Although double deviation (i.e., unsatisfactory service recovery) is an acknowledged phenomenon in the field of marketing, little attention has been devoted to determining what actions firms can take to restore consumer trust in the wake of such an event. Across four experimental studies of different populations and service sectors, we show that double deviation intensifies the trust violation generated by the initial service failure and that recovery from double deviations requires fundamentally different strategies than recovery from single deviations. Our results suggest that financial compensation is not an especially effective strategy for double deviations compared to the effectiveness of apologies and promises that the problem will not occur in the future. However, it is important for firms to match the type of double deviation to the recovery strategy, with apologies being more effective for integrity violations and promises being more effective for competence violations.

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Purpose-The purpose of this research is to test the importance of the discounting attribute in the two-sided communication from a retail salesperson as a boundary condition that eliminates the trade-off between trustworthiness and purchase intentions. Design/methodology/approach-The hypotheses are tested by three experimental studies in three different retail contexts. Two lab studies manipulate the importance of the attribute and the type of message: one-sided vs two-sided. A field study improves the external validity of the findings. Findings-A two-sided message from a salesperson reduces the use of persuasion knowledge and, therefore, enhances the consumer's perception of the salesperson's trustworthiness; this positive effect remains significant across different levels of importance of the discounting attribute. A two-sided message decreases the consumer's probability of purchase only when an important attribute is disclaimed, through the consumer's beliefs regarding the product's attributes. Practical implications-For the appropriate use of two-sided appeals, retailers should identify the importance of product attributes from the consumers' perspective. A negative remark from a salesperson when referred to an unimportant attribute makes no harm to purchase intentions while leading to stronger intentions to return to the store and to recommend the store by enhancing trustworthiness. Originality/value-This paper shows that it is possible to enhance trustworthiness through a two-sided message without mitigating the intentions of buying by discounting an attribute at low importance in the two-sided message.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine when (i.e. after a shorter or longer length of time) organizations should offer an apology or a promise of non-recurrence of a failure to recover trust following a failed service recovery (a double deviation). Design/methodology/approach This paper reports the results of a pilot study with a convenience sample and two experiments with samples from different populations, students and employees of a financial institution in one study and workers recruited through Mechanical Turk in the other. Findings An apology was most effective to recover trust when offered shortly after the double deviation (e.g. Study 1: after two days; Study 2: immediately and after two days), while making a promise was most effective when offered at a later time after the double deviation (e.g. Study 1: after 30 days; Study 2: after 15 days). Consumers consider an apology offered shortly after the double deviation as a sign of integrity and a promise communicated sometime after the double deviation as a sign of competence. Originality/value This paper complements prior research that demonstrates the effectiveness of apology and promise as trust recovery tactics. The findings show that managers should carefully consider the time at which they use these tactics to recover trust following a double deviation.