UNIVERSITY OF GHANA 
 
 
SERVICE RECOVERY STRATEGIES IN THE GHANAIAN AIRLINE 
INDUSTRY   
BY 
 
PETRA ABA ASAMOAH   
(10109988)    
 
THIS THESIS IS SUBMITTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF GHANA, 
LEGON IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENT FOR THE 
AWARD OF MPHIL MARKETING DEGREE  
JULY, 2015 
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DECLARATION 
 
I do hereby declare that this work is the result of my own research and has not been presented 
by anyone for any academic award in this or any other university. All references used in the 
work have been fully acknowledged. 
I bear sole responsibility for any shortcomings. 
 
 
 
……………………………………………….                                     ……………................ 
PETRA ABA ASAMOAH                                                      DATE 
(10109988) 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 CERTIFICATION 
  
I hereby certify that this thesis was supervised in accordance with procedures laid down by 
the University. 
 
 
 
……………………………      ……………………. 
PROFESSOR ROBERT EBO HINSON                 DATE 
   (SUPERVISOR) 
 
 
……………………………      ……………………… 
DR. MAHMOUD ABDULAI MAHMOUD    DATE  
          
(CO-SUPERVISOR) 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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DEDICATION 
 
To all customer-facing service staff who strive to provide the best service possible every day, 
when you fail and you recover from the failure, you are proving that service recovery is 
possible. This dissertation is dedicated to you.  
 
To Jadon Sena and Joy Aseye – you are the future.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 
For the blessing of higher education and the grace to complete this work – to my heavenly 
Father, I am grateful.  
To my best friend and husband Samuel Sena Asamoah. Thank you for the support, 
encouragement and for backing up for me those days and nights I had to be away from the 
family in pursuit of academic laurels. This MPhil journey would not have been possible 
without your unfailing support.  
 
To my classmates MPhil Marketing Class of 2015, you guys are just great! Thanks for your 
friendship. Special thanks to Adjoa Ocran, Michael Asiedu, Karpos Kofi Anning, Hamidu 
Agana, Jared Offei Codjoe and Kwame Yeboah for everything.  
 
To my supervisor Prof. Robert Hinson: Sir, I have been so privileged to have you as my 
supervisor. Thank you for your guidance on this project.  
 
To my co-supervisor Dr. Mahmoud A. Mahmoud – thank you sir for the guidance and 
direction. 
 
To the team in Prof. Hinson’s office – Kailan, Mr. Omari, Jeanette and Nyhiraba – thanks for 
the assistance.  
 
To Dr. Bedman Narteh, our Head of Department and a father to us. Sir, thank you for your 
guidance, support and dedication to our progress.  
 
To all my lecturers in the Department of Marketing and Customer Management, the journey 
was great because you were great teachers. Thank you.  
Finally, to everyone who contributed to the completion of this project – may God richly bless 
you. 
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TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
DECLARATION ......................................................................................................................................... ii 
CERTIFICATION ....................................................................................................................................... iii 
DEDICATION ........................................................................................................................................... iv 
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................................................... v 
TABLE OF CONTENTS .............................................................................................................................. vi 
LIST OF TABLES ....................................................................................................................................... ix 
LIST OF FIGURES ...................................................................................................................................... x 
ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................................................... xi 
 
CHAPTER ONE ......................................................................................................................................... 1 
INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................................................... 1 
1.0 Background of the Study ......................................................................................................... 1 
1.1 Statement of the Problem ...................................................................................................... 4 
1.2 Research Purpose.................................................................................................................... 5 
1.3 Research Objectives ................................................................................................................ 6 
1.4 Research Questions ................................................................................................................ 6 
1.5 Significance of the Study ......................................................................................................... 6 
1.6 Scope of the Study .................................................................................................................. 7 
1.7 Methodology ........................................................................................................................... 8 
1.8 Chapter Disposition ................................................................................................................. 9 
 
CHAPTER TWO ...................................................................................................................................... 11 
LITERATURE REVIEW AND CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK ....................................................................... 11 
2.0 Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 11 
2.1 The Precursor to Service Recovery – Service Failure ............................................................ 11 
2.2  The Concept of Service Recovery ......................................................................................... 13 
2.3  Service Recovery and Complaint Handling ........................................................................... 16 
2.4 Service Recovery Attributes .................................................................................................. 19 
2.5  Benefits of Service Recovery to the Service Firm ................................................................. 21 
2.6  The Role of Frontline Staff in Service Recovery .................................................................... 22 
2.7 Approaches to Service Recovery ................................................................................................. 26 
2.9  Conceptual Framework ......................................................................................................... 29 
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2.9.1 Formality ........................................................................................................................... 30 
2.9.2 Decentralization ................................................................................................................ 31 
2.9.3 Comprehensiveness .......................................................................................................... 32 
2.9.4 Human Intensity ................................................................................................................ 32 
2.9.5 System Intensity ................................................................................................................ 32 
2.9.6 Accessibility ....................................................................................................................... 33 
2.9.7  Influence ........................................................................................................................... 33 
2.10 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................. 34 
 
