to a combination of both likelihood of spreading
information about a business and the valence for this information
(Davidow, 2003). In literature dealing with consumer complaints, these
two concepts are combined into one construct, incorporating the like-
lihood of spreading both negative and positive word-of-mouth (Blodgett
et al., 1997; Gelbrich and Roschk, 2011). Although, prior research es-
tablished the relation between loyalty and WOM, the nature of re-
lationship between loyalty and PWOM in service recovery context is
still unknown. Positive word-of-mouth refers to the possibility of con-
sumers spreading favorable information such as endorsing the service
provider and its services (Maxham and Netemeyer, 2003; Berger and
Schwartz, 2011). Instead of choosing either word-of-mouth or negative
word-of-mouth in this study, we only consider positive word-of-mouth
as a construct. This is because when service failure occurs, positive
word-of-mouth can be recognized as an outcome from a complaint and
consequent successful recovery effort. Post-failure positive word-of-
mouth results from successful recovery efforts (Blodgett and Anderson,
2000; Migacz et al., 2017). If consumers do not complain, then the
corrective process does not happen because absence of service recovery
initiatives inhibit consumers from recommending the business to others
in the future. However, post-failure negative word-of-mouth may
spread before the consumer makes a complaint and/or as an outcome of
ineffective recovery effort (Blodgett and Anderson, 2000). In the initial
case, we cannot attribute negative word-of-mouth to ineffective re-
covery initiatives because no complaint was launched and no organi-
zational response was possible. We argue that successful service re-
coveries will help consumers to view the business more favorably.
Consumers whose loyalty is reinforced after successful service recovery
will give positive recommendations and will share this positive ex-
perience with others. We argue that these consumers will engage in
positive word-of-mouth to lessen cognitive dissonance. In other words,
after successful service recovery, consumers experience renewed con-
fidence in the service provider, and as a result, these loyal consumers
attempt to convince themselves about their decision to maintain loy-
alty. They do so by telling others that the service provider has invested
their efforts in recovering from service failure, and therefore, they will
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Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 42 (2018) 65–77
engage in spreading positive word-of-mouth. As such, in the context of
service recovery, we argue that:
H1. The greater the level of loyalty, the higher the level of positive
word-of-mouth (PWOM) will be.
2.5. Relationship between perception of justice and positive word-of-mouth
(PWOM)
After the occurrence of service failure, consumers feel let down
(Balaji et al., 2017). They see the service failure experience as taxing
and they consider it a loss in terms of time and feelings (Sengupta et al.,
2015). Therefore, strong perception of justice provides consumers a
perception of self-esteem. As such, it creates tangible effects on con-
sumers’ mind. They consider the service provider eager to solve service
failure and to form a positive relationship with consumers. Therefore,
consumers consider the service provider eager in sustaining a positive
impression. These impressions foster a functional relation between a
service provider and consumers. As such, when a business tries to solve
service failure, a relationship of empathy develops, and consumers
become more prone to build rapport with the service provider. There-
fore, consumers want to inform others about their experience (Urueña
and Hidalgo, 2016). As such, consumers are likely to join in re-
ciprocation through the engagement in positive word-of-mouth.
Moreover, as we previously mentioned, perception of justice positively
influences loyalty, which in turn positively relates to positive word-of-
mouth. Therefore, in our proposed framework, we expect that percep-
tion of justice indirectly is likely to influence positive word-of-mouth
via loyalty. We form this line of thought because of our preceding
discussion of the following effects. First, perception of justice positively
influences loyalty. Second, positive word-of-mouth can be influenced
by loyalty and indirectly by perception of justice. Contextualizing these
arguments in our research context, and following the mediation logic
(Barron and Kenny, 1986), we propose the followings:
H2. Perception of Justice a) creates direct effect on positive word-of-
mouth, b) creates indirect effect on positive word-of-mouth through
loyalty.
3. Methodology
3.1. Instrument development
Measurement items associated with service recovery steps were
modified from Mostafa et al. (2015) and Liao (2007). Item development
for perception of justice was motivated by Homburg and Fürst (2005),
Smith et al. (1999), and Colquitt (2001). Items for measuring loyalty
were borrowed from Garbarino and Johnson (1999), and Yim et al.
(2008). Moreover, items corresponding to positive word-of-mouth were
adapted from Zeithaml et al. (1996) and Mattila (2004). Before col-
lecting data, we created a draft survey and conducted a pilot test on 84
undergraduate students. We used the pilot data to check for the factor
structure and to purify the scale items so that the survey instrument fits
our research context and achieves more clarity (Flynn et al., 1990).
3.2. Data collection
We performed a power analysis in Gpower 3.1 (Buchner et al.,
2009) on a priori basis for determining the minimum sample size. For an
effect size of 0.15, α error probability of 0.05, and power of 0.95, our
framework required at least 153 observations. Data collection was
completed by enrolled students in a business research class at a large
state university, situated in the Southwestern USA. Students were
A. Harun et al. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 42 (2018) 65–77

