Service in the Hospitality Industry: A Chinese and American Comparison of Failures and Recovery Strategies

Abstract

As an evolving area of academic investigation, service failure and recovery research is particularly relevant in the pervasive hospitality field where there is a high frequency and diversity of customer and service provider interactions. International research in service failure and recovery, however, has been limited. Consumers’ perceptions of (dis)satisfactory critical incidents in the hospitality sector are likely to differ due to national culture variations, especially across highly collectivist and highly individualistic societies (Chan and Wan 2008). As hospitality based organizations increasingly operate internationally, a better understanding of the relationship between culture and customer behaviors is likely to be fruitful by providing insights for managing customer relationships (Chan et al. 2010; Furrer et al. 2000). The findings of this study can assist global hospitality and tourism providers to better understand the subtle influences that culture plays in customer behaviors, as well as providing direction to formulate strategies and tactics to better manage the complaint process.