CHAPTER THREE .................................................................................................................................... 35 
CONTEXTUAL FRAMEWORK .................................................................................................................. 35 
3.0         Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 35 
3.1 Geography and Physical Setting of Ghana ............................................................................ 35 
3.2 Airports ................................................................................................................................. 35 
3.3 Airlines .................................................................................................................................. 36 
3.4 Structure & Stakeholders of the Industry ............................................................................. 37 
3.5 Ghana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) ................................................................................. 37 
3.5.1 Ghana Airport Company Limited (GACL) .......................................................................... 38 
3.5.2 International Air Transport Association (IATA) ................................................................. 39 
3.5.3 International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) ............................................................... 39 
3.5.4 Ghana Tourism Authority (GTA) ........................................................................................ 39 
3.5.5 Ghana Association of Travel and Tour Agencies (GATTA) ................................................ 40 
3.6 Key Developments in the Airline Industry ............................................................................ 40 
3.7 Importance of the Airline Industry to the Ghanaian Economy ............................................. 41 
 
CHAPTER FOUR ..................................................................................................................................... 42 
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY .................................................................................................................. 42 
4.0 Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 42 
4.1  Research Purpose ................................................................................................................. 42 
4.2 Research Approach ............................................................................................................... 44 
4.3  Research Design and Strategy .............................................................................................. 45 
4.4 Population and Sample Selection ......................................................................................... 46 
4.5 Sources of Data and Data Collection Methods ..................................................................... 47 
4.6 Data Analysis ......................................................................................................................... 48 
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4.7 Ethical Considerations ........................................................................................................... 49 
 
CHAPTER FIVE ....................................................................................................................................... 50 
DATA ANALYSIS, FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS ..................................................................................... 50 
5.0 Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 50 
5.1  Analysis of Individual Cases .................................................................................................. 50 
5.1.1 Case A ....................................................................................................................................... 50 
5.1.2  Case B ................................................................................................................................ 55 
5.1.3 Case C ....................................................................................................................................... 60 
5.1.4 Case D....................................................................................................................................... 63 
5.1.5 Case E ....................................................................................................................................... 67 
5.2 Cross-case Analysis and Discussion of Findings by Research Questions .................................... 74 
5.2.1 Cross-case Analysis for Research Question One ...................................................................... 74 
5.2.2 Discussion of Findings for Research Question One ........................................................... 79 
5.3. Cross-case Data Analysis for Research Question Two ............................................................... 82 
5.3.1 Discussion of Findings for Research Question Two ................................................................. 83 
5.4 Cross-case Data Analysis for Research Question Three .............................................................. 84 
5.4.1 Discussion of Findings for Research Question Three ............................................................... 85 
5.5 Chapter Summary ................................................................................................................. 86 
 
CHAPTER SIX .......................................................................................................................................... 87 
SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS ....................................................................... 87 
6.0  Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 87 
6.1 Summary of Findings ............................................................................................................. 87 
6.1.1 Service Recovery Strategies in the Airline Industry ................................................................. 87 
6.1.2 The Perception of Airline Management of the Importance of Service Recovery .................... 89 
6.1.3 The Application of Service Recovery ........................................................................................ 89 
6.2  Conclusions ........................................................................................................................... 90 
6.3  Recommendations for practitioners ..................................................................................... 92 
6.4  Limitations and Future Research .......................................................................................... 94 
References ........................................................................................................................................ 95 
APPENDIX -INTERVIEW GUIDE ............................................................................................................ 104 
 
 
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LIST OF TABLES 
 
Table 3.1. Airlines in Ghana and their Hubs ......................................................................................... 36 
Table 5.2 Summary of Cases ................................................................................................................ 71 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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LIST OF FIGURES 
Figure 2.1 Conceptual Framework ........................................................................................................ 30 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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ABSTRACT 
This study investigated how airlines in Ghana apply service recovery to their operations in 
serving customers. It explores what internal mechanisms (processes) the airlines have in 
place to recover service when there is a service failure. The fact that airline service is 
performed and consumed in real time, is intangible and has the consistent dyadic interaction 
between its representatives and customers, gives rise to its failure prone nature. This study 
adopted the qualitative research approach. Face-to-face interviews with top management 
from five airlines were used to gain first-hand information on the internal procedures and 
perceptions towards service recovery. Seven constructs were used as a guide to carrying out 
the investigation. These were; formality, comprehensiveness, accessibility, influence, human 
intensity, system intensity and decentralization. The study revealed that airlines perceived 
service recovery as important and had some laid down procedures to address it. Their 
approach was highly centralized and frontline staffs are largely unable to assist customers 
who have experienced a service failure. Additionally, they concentrated on operational 
failures and neglected people failures, which are the source of most reported service failures. 
The tendency of customers not to complain suggests that airlines should be proactive in their 
approach and promptly respond when they receive complaints. To improve their service 
recovery efforts and ensure customer satisfaction after a service failure, airlines should ensure 
that monitoring of their complaint handling systems is addressed. In addition, frontline staff 
should be trained, motivated and empowered to handle service recovery promptly. 
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CHAPTER ONE 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 
1.0 Background of the Study 
 
The market orientation of a firm is evident in the extent to which the customer’s well-being is 
placed at the centre of the organisation’s operations. Therefore, the goal of a service firm is to 
provide offerings that satisfy customer needs and wants in a profitable manner, with airlines 
being no exception (Chartered Institute of Marketing, 2009). In 2014, the International Air 
Transport Association (IATA) reported that 3.3 billion passengers and 50 million metric tons 
of cargo were transported across a network of almost 50,000 routes. Approximately 58 
million jobs and $2.4 trillion of business activity are generated worldwide by the airline 
industry and as such, it remains cardinal to the aviation sector as well as the global economy 
(IATA, 2014). These statistics suggest that the global airline industry is important for the 
global economy.  
 
