A re‐assessment and refinement of RECOVSAT: An instrument to measure satisfaction with transaction‐specific service recovery

To do an empirical assessment of the psychometric properties of an instrument that captures the multi‐dimensional nature of satisfaction with service recovery (RECOVSAT) using data (post‐recovery satisfaction ratings) from customers who have actually complained to a service firm.

The methodology is a survey of bank clients who have lodged complaints with a retail bank.

The empirical results suggest that a refined and shorter version of RECOVSAT demonstrates excellent construct validity when used to measure the post‐recovery satisfaction of complaining customers.

RECOVSAT is a valid and reliable instrument that can and should be used by service managers to assess customer satisfaction with their service recovery efforts. Failure to ensure that complaining customers are satisfied with the firm's service recovery efforts, can only lead to serious problems, as the service firm will be letting the customer down for the second time.

Practitioners or service firms can use their customer complaint database to calculate satisfaction with service recovery scores (RECOVSAT scores) for different geographical regions, for different business units or different departments, even per individual employee. These scores can even be linked to remuneration or service level agreements.

First study to empirically assess the psychometric properties of an instrument that captures the multi‐dimensional nature of satisfaction with service recovery using data (post‐recovery satisfaction ratings) from customers who have actually complained to a service firm. Confirmed validity and reliability.