offered course credits. We recruited the survey participants through the
students. We instructed the student participants to recruit people they
were familiar with. The requirement was that the respondents had
encountered at least one service failure prior to the study and that they
initiated a complaint about it to the appropriate business entity. After
filtering out the respondents who did not meet this criterion, we con-
sidered 896 usable responses for further analyses. Thus, our sample size
surpasses the required minimum sample size calculated by a priori
power analysis. The demographic distribution corresponding to the
final retained sample is provided in Appendix A. The service areas and
corresponding frequencies of failed encounters are presented in
Appendix B. To avoid common method bias, the responses were col-
lected on anonymous basis. Moreover, we conducted Harmon's single
factor test (Podsakoff and Organ, 1986) to check if a single factor re-
lates to most of the variances. In this case, the single factor did not
contribute to the majority of variance. Thus, we can rule out common
method bias from this study.
4. Analytical approach
To analyze the data, instead of CB-SEM, we used partial least
squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) for several reasons.
First, the purpose of this study is to evaluate the effects of service re-
covery strategies on consumers’ subsequent involvement in positive
word-of-mouth. In situations like this, where prediction is the focus,
PLS-SEM is suitable (Henseler et al., 2009). Moreover, PLS-SEM is ap-
propriate for analyzing complex models comprised of many indicators
(Hair et al., 2012). Furthermore, PLS path modeling involves scores
extracted from latent variables, which is necessary for conducting im-
portance-performance map (IPMA) analysis. Therefore, the choice of
PLS-SEM is appropriate for our study. To get the model estimates, we
used SmartPLS software (Ringle et al., 2015). We adopted two-step
procedure. First, we evaluated the measurement model and then the
structural model (Hair et al., 2012). The logic behind the two-step
procedure is that validity and reliability of the measurement model can
assure suitability of structural model results for drawing conclusions.
4.1. Reflective measurement model
After having an established a priori model, we evaluated the relia-
bility and validity of the measurement model. Table 1 illustrates the
reliability assessment of every construct corresponding to the mea-
surement model. We used Cronbach's α (Cronbach, 1951; Nunnally and
Bernstein, 1994) to evaluate internal consistency reliability of the outer
model. Since every construct exceeded the minimum acceptable
threshold of 0.7, we can say that reliability is established. However,
Cronbach's α is sensitive to the number of items consisting the scale
and, usually, devalues internal consistency reliability (Hair et al.,
2017). Therefore, in addition to using it as a tool for a more con-
servative measure, we also used Dillon-Goldstein's ρ to measure
composite reliability. It considers outer loadings, corresponding to
various indicator variables, to assess internal consistency reliability.
From Table 1, we see that composite reliability of all constructs exceeds
the threshold value of 0.7. Thus, internal consistency reliability is
supported.
We also used indicator reliability and average variance extracted
(AVE) to assess convergent validity corresponding to the reflective
measurement model (Hair et al., 2017). Appendix C provides the list of
indicators in the reflective measurement model illustrating high load-
ings, with values above the threshold of 0.70. An AVE value of 0.5 or
higher is considered satisfactory. This is because it indicates that on
average, the construct can explain more than half of the variance cor-
responding to the indicators. We can see from Table 1 that every con-
struct meets the minimum cutoff values. As a result, the constructs have
satisfactory convergent validity. After evaluating the indicator cross
loadings, we determined that discriminant validity criterion is met.
Moreover, from Table 2 we see that the square roots of the AVEs, dis-
played on the diagonals for every construct, are greater than the cor-
relations among these constructs and other latent variables included in
the model. Thus, the Fornell-Larcker criterion (Fornell and Larcker,
1981) supports indicator consistency.
4.2. Structural model estimation
After corroborating the survey instrument's reliability and validity,
we evaluated the structural model results by inspecting the relation-
ships among the constructs and assessed the model's predictive abilities.
First, we checked the Variance Inflation Factor (VIF) to check colli-
nearity. Since VIF values are less than the established threshold of 5, we
eliminated existence of collinearity. Then we used bootstrap percentile
confidence intervals (bias corrected) to see whether the results are
statistically significant. As per Preacher and Hayes (2008), we com-
puted 5000 bootstrap samples, where each bootstrap sample is com-
prised of the exact number of observations as the original sample. From
Table 3, we can see the estimations of the structural model relations
after computing 5000 bootstrap samples. Our model can explain 71.4%
of the variation in the final focal construct- positive word-of-mouth in
the context of service recovery (Fig. 1).
A blindfolding procedure through a pre-determined distance of five
gave us the cross-validated redundancy for evaluating the Stone-
Geisser's Q 2 statistic (Chin, 1998). From Table 4, we can see that this
statistic provides a value greater than zero for the final focal construct
positive word-of-mouth. As a result, we can say that our model has
predictive relevance. We also used the standardized root mean square
residual (SRMR) for evaluating model fit (Henseler et al., 2014). An
SRMR value of zero indicates a perfect model fit. In this case, the SRMR
value is 0.059. As a result, this model has good fit because values less
than 0.08 are favorable (Hu and Bentler, 1999).
5. Mediation analysis