The growth of the global airline industry is driven partly by the upturn of the economic cycle, 
the growth of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and world trade. The North American airline 
industry is the most profitable and most vibrant airline industry globally with more players 
and better financial performance indicators, whilst the African airline industry is at the other 
end of the spectrum with the weakest levels of profitability, low load factors as well as low 
revenues for operating carriers (IATA, 2014). This is however touted to change in the coming 
years with a growing young, expanding and urbanizing population in Africa placing the 
continent on a trajectory for economic growth (UNECA, 2013). The industry in Africa 
currently supports nearly 7 million jobs and $80 billion in GDP with the prospects for growth 
abounding (IATA, 2014).  
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It is not surprising therefore that the Ghanaian airline industry has experienced steady growth 
since 2003. This growth has been evident in the number of passengers flying, as well as the 
number of airlines operating in Ghana (both domestically and internationally). According to 
the Ghana Civil Aviation Authority, the industry has experienced an average growth of 8% in 
the number of flights into the country during a decade since 2003. The Ghana Airport 
Company Limited (GACL) corroborates this fact by indicating that passenger numbers have 
increased steadily since 2007 with an average growth of 8% (GACL, 2013). More 
importantly, the growth in the industry is predicted to place Accra’s Kotoka International 
Airport (KIA) in a position to becoming a regional hub (GACL, 2013). This study is 
therefore placed within a sector that is vital to Ghana’s economy. Early studies by scholars 
like Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry (1985), Grönroos (1990) and Bitner, Booms and 
Tetreault (1990) have focused their work on providing the background and foundations for 
academic work within the service management field. Some of the issues they have addressed 
within the service management field include service failure and the concomitant issue of 
service recovery.  
 
Service recovery is defined as “any manner of responses and actions taken by the service 
provider to resolve problems that arise between customers and organizations” (Grönroos, 
1990). Therefore, service recovery refers to those actions taken by an organization or service 
supplier in response to a service failure and the attempt by the firm to correct or minimize the 
impact of a service failure on a customer (Parasuraman, 2006). There is a lot to gain by a firm 
that carries out successful service recovery. These benefits include but are not limited to 
enhancing customers’ perception of the quality of the service and the organization, positive 
word of mouth, enhancing customer satisfaction and building customer relationships and 
loyalty (Komunda & Osarenkhoe, 2012). The discourse on service recovery has evolved to 
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include the concept of co-recovery, inculcating the Service Dominant Logic (Vargo & Lusch, 
2004) into the process of service recovery where customers are considered as part of the 
recovery process and must be properly integrated to ensure that the outcomes are more 
acceptable. This level of customer involvement requires a comprehensive service recovery 
system, which takes customer participation (co-production) into consideration (Xu, Marshall, 
Edvardsson & Tronvoll, 2014).  
 
The service recovery paradox as espoused by Hart, Heskett and Sasser, (1990) suggests that 
customers may rate performance higher if a delivery failure occurs and the organization and 
its contact personnel recover from the failure, than if the initial problem did not occur. This is 
a paradox because the assumed natural situation should be that customers, who do not 
experience a failure at all, should be more pleased with the firm. It is, therefore, unexpected 
(and a paradox), when customers who have experienced a failure but have also experienced 
service recovery efforts by the firm are more satisfied than customers who have not 
experienced a service failure at all. Metaphorically, Hart et al. (1990) described service firms 
as gymnasts who must be able to regain their balance immediately after a slip-up and return 
to their routines. The service recovery paradox, which forms part of the ‘failure-prone nature’ 
school of thought, is in direct contrast to the ‘zero defects – doing it right the first time’ 
philosophy of manufacturing. The ‘zero-defects’ mindset suggests that similar to 
manufacturing’s product orientation, products must be perfect and exact with no room for 
slip-ups (Hart et al., 1990). With service, however, no matter how rigorous the procedure, 
training and systems in place, zero defects is an unattainable goal (Hart et al., 1990).  This is 
a position that this researcher fully agrees to and a position, which will be evident in the 
discussions in the study. 
 
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1.1 Statement of the Problem 
 
The airline industry like other industries within the service sector is prone to service failures. 
Such distinctive service characteristics as real-time performance, customer involvement and 
people as part of the production, greatly increase the chance of service failures and therefore, 
create the ‘failure-prone’ nature of service (Lovelock & Wirtz, 2007, Vargo & Lusch, 2008). 
The high degree of interaction between the service provider and the customer allows for a 
high incidence rate of possible points of dissatisfaction (Lorenzoni & Lewis, 2004). Unlike 
the situation with products, where the interaction between the customer and the product is 
only after purchase, service is offered in real time and in a dyadic manner between the 
customer and the service personnel or service firm. This consistent dyadic interaction at 
several service points in the delivery process of an airline makes the airline a suitable 
‘service’ to study.  
 
There are multifaceted issues within the industry, some are controllable and others are not. 
Within the domain of control of the airlines are issues relating to the level of service quality 
in the service delivery process by contact staff. Zemke and Bell (1990) opined that “the true 
test of an organization’s commitment to service quality isn’t in the stylishness of the pledge it 
makes in its marketing literature; it is in the way the company responds when things go 
wrong for the customer”. Heskett and Schlesinger (1994) have shown in their work that there 
is a link between customer satisfaction and the profitability of firms by postulating that there 
is a ‘service-profit chain’, which has certain, defined components, which eventually lead to 
the profitability of the service firm.  
 
