The Structural Relationship among Service Failure, Service Recovery, Emotional Reaction and Recovery Satisfaction in the Airline Service

Background/Objectives: This study was conducted to present a more effective service recovery strategy through a study on the effects of service recovery efforts in response to service failure. Methods/Statistical Analysis: A total of 300 copies of the survey were distributed. Among them, 243 copies (81%) were retrieved. Excluding 58 copies (19.3%) that had insufficient responses, a total of 185 copies (61.7%) were used for analysis. Data analysis was performed using the SPSS 21.0 and AMOS 22.0. Confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to validate the measured variables and the structure model covariance structure analysis was used to test the hypothesis. Findings: First, in the relation between the severity/controllability of service failure and service recovery, severity received a negative effect from tangible efforts and psychological efforts with the former affecting to a greater degree. As such, hypotheses 1-1 and 1-2 were adopted. Second, tangible efforts out of service recovery effort types had a significant effect on positive emotions (1-3), but no effect on negative emotions (1-4). In particular, psychological efforts had a significant effect on both positive and negative emotions. Third, tangible efforts had a significant effect on positive emotions (2-1). However, such tangible compensation appeared not to have an effect on negative emotions (2-2). In contrast, psychological efforts had a significant effect on both positive emotions and negative emotions (2-3, 2-4). Fourth, of the customers’ emotional responses, positive emotions affected satisfaction with the recovery, while negative emotions did not affect satisfaction with recovery (3-1, 3-2). Application/Improvements: It is meaningful to develop response methods for customers by service recovery type. This study seeks to provide a basic set of data for developing such methods by service recovery