Microsoft Word 2007 ichrie conference Proceedings Final-Final 06-06-07. doc

Key Words:
service recovery, complaint management, nonverbal behavior, emotions 
INTRODUCTION 
The concepts of consumer dissatisfaction (CD) and consumer complaining behavior (CCB) continue to 
receive growing attention from researchers and practitioners (Yuksel, Hancer and Kilinc, 2006). Considering that 
most dissatisfied customers never bother to complain, customers seeking redress for their complaints provide 
destinations/companies with opportunities to improve their management and marketing programs so as to enhance 
customer satisfaction and profitability (Huang, Huang and Wu, 1996). Ineffective handling of customer’s complaint 
was reported to increase frustration and dissatisfaction, reinforce negative consumer reactions and harm a marketer’s 
reputation (Hart, Heskett and Sasser, 1990; Hirschman, 1970; Hoffman and Chung, 1999; Mattila, 2001). In other 
words, failure to promptly handle consumers’ complaints provokes consumers’ unfavorable behaviors (e.g., negative 
word-of-mouth or exit intentions) and this can have catastrophic effects on an organization’s business. 
Previous studies have identified different causes and consequences of service failures (Boshoff and Staude, 
2003). These studies note that the majority of responses to customer complaints are far from restoring customer 
satisfaction (Boshoff and Leong, 1998; Hart et al., 1990). Bitner, Bernard and Tetreault’s (1990) study indicates that 
the greater part of dissatisfying service encounters is the result of frontline employees' inability to respond to service 
failure situations. Customers often switch to an alternative service provider, not because of core service failures, but 
because of the unacceptable response of employees to customer attempts to redress failure (Keaveney, 1995:77). 
This can be attributed to existence or absence of many factors (see Yuksel et al., 2006 for a review of these issues). 
Broadly speaking, in any service recovery encounter there are at least three elements: i) environmental elements 
(physical setting), ii) technical elements (essential performance skills), and iii) personal presentation (verbal 
behavior and nonverbal behavior (Sommers, Greeno and Boag, 1988). Since the provision of a service recovery 
requires interaction, the various forms of verbal and nonverbal communication rest at the heart of service delivery 
and evaluation processes (Sommers et al., 1988). “Non-verbal communication takes place every time one person 
interacts with another, it may be intentional or unintentional and is part of the rapid stream of communication that 
passes between two interacting individuals” (Gabbott and Hogg, 2000:385). The nonverbal components are reported 

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