 
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Even though there have been some attempts to research into the subject of service recovery in 
general and specifically on the airline industry, (Hart et al., 1990; Tax & Brown, 2012; 
Boshoff, 2005; Bamford & Xystouri, 2005; Chang & Chang, 2010; Sim, Song & Killough, 
2010; Karatepe & Choubtarash, 2014), this researcher noticed through a review of extant 
literature, that there are limited studies focusing on developing nations and more specifically, 
the Ghanaian airline industry. Service recovery has been submerged within the general 
discussion of customer retention and customer satisfaction. This study, however, focuses on 
the Ghanaian airline industry and examines the service recovery as it applies within the 
Ghanaian context. The majority of service recovery studies have used consumer-related 
approaches to examine models, draw conclusions and design recovery systems (Bitner et al., 
1990; Wen & Chi, 2013; Narteh, 2013). However, the current study focuses on an assessment 
of service providers and information obtained from them on how they carry out service 
recovery, what their systems and strategies are and how the issue of service recovery is 
approached internally by airlines. The contribution the current study seeks to make to the 
field of study is in two-fold: a contextual gap will be filled and secondly instead by 
discussing service recovery from the firm’s perspective (a focus on process recovery).  
 
1.2 Research Purpose 
 
The current study seeks to investigate the service recovery strategies of airlines in Ghana and 
explore what their approach to service recovery constitutes. 
 
 
 
 
 
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1.3 Research Objectives 
 
To this end, the following will be the specific objectives of the study: 
1. To explore the service recovery strategies of airlines in Ghana. 
2. To ascertain the perception of airline management towards service recovery 
3. To ascertain the application of service recovery strategies airlines in Ghana. 
 
1.4 Research Questions 
 
In line with the objectives of the study, the following questions will be addressed: 
1. What are the service recovery strategies that airlines in Ghana have in place? 
2. What is the perception of the airline management towards service recovery?  
3. How do airlines in Ghana apply service recovery in their operations? 
 
1.5 Significance of the Study  
 
A firm’s ability to manage service recovery when there is a service failure has implications 
for its ability to sustain and maintain customer relationships over time (Wang, Wu, Lin & 
Wang, 2011). Additionally, the importance of service recovery to a firm’s existence suggests 
that a firm must have a recovery system as part of its operational system and associated 
processes and procedures (Smith, Nagy, Karwan & Ramirez, 2012). The 2010 Customer 
Experience Impact Report, commissioned by Right Now and conducted by Harris Interactive 
(based in the United States), provides significant insight into the behavior of customers in the 
when there are service failures.  
 
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The report suggested that 82% of customers surveyed in North America had discontinued a 
relationship with a service firm after a bad experience. Additionally, customers are likely to 
influence the future purchase behavior of their family and friends through word of mouth 
(Right Now, 2010). Therefore, incorporating service recovery into the service blueprint of a 
firm is critical as service failures are inevitable and can have dire consequences to the firm 
(Lovelock & Wirtz, 2007; Bitner, Ostrom & Morgan, 2008).  
 
With the service sector contributing more than 50% of the Ghana’s Gross Domestic Product 
(Ghana Statistical Services, 2014), it is imperative that studies into the sustainability of 
service standards be lauded to ensure that this sector continues to grow. This study 
contributes theoretically to solving a business problem facing airlines specifically, and by 
extension service firms, in general.  
 
 
1.6 Scope of the Study 
 
The extant literature on service recovery has focused on the impact service recovery has on 
the future purchase behavior of customers and the level of satisfaction the recovery activities 
achieve. To this end, the customer recovery perspective has dominated. In contrast to this 
approach, this study focuses on the internal processes of service firms (generally), but 
specifically airlines, in relation to service recovery. Seven constructs were used to measure 
the presence and functionality of recovery systems of airlines. These are formality, 
accessibility, decentralization, human intensity, system intensity, influence and 
comprehensiveness. 
 
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In addition, the scope of the study will be the Ghanaian airline industry with five airlines used 
as part a multiple case studies to approach the investigation.  
 
1.7 Methodology 
 
This study adopts a qualitative research approach. The study sought to provide insight and a 
deeper understanding of the issue of service recovery as it relates to the Ghanaian airline 
industry. More specifically, the case study approach was adopted to provide a comprehensive 
assessment of the service recovery phenomenon within its real-life context (Robson, 2002). 
The bounded system provided by using the case study approach allowed this study to be 
fixated within a specific context for exploration (Creswell, 2007). Several marketing scholars 
including Hinson (2006) have lauded this approach. Hinson (2006) opined that the flexibility 
and multiplicity of data collection methods make it an appropriate research method for 
exploratory research. The purposive sampling method was used to select the sample for this 
study. Five airlines were selected as the sample for this study. The airlines serve customers 
flying from or to routes in West Africa, East Africa, North America, the Middle East and 
domestically within Ghana. The choice of airlines for this study was based on three selection 
criteria. Firstly, on the Ghana Civil Aviation Authority’s data of the geographical spread of 
passenger destination for 2013. Secondly, the relevance of the airline to the study and lastly, 
industry endorsement by the Chartered Institute of Marketing – Ghana (CIMG, 2014).  
 
The Ghana Civil Aviation’s statistics of International Passenger Distribution (2013) indicated 
that 14.6% of Ghanaian passengers fly to the Middle East, 23.5% of passengers fly to West 
African destinations and 9.7% fly to Eastern African countries. As such, three airlines, which 
offer service to these destinations, were selected. Based on the relevance to the study, one 
U.S. carrier was selected. This carrier has also been adjudged Airline of the Year by the 
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Chartered Institute of Marketing Ghana (CIMG) in 2008, 2010 and 2012. Additionally, a 
North American carrier was selected as relevant because research indicates that the North 
American airline industry is globally the most profitable (Bloomberg, 2014).  The last carrier 
was relevant to the study because of its position as a domestic airline and the only domestic 
airline offering service to all the domestic airports – Kumasi, Takoradi, Sunyani and Tamale  
 
1.8 Chapter Disposition 
 
The study is organised into six chapters. The introduction and background to the study, 
literature review and conceptual framework, context of the study, research methodology, data 
analysis and discussions and finally, summary, conclusions and recommendations.  
 
