The influence of relationship intention on cell phone users’ satisfaction, loyalty and retention after service recovery

Abstract

South African cell phone network providers are bound to fail customers' expectations sometimes, as the occasional service failure is almost inevitable. This failure, if it occurs, may lead to switching behaviour. Cell phone network providers thus need to consider all influences on post-recovery customer behaviour. One possible influence on post-recovery customer behaviour that has not been fully explored is that of customers' relationship intentions. To address this gap in the literature, the purpose of this study was to assess the influence of relationship intention on cell phone users' satisfaction, loyalty and retention after service recovery. Convenience sampling was used to capture 605 respondents' satisfaction, loyalty and retention after two hypothetical service recovery scenarios. The results indicate that the relationships between respondents' relationship intentions and satisfaction, loyalty and retention were significantly higher after a combination of restorative and apologetic service recovery strategies, rather than after a restorative service recovery strategy alone. Managerial implications are presented based on these results.