Organized service recovery policies and programs are important tools to firms in their efforts to maintain satisfied, loyal customers. Although service failure and recovery issues have received considerable attention in the literature, these topics have received only limited attention in the context of online retailing. Specifically, we lack an understanding of the types of online service failures occurring, the success with which firms are recovering from these failures, and consumer reactions to the service failure/recovery encounters they are experiencing. Therefore, this research involves two studies employing both qualitative and quantitative methods with samples of online shoppers to provide an initial examination of the service recovery management of online retailers. The results provide a typology of online service failures and demonstrate a number of areas in which online retailers are failing to effectively manage their service recoveries. The discussion includes implications for online retailers as well as directions for future research.

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This research examines the factors driving consumer dis(satisfaction) in the online service environment. Using a critical incident technique and content analysis, the authors identify the critical drivers reported by consumers to produce particularly satisfactory or dissatisfactory online service encounters. Using 616 surveys and 1,183 observations, the authors first classify and then compare reported drivers across outcomes (dissatisfaction vs. satisfaction) and three industry groups (hard goods, soft goods, and services). Classifications are also compared with several important service-quality scales and other literature on the topic in order to compare the findings and to develop an overall framework. The results address how satisfiers and dissatisfiers vary both overall and across industry classifications, providing an assessment of the differences between the factors producing online success versus those preventing failure. The authors conclude with implications for online retailers and directions for future research.

We review conjoint analysis (CA) usage in recent entrepreneurship research to assess how researchers have used the method to study entrepreneurial decision making. We first provide a brief overview of the method and present an exemplar study. We next examine how 16 studies published in leading entrepreneurship journals from 1999 to 2008 used CA, highlight topics these studies have investigated most frequently, and suggest reasons why studies, in general, have not used the method with greater frequency, despite its many advantages in studying decision making. We conclude by suggesting potential future research applications in an attempt to encourage greater CA usage in entrepreneurship research.

The research presented here extends the traditional theoretical model of service failure and service recovery to the online shopping environment by investigating the moderating role of cumulative online purchasing experience. Using a multigroup structural equation modeling approach to assess differences across two groups with low and high levels of online purchasing experience, the study provides empirical support that cumulative online purchasing experience moderates several key attitudinal and behavioral outcomes of the service failure/recovery encounter. Specifically, in the group with less online purchasing experience, the perceived fairness of the remedy offered by the seller has a greater impact on post-recovery satisfaction. Further, if dissatisfied following a service failure encounter, the group with low levels of purchasing experience is more likely to engage in negative word of mouth. Finally, post-recovery satisfaction is more predictive of repurchase intentions in the highly experienced group than the less experienced group.