Service failure, recovery and improvement: the case of a Chinese restaurant

When service organisations experience situations of service failure, they respond with a service recovery effort, attempting to convert a disgruntled customer into a satisfied one and increase the likelihood of repurchase. An effective service recovery system has become a competitive advantage to most service organisations. However, many service organisations have failed to exploit the opportunities for process improvement afforded by service recovery. Exploiting a case study methodology with multiple perspectives and data sources in a typical Chinese restaurant, this paper provides a more holistic view of service recovery. We demonstrate that opportunity costs affect service provision and that customer input should be obtained for process improvements. We provide a framework illustrating a systematic approach to process improvement.