Service recovery: a framework and empirical investigation

Abstract Although recovery activities are primarily managed by the operations function, service recovery has received little attention in the operations management literature. This paper outlines a framework for examining the service recovery process and then reports on an empirical study to test this framework. The results not only validate much of what is anecdotally claimed by researchers and casual observers of service industries, but also highlight the role of operational activities in service recovery. The paper then points to the need for an array of operations‐based research efforts that will lead to better understanding of the recovery process and to more empirically based descriptive and prescriptive models.