Table 1 To evaluate whether loyalty mediates the association between per-

Cronbach's Alpha, composite reliability, and AVE scores for constructs. ception of justice and positive word-of-mouth, we followed the proce-
dure outlined in Zhao et al. (2010) and Nitzl et al. (2016). Initially, we
Constructs Cronbach's Composite Average variance
Alpha reliability (Dillon- extracted (AVE) evaluated model 1 without considering the mediator (Fig. 2). Here, the
Goldstein's rho) direct relationship between perception of justice and positive word-of-
mouth is significant and the coefficient of determination, r 2 , is 0.501 for
Apology 0.833 0.889 0.667
the final focal construct positive word-of-mouth.
Courtesy 0.839 0.892 0.675
Explanation 0.809 0.872 0.630 Afterwards, we evaluated the mediator loyalty to estimate model 2
Perception of Justice 0.888 0.913 0.600 (Fig. 2). Perception of justice's indirect effect via loyalty on positive
Loyalty 0.799 0.882 0.714 word-of-mouth is significant (see Table 5). From Table 5, we also ob-
PositIve Word-of-Mouth 0.852 0.910 0.772 serve that the direct effect between justice perception and positive
Problem Solving 0.799 0.882 0.713
word-of-mouth is significant. Therefore, as per the outline of mediation
Response Speed 0.836 0.890 0.670
analysis in Zhao et al. (2010) and Nitzl et al. (2016), we can say that

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A. Harun et al. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 42 (2018) 65–77

Table 2
Discriminant validity (Fornell-Larcker criterion).

Constructs Apology Courtesy Explanation Perception of justice Loyalty PositIve word-of-mouth Problem solving Response speed

Apology 0.817
Courtesy 0.667 0.821
Explanation 0.430 0.360 0.794
Perception of Justice 0.598 0.671 0.435 0.775
Loyalty 0.461 0.421 0.389 0.597 0.845
PositIve Word-of-Mouth 0.496 0.497 0.394 0.707 0.794 0.879
Problem Solving 0.595 0.641 0.445 0.730 0.499 0.583 0.844
Response Speed 0.518 0.573 0.405 0.720 0.482 0.574 0.668 0.819

Table 3
Structural model results.

Path Hypothesized direction Path coefficient Bias corrected 95% confidence Supported (s)/not supported (ns)
interval

Response Speed - > Perception of Justice (+) 0.334*** [0.273, 0.395] s

Apology - > Perception of Justice (+) 0.082*** [0.026, 0.138] s
Explanation - > Perception of Justice (+) 0.056** [0.011, 0.101] s
Courtesy - > Perception of Justice (+) 0.215*** [0.156, 0.275] s
Problem Solving - > Perception of Justice (+) 0.296*** [0.227, 0.363] s
Perception of Justice - > Loyalty (+) 0.597*** [0.543, 0.645] s
Loyalty - > PositIve Word-of-Mouth (+) 0.577*** [0.527, 0.623] s
Perception of Justice - > PositIve Word-of-Mouth (+) 0.362*** [0.318, 0.409] s

*** p < 0.01

** p < 0.05

Fig. 1. PLS path model and results. Note: Bootstrapping routine (Hair et al., 2017) with 5000 subsamples, 896 observations per subsample, and no sign change option was used to evaluate
significance of path coefficients. ***p < 0.01; **p < 0.05.

Table 4 loyalty serves as a partial mediator between perception of justice and

Stone-Geisser's Q 2 statistic value. positive word-of-mouth because both the direct and indirect effects are
significant. In order to determine the type of partial mediation, we then
Constructs SSO SSE Q2 (= 1-SSE/SSO)
computed the product of the indirect and the direct effect. Since both
Apology 3584.00 3584.00 the indirect and direct effects are positive, the sign of the product
Courtesy 3584.00 3584.00 (0.345 * 0.362 = 0.125) is also positive. Therefore, loyalty represents
Explanation 3584.00 3584.00 complementary partial mediation of the relationship between percep-
Perception of Justice 6272.00 4023.89 0.358
Loyalty 2688.00 2069.97 0.230
tion of justice and positive word-of-mouth. In this case, r 2 , value is
PositIve Word-of-Mouth 2688.00 1354.08 0.496 0.714 for the target construct-positive word-of-mouth.
Problem Solving 2688.00 2688.00
Response Speed 3584.00 3584.00
6. The role of consumer characteristics
**SSO = sum of the squared observations; SSE = sum of the squared prediction errors.
To provide a granular assessment as an additional post hoc analysis,

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A. Harun et al. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 42 (2018) 65–77

Fig. 2. Mediator evaluation models.

