Customer behavior and adoption · Empirical comparison of satisfaction after service failure/recovery versus error-free service.
An Empirical Investigation of Customer Satisfaction after Service Failure and Recovery
Michael K. Smith, Ruth N. Bolton (2000). An Empirical Investigation of Customer Satisfaction after Service Failure and Recovery. Journal of Service Research. https://doi.org/10.1177/109467050032002.
Plain-English take
Customer satisfaction was lower after failure and recovery—even with high recovery performance—than under error-free service. For your marketing: Use as a behavioral mechanism or experiment-design reference, not a direct forecast for a SaaS funnel.
How much weight to give this
3/5 Moderate evidence for a specific setting
The 1–5 evidence-check score is a practical reading aid, not a formal peer review or a probability that a conclusion is true. It combines design strength (2 points), sample reporting (1), comparison/control clarity (1), and how much of the paper could be checked (1). Access affects how confidently this directory can assess a study, not the study's underlying quality. Blinding is reported separately because it is not relevant to every design.
Empirical comparison of satisfaction after service failure/recovery versus error-free service.
Service customers in a failure-and-recovery context; accessible publisher abstract page does not expose sample size or industry.
Judged from the publisher-described design and comparison; inspect the paper for complete analysis.
Publisher page and abstract were retrieved directly; full text was not assumed open.
Double-blind? Blinding was not established from the retrieved publisher record.
Research question
What the authors investigated
Can service recovery restore satisfaction to the level produced by error-free service?
Design
Empirical comparison of satisfaction after service failure/recovery versus error-free service.
Sample and setting
Service customers in a failure-and-recovery context; accessible publisher abstract page does not expose sample size or industry.
Reported result
What the study found
Customer satisfaction was lower after failure and recovery—even with high recovery performance—than under error-free service.
This is a paraphrase of the source. Check the original paper for definitions, estimates, statistical uncertainty and analysis details.
Scope and transfer
Limitations to keep in view
The accessible abstract does not state sample size or setting, so transferability and statistical power cannot be assessed from the publisher page alone.
Possible founder application
Use as a behavioral mechanism or experiment-design reference, not a direct forecast for a SaaS funnel.
Evidence access
Publisher record and abstract retrieved; consult the linked paper for full methods and tables.
SAGE search result for this DOI explicitly reports the lower post-failure/recovery satisfaction result. Direct publisher-page retrieval was recorded on 2026-10-09; this profile uses the publisher abstract/metadata and does not claim independent review of unavailable full text.
If only an abstract or metadata was available, the profile is limited to claims supported there. A paper's paywall does not change its evidentiary status, but it limits what we can substantiate from accessible text.