These are briefly explained below: 
Chapter One – Introduction and Background to the Study.  
This is the first chapter of the study and therefore presents the introduction and background to 
the study, statement of the problem, research objectives, research questions, significance of 
the study, methodology, scope of the study and the chapter disposition. 
 
Chapter Two – Literature Review and Conceptual Framework  
Chapter two of this study presents a review of extant literature, which provides an 
understanding of existing thought in the area of study as well, providing an understanding of 
the issues and identifying the existing research gaps 
 
Chapter Three – Context of the Study 
This chapter focuses on the issues relating to the airline industry in Ghana. It describes the 
industry stakeholders and their role with indications of key developments.  
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Chapter Four – Research Methodology 
This chapter discusses the research methodology of the study. This chapter also highlights the 
research approach, design, sample size, sources of data, data collection procedures and data 
analysis approach.   
 
Chapter Five – Data Analysis and Discussion 
Chapter five presents the major findings of this research using thematic analysis of the data 
collected through interviews carried out.  
 
Chapter Six – Summary, Conclusions and Recommendations 
This is the final chapter of this study and reports on the previous chapters providing a 
summary of the study, major findings and conclusions, proffering recommendations for 
managerial adoption as well as providing a basis for future academic study in the area.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 CHAPTER TWO 
  
LITERATURE REVIEW AND CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK 
 
2.0 Introduction  
This chapter reviews the extant literature on service recovery with a discussion of the main 
issues as put forward by various scholars within the service management field. It also 
includes a conceptual framework and an examination of the constructs, which have been used 
in this study. 
 
2.1 The Precursor to Service Recovery – Service Failure  
 
The discussion of service recovery must be preceded by an understanding of what a service 
failure is. Mention has been made of the failure-prone nature of service, yet, understanding 
what is considered a service failure is necessary for an understanding of service recovery and 
why it is important. A service failure is an exchange where a customer perceives a loss due to 
the inability of a service provider to provide a promised service (Prasongsukarn & Patterson, 
2012). It is the perception by customers that one or more specific aspects of a service delivery 
have not met their expectations (Lovelock & Wirtz, 2007). Therefore, there is a service 
failure when the expectation of the customer is at variance with the actual performance of the 
service firm (Parasuraman, Zeithaml & Berry, 1985). For instance, a passenger purchases an 
airline ticket for a particular itinerary and expects that the airline will provide transport to the 
final destination. If for any reason, the airline is unable to do so, there is a service failure.  
 
 
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The service encounter is the period of time during which customers interact directly with a 
service (Lovelock & Wirtz, 2007). The service encounter can also be described as the 
“moment of truth” (Jan Carlzon, 1989). Bitner et al. (1990) suggest that the service encounter 
could be either an instance or a period with or without human interaction. This suggests that a 
customer’s interactions with a firm’s infrastructure (for example websites, machines, etc.) are 
also considered as service encounters and anything that goes wrong during this interaction 
can be considered a service failure. The discussion of the typology of service failure has led 
to a general and parsimonious outcome-process classification (Lovelock & Wirtz, 2007). This 
classification suggests two types of service failures: outcome failures and process failures 
(Lovelock & Witz, 2007). Outcome failures result when there is a failure relating to the core 
service offering, for instance, a delayed flight. A process failure relates to the interaction 
between the customer and the service firm (Lovelock &Witz, 2007).  
 
There are several negative effects of service failures on the organization. Customers respond 
in a number of predictable ways – complaining, engaging in negative word of mouth tactics, 
communicating openly to management or switching service providers (Boshoff, 2005; Atalik, 
2007; Narteh, 2013). Word of mouth is no longer a face-to-face interaction involving one 
source and one recipient but is now carried out in a more transparent public domain of online 
social networks (Ho & Dempsey, 2010). Therefore, a single Facebook or Twitter comment 
can be more damaging to the reputation of a brand than hitherto a private discussion amongst 
friends or family on a service failure experienced by a particular airline. Additionally, it costs 
the firm revenue to repair service failures - money back guarantees, warranty work or 
replacements, refunds and compensation are all costs to the service firm (Hart et al., 1990). 
On the other hand, satisfied customers conduct repeat business which improves bottom line 
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performance for firms, they become ambassadors of the company and are less sensitive to 
price changes in the service offering (Atalik, 2007; Komunda & Osarenkhoe, 2012).  
 
With the high degree of interaction between the airline and the customer, the airline 
potentially has a high propensity for service failures to occur (Bamford & Xystouri, 2005). 
The interaction between the customer and the airline can range from the purchase of a ticket 
through to the onboard experience and interaction with flight attendants. Air transportation is 
particularly prone to service failures because of the number of different providers involved in 
delivering the service, the high number of passengers and the people-based nature of the 
service (Atalik, 2007). A flight may be delayed due to a mechanical fault with the aircraft or 
due to bad weather. These delays, diversions and cancellations due to weather though 
predictable cannot be controlled and very little can be done to avoid or mitigate their 
consequences (Bamford & Xystouri, 2005).  Since service failures are unpleasant facts for 
airlines, they must develop clear strategies for responding to service failures and minimizing 
the effects on their relationship with their customers hence the need for adequate service 
recovery strategies (Atalik, 2007). 
 
