...Min Gyung Kim; Anna S. Mattila Purpose – Delighting customers by pleasant surprises is a common strategy, yet the potential downside of such a strategy (i.e. raising customer expectations) has received scant attention. The purpose of this study is to examine the role of explanations as a solution...

...Graham Bradley; Beverley Sparks Purpose This study aims to investigate if, when, and how the use of four different types of explanations affect customer satisfaction after a service failure. Design/methodology/approach The study used written scenarios of a hypothetical service failure...

...Chen‐ya Wang; Anna S. Mattila Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of culture (Western versus East Asian) on customers' perceived informational fairness of several types of failure explanations – excuse, justification, reference, and apology. It also seeks to examine whether...