Design of the quality of service recovery and empirical study in catering industry

When enterprises encounter the service failure, most of them will take service recovery actions according to service guarantees stated first. By proper service recovery, it is with high probability that firms can retain unsatisfied customers and then turn the customers into satisfied and loyal ones. This study aims to analyze the quality gaps about service recovery and construct a gap model. There are five gaps when a firm design and execute service recovery. We then develop measurements to measure the perceived and expected service recovery quality and calculate these gaps. The gaps of recovery service of restaurant in Taiwan are measured and investigated. We received 81 questionnaires from managers, 205 questionnaires from employees and 288 questionnaires from customers. Five gaps all exist. Further managerial implications are provided for managers to narrow the gaps to improve service recovery quality and to invest proper resource in service recovery execution.