2.2  The Concept of Service Recovery   
 
The issue of service recovery has received significant attention from scholars within the 
service management field (Parasuraman, Zeithaml & Berry, 1985; Bitner, Booms & 
Tetreault, 1990; Lorenzoni & Lewis, 2004; Atalik, 2007; Smith, Nagy, Karwan & Ramirez, 
2012; Prasongsukarn & Patterson, 2012; Wen & Chi, 2013). The distinctive and intrinsic 
characteristics of service -  real-time performance, customer involvement and people as part 
of the process greatly increases the chance of service failures and creates the ‘failure-prone’ 
nature of service (Hart, Heskett & Sasser, 1990; Lovelock & Wirtz, 2007; Vargo & Lusch, 
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2008; Prasongsukarn & Patterson, 2012). While researchers have made some important 
contributions to the literature on service recovery, the need to continue researching into the 
area remains paramount to the success of the ever-growing global service industry (Zhu, 
Sivakuma & Parasuraman, 2004; Komunda & Osarenkhoe, 2012). Service recovery consists 
of processes a firm undergoes to rectify and recover those elements of the service delivery 
systems that have failed, with the ultimate objective of restoring the customer to satisfaction 
and keeping his or her custom (Lorenzoni & Lewis, 2004). Grönroos (1990) defined service 
recovery as “any manner of responses and actions taken by the service provider to resolve 
problems that arise between customers and organizations”.  
 
Service recovery may not always rectify the situation, but it can reduce the negative 
consequences associated with service failures if properly executed (Smith et al., 2012). 
Service recovery should be a well thought-out, planned, process for returning aggrieved 
customers to a state of satisfaction with the organisation after a service or product has failed 
to live up to expectations (Bell & Luddington, 2006). Service recovery has both an outcome 
dimension - what the customer actually receives as part of the recovery process and a process 
dimension - how the recovery is achieved (Komunda & Osarenkhoe, 2012).  Customers can 
tolerate some service mistakes and mistakes alone do not lead to dissatisfaction, rather, 
refusal to initiate service recovery measures is what leads to dissatisfaction (Bitner et al., 
1990; Keaveney, 1995). Bitner et al. (1990) in examining seven hundred critical incidents 
across three types of service businesses – hotels, restaurants and airlines, found that it is not 
necessarily service failure that leads to dissatisfaction but rather the response or lack of 
response to the failure by firms that leads customers to the point of resentment. Considering 
that, there is a service component to every offering that a business provides to the market, it 
has become crucial that firms take service recovery issues seriously and ensure that effective 
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service recovery remains at the heart of their efforts of customer retention and relationship 
building (Wen & Chi, 2013). 
 
In examining favourable and unfavourable service encounters, Bitner et al. (1990), provided 
clear indications of what constitutes favourable and unfavourable service delivery and 
suggest what the acceptable posture of service firms (and their staff) should be in both 
instances. Unlike Keaveney (1995) who studied service encounters in service industries in 
general terms, Bitner et al. (1990) focused on airlines, hotels and restaurants making their 
study more relevant to this current study. Several studies have focused on service recovery 
and its impact on future purchase behavior of customers (Bitner et al., 1990; Wen & Chi, 
2013; Keaveney, 1995; Narteh, 2013). There is, however, a divergent school of thought 
posited by Zhu et al. (2004) and Smith, Karwan and Markland (2009), who focus on service 
recovery from the service firm’s perspective. By suggesting that there should be the 
incorporation of the goal of profitability into customer relationship management whilst 
paying attention customer perceived value, Zhu et al. (2004) provide a different angle to the 
discussion on service recovery. In addition to considering the cost implications of service 
recovery, they advise that financial decisions must be incorporated into service marketing 
decision.  
 
As in the classification of service failures into outcome and process failures, service 
restitution or recovery strategies have also been classified into outcome recovery strategies 
and process recovery strategies (Zhu et al., 2004). The objective of recovery strategies must 
be two-fold: regaining customer confidence and secondly, doing so at the most efficient costs 
(Zhu et al., 2004).  
 
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Service recovery should be systematic, well designed and be carried out in a structured well-
orchestrated manner (Smith et al., 2009). To this end, Smith et al., (2009) have proffered 
seven dimensions of service recovery. These dimensions are formality, decentralization, 
comprehensiveness, human intensity, system intensity, accessibility and influence.  
 
 
2.3  Service Recovery and Complaint Handling 
 
The greatest hindrance for service firms in managing service failures and carrying out service 
recovery is the propensity of only between five to ten percent of dissatisfied customers to 
actually complain (Tax & Brown, 2012; Hinson, 2006). This tendency not to complain could 
be due to the fact that customers do not believe the firm will take any action, may not be as 
responsive as they expect or may offer a solution that they deem unsatisfactory (Tax & 
Brown, 2012; Komunda & Osarenkhoe, 2012). Instead of complaining, some customers 
silently switch providers or in some instances attempt to get attention by spreading negative 
comments (Bamford & Xystouri, 2005; Narteh, 2013). A good recovery system is one that 
detects problems, prevents dissatisfaction and encourages customers to complain (Komunda 
& Osarenkhoe, 2012). Service recovery goes beyond complaint handling to being a proactive 
effort by firms to anticipate possible touch points, which may result in service failures, and 
handling them in a prompt manner (Komunda & Osarenkhoe, 2012). An effective complaint 
management system should form part of the service recovery system of airlines, which should 
include apologies, and compensation where losses are suffered (Narteh, 2013). Hinson (2006) 
suggests that there should be a link between the complaint management system of a firm and 
how quickly they respond to service failure complaints. This link suggests that when 
customers have the option to complain, their complaints are valuable feedback for the service 
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firms and can be an indication of possible problem areas within the service delivery system of 
the firm. As such, forms must respond promptly to such complaints (Hinson, 2006).  
 