Table 5 but not by gender and income. Therefore, to examine the role of socio-
Mediation analysis. demographic factors in this empirical study's service recovery context,
at first, we compared male and female consumers. Then we examined
Direct Bias Indirect Bias Mediation type
effect corrected effect corrected whether being a member of the millennial group affects post-complaint
95% CI 95% CI behavior. We followed United States Census Bureau's (USCB) categor-
ization of millennials (1982–2000) (USCB, 2015). Therefore, we used
Model 1 0.708*** [0.668, – – –
35 years as the split point. We also used a median split to differentiate
0.740]
Model 2 0.362*** [0.318, 0.345*** [0.308, Complementary between high and low income groups. Around 60,000$ is the median
0.409] 0.386] Partial income in the USA (USCB, 2017). Lastly, we compared consumers based
on their work status. We estimated separate models for each subgroup.
Model 1: PLS path model without any mediator. We evaluated the resulting path coefficients to detect significant dif-
Model 2: Model 1 with mediator construct loyalty. ferences across various socio-demographic characteristics by non-
*** p < 0.01.
parametric permutation test procedure (Chin and Dibbern, 2010)
(Table 6).
we have examined the influences of various socio-demographic char-
The results show that, within the structural model, corresponding
acteristics as grouping variables on our overall model through the lens
path coefficients for courtesy's impact on perception of justice is sig-
of permutation based multi-group analysis. Extant researches suggest
nificantly larger for females. However, for males, the path coefficient
that consumer characteristics influence behavioral outcomes (Lee and
for explanation's effect on perception of justice is significantly larger. In
Kyle, 2014; Henrique and De Matos, 2015). Characteristics that have
comparison to millennials, for non-millennial consumers, problem sol-
been examined incorporate socio-demographic features such as income,
ving's effect is significantly greater in influencing perception of justice.
age, gender etc. (Christens and Lin, 2014; DeVaney, 2015; Henrique
For non-affluent consumers compared to affluent consumers, problem
and de Matos, 2015). However, past researches are inconsistent in their
solving significantly plays a greater role in fostering perception of
findings. Mägi (2003) establishes that age does not moderate beha-
justice. For working class consumers, apology and courtesy create
vioral outcome while Baumann et al. (2005) concludes otherwise. Lee
substantial less impact than those for non-working consumers.
and Kyle (2014) find that behavioral outcome can be explained by age
However, in comparison to not-working class, path coefficients for

70
 Table 6
Permutation test based multi-group analysis for socio-demographic variables.

Path Path coefficients for gender Path coefficients for millennials

A. Harun et al.

Male Female Difference (Male − Female) Permutation p-values Millennial Non-millennial Difference (Millennials − Permutation p-values
nonmillennials)
Apology - > Perception of Justice 0.120 0.060 0.060 0.319 0.081 0.085 − 0.004 0.955
Courtesy - > Perception of Justice 0.117 0.288 − 0.171 0.003 0.234 0.222 0.012 0.863
Explanation - > Perception of Justice 0.136 0.020 0.117 0.010 0.062 − 0.020 0.082 0.127
Perception of Justice - > Loyalty 0.649 0.570 0.078 0.141 0.566 0.695 − 0.129 0.038
Perception of Justice - > PositIve Word-of- 0.348 0.369 − 0.021 0.651 0.356 0.344 0.012 0.847
Mouth
Loyalty - > PositIve Word-of-Mouth 0.586 0.574 0.013 0.806 0.571 0.621 − 0.049 0.398
Problem Solving - > Perception of Justice 0.315 0.264 0.051 0.464 0.242 0.514 − 0.273 0.003
Response Speed - > Perception of Justice 0.287 0.356 − 0.069 0.260 0.346 0.204 0.142 0.075

Path coefficients for income Path coefficients for work status

Low income High income Difference (Low income − High Permutation p-values Working Not working Difference (Working − Not Permutation p-values
income) working)
Apology - > Perception of Justice 0.079 0.102 − 0.023 0.694 0.053 0.165 − 0.112 0.073
Courtesy - > Perception of Justice 0.202 0.207 − 0.005 0.931 0.188 0.313 − 0.124 0.081
Explanation - > Perception of Justice 0.059 0.041 0.019 0.696 0.050 0.071 − 0.022 0.655
Perception of Justice - > Loyalty 0.554 0.653 − 0.098 0.060 0.602 0.593 0.009 0.895
Perception of Justice - > PositIve Word-of- 0.350 0.381 − 0.031 0.490 0.349 0.415 − 0.066 0.230
Mouth
Loyalty - > PositIve Word-of-Mouth 0.598 0.551 0.046 0.347 0.599 0.500 0.099 0.071
Problem Solving - > Perception of Justice 0.378 0.226 0.153 0.027 0.353 0.152 0.201 0.010
Response Speed - > Perception of Justice 0.290 0.373 − 0.083 0.191 0.335 0.296 0.039 0.552

71
Fig. 3. Importance-performance map analysis (construct level).

Fig. 5. Importance-performance map analysis (all recovery strategy indicators).

Fig. 4. Importance-performance map analysis (perception of justice indicator level).
Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 42 (2018) 65–77
A. Harun et al. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 42 (2018) 65–77

Table 7
IPMA for all recovery strategies at construct level (socio-demographic variables).

