Author(s)

Mabel Birungi Komunda¹, Aihie Osarenkhoe²

¹Department of Marketing and International Business, Makerere University Business School, Kampala, Uganda.
²Department of Business and Economic Studies, Faculty of Education and Economics, University of Gävle, Gävle, Sweden.

This study examined whether the relationship between service recovery and customer loyalty was statistically significant, and to examine the influence of firm responses on customer loyalty. Descriptive cross-sectional survey and stratified random sampling were used to produce a sample of 384 phone subscribers. Pilot study established reliability and validity of the questionnaire and testing for parametric assumptions performed. Descriptive statistics and inferential statistics (factor analysis, correlations, and regression tests) were used to analyze the data. Results indicated that these relationships were all positive and statistically significant. Moreover, combined impact of service recovery, firm responses, and service quality on customer loyalty was the strongest. Based on the findings, policymakers, and managers of mobile phone companies in Uganda should focus more on service quality, which showed the highest beta values and had a relatively high predictive value for customer loyalty. This study contributes to extant literature by illuminating firms’ responses to service recovery, by offering more explicit clarification of the relationship between service recovery, firm responses and customer loyalty. Mobile phone companies should improve how customer complaints are handled by considering the various dimensions of firm responses. Because of the study’s cross-sectional design, there remains a need to expand our knowledge by conducting similar but longitudinal studies.

Mobile Telephone Company, Customer Complaint Behaviour, Customer Loyalty, Service Recovery, Service Quality, Firm Responses

Komunda, M. and Osarenkhoe, A. (2023) Can Efficacious Service Recovery Enable Retention of Complaint-Averse Savvy Customers?. Journal of Service Science and Management, 16, 670-693. doi: 10.4236/jssm.2023.166036.