Hart et al. (1990) recommended that firms actively attempt to break customer silence and 
encourage complaining as a way of generating feedback. Accessibility of customers to the 
firm when there is a service failure is crucial to ensuring that customer silence is broken 
(Smith et al., 2009). Customers must know what the procedure is to reach a service provider 
i.e. phone numbers, emails address or their website addresses should be published in a 
manner that customers can readily access the information and provide the needed feedback 
when there is an issue (Smith et al., 2009).  
 
Atalik (2007) adopting work done by Lovelock et al. (2001) provided the following 
guidelines for the effective handling of complaints by service firms: 
 Acting expediently to resolve the issue 
 Acknowledging that mistakes were made without being defensive  
 Demonstrating an understanding of the problem from the customers point of view  
 Not arguing with customers 
 Acknowledging the feelings of customers 
 Giving customers the benefit of the doubt  
 Clarifying the steps needed to solve the problem 
 Keeping the customer informed of the process/progress 
 Considering the possibility of compensation  
 Persevering in order to regain the goodwill of the customer 
 
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One of marketing’s fundamental principles is that customer loyalty has a positive effect on 
organisational performance (Atalik, 2007; Komunda & Osarenkhoe, 2012). Over the years, 
airlines have focused on building loyalty through their frequent flyer programmes. Atalik’s 
(2007) study of Turkish Airlines’ frequent flyers revealed that these frequent flyers also had 
peculiar points of dissatisfaction relating to the loyalty programmes. These issues included 
personnel not being knowledgeable enough about the loyalty programme and its benefits and 
the loyalty programmes not being able to deliver the benefits promised.  
 
In contrast to the studies which focused on the complaining customers in the service recovery 
process (Hinson, 2006; Narteh, 2013; Tax & Brown, 2012), Vaerenbergh, Vermier and 
Larivière (2013) focus on the observing customer who is not the direct recipient of the 
service but is within the physical space of the interaction between the complaining customer 
and the service firm’s contact person. They, using the observational learning and attribution 
theory as their framework, considered the fact that a customer observing how a complaining 
customer is assisted (or not assisted), can form their own impressions of the firm by simply 
“observing the encounter”. The suggestion that an irate customer be removed from the view 
of other customers is therefore made to prevent any negative influence on other customers or 
which may aggravate the situation further (Vaerenbergh et al., 2013). 
 
Customer complaints are imperative in building competitive business practices and as such, 
firms must consider complaints as rewards rather than problems and facilitate the avenues for 
customers to complain (Atalik, 2007).  Therefore, firms must commit resources to tracking 
and monitoring failures and recovery and ensure that complaints are managed effectively 
(Smith et al., 2009). This deliberate allocation of resources is termed as system intensity by 
Smith et al. (2009) a key construct in an effective service recovery system.  Unfortunately, 
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Hart et al. (1990) opine that over fifty percent of companies who receive complaints do not 
respond to these complaints and by such actions reinforce the customer’s original negative 
perception of the firm. 
 
2.4 Service Recovery Attributes 
 
There are a number of options that a firm has when carrying out service recovery. These 
options have been described as recovery attributes by Smith, Bolton and Wagner (1999). 
They have posited four attributes: compensation, response speed, apology and recovery 
initiation. Similarly, Hart et al. (1990) suggested that compensation, response speed and 
apology were key to a good recovery attempt. Compensation, apology and response speed are 
hinged on social exchange theory and based on the customer’s perception of fairness in terms 
of the procedural, interactive and distributive aspects of the recovery effort (Smith et al., 
1999). Recovery initiation as an attribute of service recovery also further highlights the 
difference between service recovery and mere complaint handling.  
 
More recently, Bradley and Sparks (2012) have suggested that there are two main options 
available to a firm to recover from a service failure - explanation (including apology) and 
compensation. They suggested four types of explanations - the first type of explanation is 
excuses. This is where the firm provides an explanation, which seeks to absolve the 
organisation from the service failure. For instance, if there is a flight cancellation but the 
explanation is that there was bad weather. This reason though tangible does not absolve the 
airline from the nature of the response of its staff, which may actually be the source of 
dissatisfaction of the customer.  
 
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Second is justification, which acknowledges responsibility but provides a legitimate reason 
for the failure based on the organisation’s quest to fulfil shared needs or a higher goal 
(Bradley & Sparks, 2012). For instance, the security checks at airports though presenting 
dissatisfying conditions can be justified as being necessary due to the increased risks posed 
by terrorism since the incidents of September 11, 2001.  
 
Third, the explanation could be referential which seeks to create a comparison to another (or 
other) service provider and suggest that the present failure is better than that of another airline 
(Bradley & Sparks, 2012). 
 
Finally, there is the option to apologise. This is the most important form of explanation and 
all others must include an apology (Bradley & Sparks, 2012). The apology simply says to the 
customer that the firm acknowledges the problem and is regretful of the incident and the 
inconveniences caused. The apology must also be done quickly, by the senior-most staff 
available and accompanied by compensation (Hart et al., 1990).  
 