Male Female Millennial Non-millennial

Importance Performance Importance Performance Importance Performance Importance Performance
Apology 0.114 54.593 0.057 51.809 0.076 53.592 0.083 50.595
Courtesy 0.124 57.901 0.286 55.103 0.226 55.762 0.254 58.619
Explanation 0.135 47.535 0.022 43.872 0.064 45.974 − 0.022 43.304
Problem Solving 0.276 51.148 0.252 51.126 0.222 51.985 0.486 47.921
Response Speed 0.280 47.122 0.349 48.094 0.338 48.890 0.199 43.680

Low income High income Not-working Working

Importance Performance Importance Performance Importance Performance Importance Performance
Apology 0.075 53.821 0.095 51.944 0.160 50.341 0.050 53.945
Courtesy 0.197 57.057 0.217 55.496 0.308 54.429 0.193 57.069
Explanation 0.061 45.927 0.044 44.681 0.079 44.591 0.051 45.523
Problem Solving 0.367 53.970 0.202 47.770 0.138 46.374 0.330 52.750
Response Speed 0.281 50.321 0.369 44.770 0.310 46.627 0.319 48.186

Note: Bold values indicate highest importance and performance factors in various socio-demographic categories.

effects of problem solving and loyalty in working class consumers are
significantly greater.
7. Importance-performance map analysis (IPMA)
To evaluate our model's diagnostic value, we carried out an im-
portance-performance map analysis on post hoc basis (Martilla and
James, 1977). This assessment is based on the PLS estimates (each
construct's importance) of the existing relationships in our model and
the average values (performance). In other words, the importance-
performance map analysis (IPMA) of the final focal construct ‘positive
word-of-mouth’ zooms in on the other exogenous variables and per-
formance of the existing hypothesized relations among these ante-
cedents. To quantify, we considered the total effects of the existing
relationships in the structural model that explain the variance of the
final construct-positive word-of-mouth. Before calculating averages of
the indicators for representing performance, we rescaled both the un-
standardized scores of the latent variables and indicator variables from
0 to 100 (Anderson and Fornell, 2000). In the map, each of the ante-
cedents may be positioned in one of the four cells. The demarcation
lines are based on the average total effects and performance indexes.
From Fig. 3, we see that at the construct level, construct ‘explana-
tion’ is situated on the far left. This indicates that consumers consider
this construct of least importance among service recovery steps. In
terms of less importance, apology is the next from the perspective of a
consumer. Fig. 3 also pinpoints that when service failure occurs, crea-
tion of perception of justice in consumer mind demands most man-
agerial attention because it has the strongest influence on positive
word-of-mouth. As a result, practitioners should focus on designing
effective service recovery strategies to foster a strong perception of
justice in the consumers’ mind. To examine its effect on positive word-
of-mouth, we zoomed in on the corresponding indicators of perception
of justice. Fig. 4 shows that receiving fair treatment is the most im-
portant factor to the consumers. Whether service employees adapt the
complaint handling procedure based on consumer needs plays the next
important role. Since positive word-of-mouth is most influenced by
perception of justice, business strategists need to influence indicators
corresponding to perception of justice. Therefore, we should pay at-
tention to the core antecedents. This is because according to the extant
literature (Hock et al., 2010), to influence the final target outcome
(positive word of-mouth), we need to focus on the core antecedents
rather than focusing on its immediate antecedent (perception of jus-
tice). Through proper execution of the service recovery strategies, it is
possible to have an advantage on influencing perception of justice,
which will then influence performance of positive word-of-mouth.
Therefore, it is crucial to focus on various recovery strategies at the
indicator level. Fig. 5 illustrates the importance-performance map
corresponding to the indicators of all service recovery strategies. This
figure shows that indicator regarding solving the problem efficiently
has the most influence. Therefore, management should pay specific
attention in improving this indicator's present performance. Manage-
ment should also focus considerably on responding to the complaint
promptly. This is because even though consumers consider it as the
second most crucial factor, y-axis of Fig. 5 shows that there is still scope
for improvement in terms of executing this specific strategy.
To have a comprehensive understanding about the roles of the
service recovery strategies, we analyzed these factors across different
demographic variables such as gender, income, work status, and gen-
eration. Table 7 shows the IPMA results of all service recovery strate-
gies across various socio-demographic variables. We have used bold-
faced font to indicate the highest importance and performance values
per group-specific IPMA computation. Although we were not expecting
negative values for importance/total effects, some instances exhibit
such outcomes. Nonetheless, for importance/total effects, negative
signs occur only if they are not significantly different from zero (Hair
et al., 2017). By analyzing the IPMA results, specific differences across
different groups surface. We see that courtesy's performance is higher
for all groups. Apology is the 2nd performer for all groups except for the
low income group where performance of problem solving is at the 2nd
place. For both low income and working class consumers, performance
of all service recovery strategies is higher than those for high income
and non-working consumers. Low income, non-millennials, and
working class consumers consider problem solving as the most im-
portant factor. Explanation has the lowest performance in all groups
except in the male group. From Table 7, it also becomes clear that the
performance a construct with a particular importance score can be
enhanced. This generalization especially holds true for response speed.
Table 7 shows that response speed has the strongest effect almost across
all groups. However, there is substantial scope to improve its perfor-
mance. Likewise, certain constructs with the highest performance have
virtually no effect. For example, although courtesy performs the best
across all groups, its relevance is narrow because its importance score is
very low in comparison to importance indices of other constructs.
To have an understanding at the granular level, we also examined
the indicators corresponding to all service recovery strategies. Table 8
shows that except for high income and non-working class consumers,
service employees’ friendly approach is the best performing indicator.
In comparison to non-millennials, millennials receive better perfor-
mance across all indicators of response speed, apology, and problem
solving. For low-income consumers, courtesy is performing better
across all indicators than those of high-income consumers. When it
comes to problem solving, in comparison to non-working class

