Problem Statement

Betrayal? Relationship quality implications in service recovery A Bangladeshi Perspective Service failures are an inevitable phenomenon of any service industry. No service provider can provide full proof service to any customer because individual perceptions and expectations vary greatly. The case in Bangladesh is no different. However, although service failures are fairly regular in this country, enough attention towards service recovery is not evident. Although large corporations are aware of and moderately dedicated towards the concept, many small time entrepreneurs are not at all aware or enthusiastic towards recovery at their temporary expense to ensure customer satisfaction and retention. General failures in service in Bangladesh include delays or negligence in after sales service or no such service. Delays in order processing in hotels and restaurants and little response at customer care services of telecom companies are a common scenario. Network failures in the latter are also common. Moreover, although Bangladeshi people are globally known to be extremely hospitable and friendly, local customers on many occasions face harsh behaviors from employees of several organizations in times of service failure complaints, especially in banks, street side restaurants, etc. There are, of course, delightful exceptions. Bangladeshi customers value relationship quality highly with their service providers. Therefore, it is observed that when a long time service provider fails to effectively provide recovery services to a customer after a failed service, the customer does not prefer to use the service of that provider as strongly as he/she did before (Holloway, Wang and Beatty, 2006). The co-authors of this paper themselves switched from many long time providers of service after they received failed or no attempts from providers, and has learned the same from unofficial verbal research. Telecommunication sector in Bangladesh is a burning example. If any customer finds that a long term service provider does not provide apt recovery initiatives towards a failed service, they tend to find substitutes quickly, since they feel betrayed. Often customers switch to an alternative service provider, not because of core service failure, but because of the unacceptable response of employees to customer attempts to redress failure (Keaveney, 1995). The assessment of how successful a service recovery was must thus focus on the response of service firm employees. Yet, few service firms know exactly the degree of satisfaction of complaining customers after service recovery efforts. This is particularly disconcerting if one considers that service firms responses can be highly variable and that only about half of service failure complaints are

satisfactorily addressed (Estelami,2000). Unfortunately, failure to recover effectively further hardens aggrieved customers negative attitudes towards the firm, and many of these firms are oblivious to the damage caused by poor recovery, simply because there is no assessment of satisfaction with service recovery. Bangladesh, being a highly collective culture, supremely values proper service from providers they count as they are highly related to. That is why people react really adversely on personal emotional grounds and dilute their relationships with long time providers if they find a service failure has occurred for which they have not received significant recovery measures (Holloway, Wang and Beatty, 2006). Service sector in Bangladesh is growing at a rapid pace, even faster than the goods industry (Chowdhury and Rahaman, 2007). Service providers, especially those who have a large base of high quality customers, must provide attention towards those customers and keep them happy if they are to sustain for the long run in future. References 1. Betsy Bugg Holloway, Sijun Wang, Sharon E. Beatty, (2009) "Betrayal? Relationship quality implications in service recovery", Journal of Services Marketing, Vol. 23 Iss: 6, pp.385 396 2. Kumar, P. (1999), The impact of long-term client relationships on the performance of business service firms, Journal of Service Research, Vol. 2 No. 1, pp. 4-18. 3. McCollough, M.A., Berry, L.L. and Yadav, M.S. (2000), An empirical investigation of customer satisfaction after failure and recovery, Journal of Service Research, Vol. 3 No. 2, pp. 121-37. 4. Tamzid Ahmed Chowdhury and Masud ibn Rahaman, Problems and Strategies in Service Marketing: Bangladesh Perspective, Daffodil International University Journal of Business and Economics, Vol. 2, No. 1. 5. Keaveney, S.M. (1995), Customer switching behaviour in services industries: an exploratory study, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 59, pp. 71-82. 6. Estelami, H. (2000), Competitive and procedural determinants of delight and disappointment on consumer complaint outcomes, Journal of Service Research, Vol. 2 No. 3, pp. 285-300. 7. Boshoff, C. (2005), A re-assessment and refinement of RECOVSAT: An instrument to measure satisfaction with transaction-specific service recovery, Managing Service Quality, Vol. 15 No. 5