Service failures are common in the hospitality industry and are often associated with low guest satisfaction. However, guest satisfaction is possible to be restored when excellent service recovery tactics are deployed in a timely fashion. The temporary unavailability of a service offering is a type of failure recognized by practitioners, customers, and the research community, yet it is typically only used for illustrative purposes in research. Given the ubiquity of this type of failure in the industry, the lack of investigations of its various aspects (e.g., communication of the occurrence to the customer, reasons, ramifications, etc.) seems surprising. Using scenario-based experimental design in a restaurant setting, this research tested the effects of timing (early/ late) of the communication of the temporary unavailability of a menu item on customers' satisfaction with the recovery, while taking into account the perceived severity of the failure as well as the relationship between customer and provider. Findings indicate that restaurant guests informed early that a menu item is unavailable are more satisfied than those who are informed later in their dining experience (after they have been given time to study the menu and make choices). This increased satisfaction is mediated through the customers' perception of interactional, procedural, and distributive justice. / Doctor of Philosophy / Things go wrong all the time in the hospitality industry; knowing how and when to address guests can make or break a business. For restaurants, the unavailability of a menu item is often an uncontrollable occurrence. In a scenario-based experiment, the present study tested guests' reactions to restaurant staff communicating the unavailability of an item early (during introductions) versus late (after the guests were given time to peruse the menu and make choices). The study took into account the type and duration of the relationship between guest and provider, as well as the fact that the guest may either be particularly interested in the unavailable item or indifferent. The results overwhelmingly pointed in one direction: the sooner the issue is communicated to the guests, the better. Respondents who were told early in their dining experience about a menu item being unavailable were significantly more satisfied than their counterparts (who weren't informed until late), and, overall, perceived the provider as more just. Anecdotal evidence shows different approaches to this type of issue but prior empirical evidence appears non-existent as to which approach yields optimal results, so the findings of the present study should be relevant to practitioners trying to retain guests after things have gone wrong.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/104147 |
| Date | 12 July 2021 |
| Creators | Dallinger, Ioana |
| Contributors | Hospitality and Tourism Management, McGehee, Nancy G., Kim, Eojina, Perdue, Richard R., Driscoll, Anne R. |
| Publisher | Virginia Tech |
| Source Sets | Virginia Tech Theses and Dissertation |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Dissertation |
| Format | ETD, application/pdf |
| Rights | In Copyright, http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
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