72
 Table 8
IPMA for all recovery strategies at indicator level (socio-demographic variables).

Constructs Indicators Male Female Millennial Non-millennial

A. Harun et al.

Importance Performance Importance Performance Importance Performance Importance

Response speed R1 0.072 45.109 0.084 50.142 0.086 48.798 0.044

R2 0.076 44.497 0.083 47.254 0.083 46.959 0.052
R3 0.071 52.514 0.100 51.136 0.094 53.289 0.053
R4 0.061 46.535 0.082 43.182 0.074 45.580 0.050

Apology A1 0.029 59.715 0.013 53.172 0.018 56.789 0.020

A2 0.031 50.136 0.014 50.568 0.019 50.460 0.022
A3 0.026 55.774 0.015 52.509 0.020 54.491 0.020
A4 0.027 52.989 0.015 51.042 0.019 52.723 0.021

Explanation E1 0.030 45.516 0.004 46.402 0.012 45.757 − 0.006

E2 0.030 49.932 0.004 46.402 0.013 48.409 − 0.005
E3 0.036 50.883 0.004 43.419 0.014 46.994 − 0.005
E4 0.040 44.226 0.009 41.761 0.025 44.272 − 0.006

Courtesy C1 0.029 61.141 0.070 55.966 0.055 57.355 0.063

C2 0.027 58.832 0.073 55.256 0.055 55.658 0.061
C3 0.029 60.122 0.067 54.119 0.051 55.728 0.065
C4 0.039 53.193 0.075 55.019 0.065 54.526 0.065

Problem solving PS1 0.084 51.495 0.084 51.373 0.070 52.263 0.165
PS2 0.090 51.902 0.082 54.498 0.073 54.173 0.156
PS3 0.103 50.204 0.086 47.680 0.079 49.717 0.165

73
Constructs Non-millennial Low income High income Not working Working

Performance Importance Performance Importance Performance Importance Performance Importance Performance

Response speed 45.370 0.070 47.895 0.089 48.289 0.080 46.739 0.077 48.536
42.989 0.066 48.819 0.098 42.910 0.073 45.761 0.081 46.246
45.767 0.077 55.544 0.104 47.127 0.087 50.326 0.088 52.177
40.741 0.068 48.409 0.079 39.976 0.070 42.826 0.073 45.158

Apology 52.381 0.019 57.649 0.021 53.729 0.039 56.087 0.012 55.781
50.132 0.017 50.873 0.026 49.817 0.045 51.196 0.012 50.113
51.455 0.019 54.877 0.025 52.628 0.039 48.913 0.013 55.556
48.545 0.020 51.694 0.023 52.017 0.038 44.891 0.013 54.242

Explanation 47.090 0.013 46.561 0.008 45.416 0.016 41.087 0.010 47.748
45.767 0.012 47.639 0.009 48.105 0.017 45.761 0.010 48.574
44.577 0.013 46.304 0.011 46.699 0.018 46.522 0.011 46.471
37.169 0.023 44.405 0.015 40.831 0.027 44.674 0.019 42.117

Courtesy 60.847 0.048 59.856 0.052 55.990 0.063 53.370 0.051 59.722
60.714 0.048 57.290 0.052 56.051 0.078 58.478 0.046 56.119
59.788 0.044 56.674 0.054 56.479 0.073 55.870 0.044 56.832
53.307 0.057 54.774 0.059 53.667 0.094 50.652 0.052 55.518

Problem solving 48.280 0.108 53.439 0.071 49.022 0.047 45.761 0.105 53.378
50.661 0.128 55.544 0.061 50.917 0.046 47.174 0.108 55.593
44.974 0.131 52.875 0.070 43.765 0.045 46.196 0.118 49.587

