Service Failure and Service Revovery
An Assignment on Service Failure and Service Recovery
28th August, 2011
A Service is an experience that a consumer derives at the time of its purchase. It is largely tangible and cannot be owned. Moreover, it is the outcome of being in contact (whether it is low-contact, hybrid or high-contact) with the service provider. Considering this, it is but natural that errors and failures occur. What differentiates one service provider and experience from the other is the way the error is corrected and compensated for.
Service Failures bring about negative feelings and responses from customers. Left unfixed, service failures can result in customers leaving, telling other customers about their negative experiences, and challenging the organization through consumer rights organizations or legal channels.
Service Recovery refers to the actions taken by an organization in response to a service failure.
An example of a Service failure and recovery experienced by me is accounted for below:
The case in hand is a high-contact service as there is high customer involvement in the process of service delivery.
I encountered this problem about a month back. I was in Splash, a fashion store in Hyderabad, with a few friends. There was a sale going on (Buy 1 Get 1 Free). We decided to buy two handbags worth Rs. 1000/- each and two accessories worth Rs.500/- each. Considering the sale that was going on we expected to be charged Rs.1500. But to our dismay the employee at the counter charged us Rs.2000 at the counter and swiped the credit card before we could react to the mistake. This could have happened as we were expecting to get one bag free for the other one and one accessory free for the other one but the employee chose to charge us with both the higher prices and give us the low-priced items free. The other reason for the mistake could be the process of billing which was very chaotic as there were too many customers and very few employees at the billing counter.
28th August, 2011
A Service is an experience that a consumer derives at the time of its purchase. It is largely tangible and cannot be owned. Moreover, it is the outcome of being in contact (whether it is low-contact, hybrid or high-contact) with the service provider. Considering this, it is but natural that errors and failures occur. What differentiates one service provider and experience from the other is the way the error is corrected and compensated for.
Service Failures bring about negative feelings and responses from customers. Left unfixed, service failures can result in customers leaving, telling other customers about their negative experiences, and challenging the organization through consumer rights organizations or legal channels.
Service Recovery refers to the actions taken by an organization in response to a service failure.
An example of a Service failure and recovery experienced by me is accounted for below:
The case in hand is a high-contact service as there is high customer involvement in the process of service delivery.
I encountered this problem about a month back. I was in Splash, a fashion store in Hyderabad, with a few friends. There was a sale going on (Buy 1 Get 1 Free). We decided to buy two handbags worth Rs. 1000/- each and two accessories worth Rs.500/- each. Considering the sale that was going on we expected to be charged Rs.1500. But to our dismay the employee at the counter charged us Rs.2000 at the counter and swiped the credit card before we could react to the mistake. This could have happened as we were expecting to get one bag free for the other one and one accessory free for the other one but the employee chose to charge us with both the higher prices and give us the low-priced items free. The other reason for the mistake could be the process of billing which was very chaotic as there were too many customers and very few employees at the billing counter.