The determinants of service recovery in the retail industry

Abstract

Purpose – Service recovery strategies are efforts used by organizations to bring back dissatisfied customers to a state of satisfaction with the organization. It has been argued that successful service recovery by organizations is dependent on the effectiveness of front line employees. The purpose of this paper is to examine a model of service recovery performance (SRP) of front line employees in the retail industry in Ghana. Design/methodology/approach – The study uses personally administered survey data collected from 136 employees in 20 micro and small retail enterprises in Ghana. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis is used to test the direct and interactive effects of organizational variables such as perceived managerial attitudes and work environment factors on the SRP of front line employees. Findings – The findings indicate that the SRP is influenced by employee empowerment, interaction between customer service orientation and empowerment, interaction between customer service orientation and training for customer service excellence, and the interaction between empowerment and training for customer service excellence. Research limitations/implications – Focussing only on the antecedents of SRP, and using cross-sectional data based on the self-assessments of the front line employees from one country. Practical implications – Empowering front line employees to deal with service failures should be combined with training them in job related and behavioral skills to attend to the needs of customers. Moreover, it is critical to combine perceived customer service orientation with training front line employees in job related and behavioral skills. Originality/value – First study to examine the antecedents of SRP of front line employees in a sub-Saharan African environment. Moreover, study examines the interactive effects of organizational and work environment variables on SRP.