Note: Bold values indicate highest importance and performance indicators in various socio-demographic categories.
Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 42 (2018) 65–77
A. Harun et al.
consumers, working class consumers receive better performance across
all indicators.
8. Discussions and implications
Our study contributes to the extant literature by formulating a lit-
erature-based theoretical framework to model consumers’ post-com-
plaint behavior, and equips us in terms of wider understanding of the
exogenous factors that affect consumers’ post-complaint behavioral
pattern through the lens of various demographic characteristics. Thus,
our research contributes to the literature by giving empirical evidence
about the roles of various service recovery strategies on creating per-
ception of justice in consumer mind. Our research gives guideline about
strategic planning setup and lays out an operational perspective that
will assist influencing consumers’ post-complaint behavior.
Our empirical evaluation suggests that service recovery strategies
such as response speed, apology, explanation, courtesy, and problem
solving play positive role in creating perception of justice. However,
apology and explanation have less influence on perception of justice
because they exhibit relatively lower path coefficients. Nonetheless, our
study emphasizes the necessity of carrying out these recovery strategies
simultaneously to create belter perception of justice in consumer mind
in order to distinguish one business from another. Even though apology
was detected as the second less important strategy, it is one of the ea-
siest to provide. Therefore, frontline employees should not forget about
apologizing. Our research provides a quantitative assessment of the
comparative effects of these service recovery strategies in fostering
perception of justice. As a result, our research gives service industry
practitioners evidence in terms of where to channel considerable em-
phasis to have desired outcome.
The positive relation between perception of justice and loyalty
conveys the message that perception of justice is a strong antecedent of
loyalty. Thus, our study suggests that when consumers in post-com-
plaint situation have greater perception of justice, it will lead to the
creation of a sense of loyalty in consumer mind. Our theoretical fra-
mework provides a conceptual foundation about the necessity of fo-
cusing on these factors in designing an operative strategy to positively
influence post-complaint consumer mindset. From a strategic decision-
making standpoint, it is not possible to be effective if we consider the
factors individually instead of integrating them in a framework similar
to the one in our study.
Our research also confirms the positive and indirect influence of
perception of justice on positive word-of-mouth via the mediator-loy-
alty. Therefore, our research contributes to the extant service recovery
literature by illustrating a critical bridge between perception of justice
and positive word-of-mouth intention through the black box evaluation
of the mediator-loyalty. The significant mediating effect of loyalty
conveys the message that to monitor consumers’ post-complaint beha-
vior, service industry strategists should use loyalty mediator as a
checking point. Our research suggests that business strategists should
leverage loyalty to maximize consumers’ post-complaint propensity to
engage in positive word-of-mouth behavior. Our research also suggests
if service industry practitioners were under the impression that fos-
tering perception of justice alone in consumers’ mind is sufficient for
influencing consumers’ engagement in positive word-of-mouth pro-
pensity, then it would be very naïve of them. Service industry practi-
tioners should influence consumers’ post-complaint mindset by fos-
tering a sense of perception of justice through loyalty.
Our research also gives some valuable insights for service industry
practitioners through the importance-performance map analysis. It
helps managers in terms of understanding of how consumers may en-
gage in post-complaint positive word-of-mouth behavior. By exploring
the exogenous factors that influence consumers’ positive word-of-
mouth intention, service industry practitioners can leverage these fac-
tors to gain a more competitive advantage. Among all exogenous fac-
tors, service industry practitioners should focus on fostering a sense of
74
Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 42 (2018) 65–77
justice in consumers’ mind to secure a strong share of market.
Moreover, to provide a guideline about how to do so, our research gives
a strategic blueprint. Since among the five core antecedents of per-
ception of justice, response speed and problem solving have the highest
influence, service industry practitioners should specifically focus on
solving the problem efficiently and responding promptly to the com-
plaint. Our analysis also shows that even though consumers consider
attending the problem quickly and promptly reacting to the situation of
major importance, service industry practitioners still need to work a lot
to maximize their performances.
Service recovery is not a simple functional fix. Since a vast number
of consumers do not complain (Chebat et al., 2005), it is necessary to
ensure accessibility to appropriate outlets for complaining. This, for
example, can be done through particularly assigned chat rooms and
accessible websites. From a practical standpoint, it also involves ne-
cessity of selecting, training, and evaluating front line employees based
on their ability to realize and respond to the consumer needs. Personnel
training should incorporate appropriate ways of interventions and
keeping a sharp eye on consumer responses to service failures. More-
over, through training, frontline employees should be able to initiate
fast response and execute targeted approach to recover from service
failure. With the help of technologies such as simulation programs and
virtual realities, appropriate training can be arranged virtually by si-
mulating potential failure circumstances through understanding appo-
site responses. By undergoing simulation programs, frontline employees
can sharpen their skills to resolve service failure situations for improved
decision-making and, therefore, strengthen relationship with the con-
sumers. Frontline employees should be skilled to divert consumers from
upsetting thoughts. They can do so by engaging in appropriately
structured dialogue with the consumers and helping the consumers to
streamline the problem situation cognitively. Service employees also
need to learn about the appropriate way of discussing the problem and
possible solutions, directing consumers’ attention to benefits with ap-
propriate usage of humor, educating the consumers about grievance
process, and exercising control over the service failure incident without
harming the service provider's reputation. Moreover, business strate-
gists should keep an eye on evaluating the organizational structure and
ensure appropriate work environment through employee empower-
ment. This would assist frontline employees in responding appro-
priately to specific service failure situations. Managers can also seek
feedback from frontline employees. This may include whether frontline
employees feel constrained in providing fast response and any bottle-
neck in problem solving because of any organizational policy. Based on
the feedback, management can adapt existing policies.
To provide a granular assessment, we have examined the influences
of various socio-demographic characteristics as grouping variables on
our overall model through the lens of permutation based multi-group
analysis. We have examined the effects through data driven approach.
Therefore, industry practitioners can use our model with confidence to
have a competitive edge in market share. Moreover, after carrying out
importance-performance map analysis, industry practitioners may find
that even if an area deserves more priority in terms of improving per-
formance, lack of availability of organizational resources may hinder
the intended objective. As a result, by paving an elaborate pathway for
operational strategies, our study helps service industry practitioners in
some crucial ways such as
a) monitoring consumers’ propensity to engage in positive word-of-
mouth behavior across diverse variables in the model;
b) providing a strategic blueprint in terms of service failure manage-
ment for fostering the consumer-firm relationships and thus creating
a strong foothold in the market.
9. Limitations and future research scopes
Despite our best effort, this study has some limitations. First, we
A. Harun et al. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 42 (2018) 65–77

