Post‐recovery customer relationships and customer partnerships in a restaurant setting

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to develop and test an integrative model that explores the structural relationships among perceived justice, service recovery satisfaction, post‐recovery customer relationships, and post‐recovery customer partnerships. Design/methodology/approach – The self‐administered survey was distributed to restaurant customers who had experienced service recovery in the previous six months. Path analysis was performed to estimate the research model and to test the research hypotheses. Findings – The study findings advance the understanding of the beneficial effects of effective service recovery on long‐term relationships and on partnership building with the customers. Research limitations/implications – This study examines post‐recovery customer relationships and post‐recovery customer partnerships as outcome variables of service recovery satisfaction. Future research should be followed to deepen the understanding of the two consequence variables in different contexts of the hospitality industry. Practical implications – The proposed model may help restaurant service providers to understand many facets of the service recovery process by identifying the range of recovery strategies. Originality/value – The proposed model extends the conventional justice‐based model and provides a starting point for investigating the structural relationships among the variables from a holistic perspective. Such information may offer richer insights into the structure, processes, and outcomes of service recovery satisfaction.