Addressing service failure and initiating service recovery in online platforms: literature review and research agenda

Abstract

ABSTRACT Academic research has given considerable attention to service failure and subsequent recovery efforts in an online environment. Nevertheless, existing research examining the effectiveness of recovery interventions in this context is relatively inconclusive, and the results reported are found to be conflicting in nature. This poses a threat to domain expansion and managerial understanding. Hence, we systematically analyse the extant literature on online service recovery, and categorises the studies in this domain into seven themes following a concept-centric approach and provided a synthesised framework. This review consolidated and synthesized the prior literary works based on the methodologies executed, theories used, type of online service recovery, the role of platform of recovery, recovery perspective, speed, source, and magnitude of recovery, and the recovery outcomes. In this review, we present many compelling research gaps, follow-up research questions, and critical insights into managerial practice for the efficacious execution of service recovery intervention in online platforms.