conducted this research on a cross-sectional basis. Therefore, it has 10. Conclusion

limitations that accompany studies of this nature. Cross-sectional study
helps to explore the existing associative relations among different
constructs at a particular point of time. It does not help in investigating
the causal relationships among various driving antecedents. Therefore,
future study can trace such causal effects through longitudinal study.
Another limitation of this study is that we only wanted to investigate
the interrelationships among various constructs that are based on ex-
tant theories. Since we have now tested our model, future works might
consider other constructs and examine relationships that are more
complex. In addition, future research can consider more groups per
demographic variable (e.g. several age groups). Furthermore, con-
sideration of control variables such as corporate image, emotional
status might be of considerable value to gain a broader understanding.
Frequency of service failure, i.e. whether it is just an isolated occur-
rence or happens in a frequent manner, is also an area for exploration.
Moreover, this model does not distinguish between the categories of
firm. Future studies should validate the model in different types of
firms. In addition, it will be interesting to explore the suitability of our
model across multi-national settings i.e. in the context of different
countries.
Our research contributes to the extant literature in some important
ways. First, our research clarifies the comparative effects of various
service recovery strategies on perception of justice, explaining a sub-
stantial portion of post-complaint consumer behavior such as positive
word-of-mouth. To explore consumer reactions after service failure, we
chose the constructs for our model that are based on existing theory and
then evaluated the framework by a data driven approach. Second, we
equip service industry practitioners with a wider understanding of how
to have more leverage on consumers’ post-complaint behavior by ex-
ploring the effects of loyalty as a mediator. Third, by resorting to im-
portance-performance map analysis, our model exhibits where industry
practitioners should give particular importance to the execution of an
effective service recovery strategy. The granular assessment of various
demographic characteristics as grouping variables through the lens of
permutation based multi-group analysis expanded our understanding.
Finally, unlike bulk of the research studies hinged on hypothetical
scenarios, our research is based on real consumer experiences. Thus,
our research provides an insight into the ways of influencing con-
sumers’ post complaint behavioral process, and thereby lays out new
avenue for further exploration into the service recovery domain.

Appendix A

See Appendix Table A1.

Table A1
Demographics.

Gender Student status

Male 41.1% Full-time 44.0%
Female 58.9% Part-time 16.0%
Not a Student 40.0%
Age Income
Millennials 78.9% Low-Income 54.4%
Non-Millennials 21.1% High-Income 45.6%
Marital status
Married 28.8%
Work status Not Married 53.0%
Not-working 25.7% Divorced/Separated 10.2%
Working 74.3% Living Together 8.0%

Appendix B

See Appendix Table B1.

Table B1
Service areas with failed encounters.

Service area Percentage

Department Store 17.97%

Hotel 14.96%
Banking 13.63%
Holiday Resort 5.25%
Gas Station 7.00%
Hospital/Clinic 8.71%
Pet Clinic 3.91%
Airport 12.83%
Others [Theater, Internet Provider etc.] 15.74%

Total 100%

75
A. Harun et al. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 42 (2018) 65–77

Appendix C

See Appendix Table C1.

Tabel C1
Survey items.

List of constructs Item label Item themes Loadings

The Service Staff:

Response Speed R1 Reacted promptly to my situation 0.833
R2 Attended to the problem quickly 0.827
R3 Responded to my complaint promptly 0.845
R4 Did not take long to solve the problem 0.768
Apology A1 Apologized to me for what had happened 0.816
A2 Expressed regret for the mistake that occurred 0.798
A3 Apologized for the inconvenience the problem had brought to me 0.849
A4 Apologized for what I have experienced because of the problem 0.803
Explanation E1 Explained why the problem might have happened 0.759
E2 Explained what factors might have caused the problem 0.772
E3 Explained what might have gone wrong 0.811
E4 Provided a convincing explanation for the reason of the problem 0.830
Courtesy C1 Was friendly to me 0.821
C2 Was very polite to me 0.863
C3 Showed respect to me 0.822
C4 Was very patient with me 0.778
Problem Solving PS1 Was able to address my concerns 0.825
PS2 Provided solutions to the problem 0.847
PS3 Solved the problem efficiently 0.862
Perception of Justice J1 I got what I deserved 0.711
J2 The result I received from the complaint was fair 0.731
J3 I was pleased with the length of time it took for them to solve my complain 0.789
J4 The employees adapted complaint handling procedures to satisfy my needs 0.790
J5 Overall, the steps taken in handling the problem were fair 0.778
J6 They were very keen to solve my problem 0.793
J7 Overall, their treatment during the complaint was fair 0.824
Loyalty L1 I would classify myself as a loyal customer to this organization 0.837
L2 I will continue to acquire services from this organization in the future 0.873
L3 I do not intend to switch to a competitor of this organization 0.824
Positive Word-of-Mouth PW1 If asked, I would say good things about this organization 0.865
PW2 I would recommend this organization to a friend 0.884
PW3 I speak positively about this organization to others 0.887

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