Review complaint mechanisms. An e-service provider should make it easy to complain about the service. This may be designed into the site by possibly having a service recovery page (that would be its purpose, not its name) that is linked to every page on the site. In other words, at any point during a customer’s interaction with the provider, he/she should have the opportunity to voice concerns. If not provided, customers may balk and never return.
Explain the recovery process and keep customers informed. At the various milestones of the recovery process, inform customers of the progress. For example, if a broken product has been received by the provider and fixed, an automated message can be sent to the customer indicating these activities have taken place. Customers are likely to be more impressed with the service recovery process if they are kept informed.
Classify and route failures. The method of dealing with a failure will vary based on the type of failure. For example, a technology failure would be handled differently than a product failure. Once again, this process must be easy to use and efficient—dissatisfied customers are not likely to endure a tedious process. Also, there are likely common failures that would occur, and the provider should decide in advance how the common failures should be handled. For example, a customer with a faulty product could be routed to a screen with a printable address and number indicating a prepaid delivery via an overnight carrier where the customer may send the product.
Offer a way out. In certain situations and/or with certain customers, the classification and routing procedures may not fit. Therefore, customers should have an alternate option, including possibly a live chat with a customer service agent.
Value data provided by failures. By collecting data on failures, customer characteristics, and the effectiveness of the recovery, the provider could perform analysis to improve the process. This past data may be kept in a separate database.
Earmark severe failures for special care. In failures that result (or potentially could result) in a severe negative impact on the customer in terms of time and/or money, fix the problem, and then give them a little extra for the inconvenience.
Remember to follow up. After recovery, follow up with a brief apologetic email message and survey to capture information for future improvement.
The aforementioned principles of service recovery can be accomplished using traditional (that is, nonelectronic) recovery mechanisms and processes. However, in an e-service environment, IT can be used to enhance the service recovery process from both the customer perspective and the provider perspective. The table on this page shows some of the possible technological enablers of the e-service recovery process and the subsequent benefits these enablers may provide over and above traditional service recovery mechanisms.
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