Investigating the Role of Proactivity in Managing Service Failures

Prior research on service failure and recovery predominantly focus on reactive strategies to reduce customers’ negative reactions (e.g. offering compensation, apology or an explanation why the failure has occurred) and there is a lack of research on more proactive strategies in dealing with service failures. In broad terms, proactivity is defined as anticipating and preventing problems before they materialize (Bateman and Crant 1999). In a service failure context, proactivity is defined as firms anticipating potential service failures and acting prior to customer reactions to control or minimize the impact of these failures. Combining the concept of proactivity with service recovery and the transformative service research framework, the research aims to examine its effects on firms (e.g. profitability, employee attrition, and negative word of mouth) as well as on customers (e.g. customer satisfaction and well-being).