In deliberating on the contingent nature of service recovery, Smith et al. (2012) suggested 
that recovery strategies are dependent on the environmental circumstance in which the 
antecedent occurs. This means that the type of service or industry affects the recovery system 
that will be put in place. They (Smith et al., 2012), suggested that organisations exhibit 
significant differences in system structure across divergent environmental contexts. This 
assertion is consistent with that of Zhu et al. (2004) who suggest that the different types of 
recovery strategies must aim at their corresponding service failures and should be matched to 
ensure that recovery is carried out in an efficient manner. After studying one hundred and 
fifty-eight firms, Smith et al. (2012) support Zhu et al. (2004) in suggesting that the recovery 
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approach is contingent on the failure type and the service industry or environment. This is a 
step beyond earlier studies (Bitner et al., 1990; Mattila, 2001) who had focused on examining 
the difference in the level of effectiveness of service recovery across various organizational 
contexts.  
 
The context of the organisation relates to its offering as well as the prevalent environmental 
conditions and the chosen organisational strategy (Smith et al., 2012). Indeed, the service 
recovery system of an airline will differ from that of a restaurant whilst retaining certain key 
elements, which cut across all service firms. 
 
2.5  Benefits of Service Recovery to the Service Firm 
 
There is a lot to gain by a firm that carries out successful service recovery. These benefits 
include but are not limited to enhancing customers’ perception of the quality of the service 
and the organization, positive word of mouth, enhancing customer satisfaction and building 
customer relationships and loyalty (Komunda & Osarenkhoe, 2012). There is empirical 
evidence in the literature to establish a link between service recovery and customer 
satisfaction (Bitner et al., 1990; Prasongsukarn & Patterson, 2012). There is also a direct 
correlation between the level of customer satisfaction and perception of fairness in the 
recovery experienced by a dissatisfied customer (Prasongsukarn & Patterson, 2012). In other 
words, a customer who experiencing adequate service recovery is more likely to be satisfied 
than one that does not experience satisfaction (Prasongsukarn & Patterson, 2012). The true 
test of an organization’s commitment to service quality is not in its marketing 
communications, but in the way, it responds to service failures (Zemke & Bell, 1990; 
Bamford & Xystouri, 2005). What do customers want when things go wrong? Usually, what 
they were promised in the first place (Zemke & Bell, 1990). The service recovery paradox as 
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espoused by Hart et al. (1990) suggests that customers who have experienced a service failure 
and who the firm reaches out to in service recovery efforts are more likely to be more 
satisfied than those who have never experienced a service failure in the first place.  
 
2.6  The Role of Frontline Staff in Service Recovery 
 
The role of frontline personnel in the service recovery effort of service firms has been 
emphasized severally in the extant literature (Bitner et al., 1990; Hart et al., 1990; Heskett et 
al., 1994; Lorenzoni & Lewis, 2004; Wen & Chi, 2013; Bamford & Xystouri, 2005; Hinson, 
Owusu-Frimpong & Dasah, 2011). The focus of the extant literature reviewed suggests that 
the role of the service employee in service delivery is paramount and that employees who are 
not trained and empowered to solve customer problems tend to be dissatisfied and frustrated 
with their jobs (Hinson et al., 2011; Bamford & Xystouri, 2005). In an encounter described 
by Hart et al. (1990), in which their flight was delayed overnight, they describe the inability 
of the airline in question to anticipate the situation as the cause of the service failure, which in 
turn led to, frustrated staff and dissatisfied customers. Additionally, when the service delivery 
system fails, contact employees are responsible and expected to respond to customer 
complaints and their approach to this can contribute to the customers’ perceived satisfaction 
or dissatisfaction (Bitner et al., 1990). In the case of an airline, areas in the service chain, 
which have high levels of staff turnover and therefore low levels of experience, must be 
watched (Hart et al., 1990). Unfortunately, these inexperienced staff may be placed at critical 
touch points such as security, profiling and check-in where customers are noted to face the 
most levels of dissatisfaction (Hart et al., 1990; Lorenzoni & Lewis 2004). Heskett and 
Schlesinger (1994) posit that there is a service-profit chain with a number of linked 
components, which are important to the outcome of service excellence and profitability of 
firms. Of primary important to the service-profit chain is employee satisfaction, which they 
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opine, has implications for the level of service excellence delivered to customers. The staff of 
service firms is important to the success of the firm and the necessary training and motivation 
must be provided to ensure that employees give off their best in their interactions with 
customers (Heskett & Schlesinger, 1994; Hinson et al., 2011).  
 
The service encounter which can be metaphorically likened to the encounter between a bull 
fighter and a matador provides a very succinct opportunity for the service contact person to 
delight a customer and negative behaviours such as indifference, impoliteness, 
unresponsiveness, lack of knowledge and incompetence can lead to “people failures” 
(Keaveney, 1995).  These “people failures” can also be due to a lack of knowledge (of the 
offering) which is required to adequately assist customers as such, Hinson et al. (2011) 
recommend that firms must adopt a learning orientation which focuses on developing 
superlative knowledge of the market offering, market intelligence and customer needs. Even 
though training plays a role in improving the behavior of customer facing staff, service firms 
must also focus on recruiting people who naturally want to assist customers and display 
personable attitude even in the face of distressed irate customers (Prasongsukarn & Patterson, 
2012).  
 
Heskett and Schlesinger (1994) hypothesized eight propositions in establishing a link 
between profitability and customer loyalty on one hand and employee satisfaction, loyalty 
and productivity on the other hand. These propositions are:  
 Customer loyalty drives profitability and growth 
 Customer satisfaction drives customer loyalty 
 Value drives customer satisfaction 
 Employee productivity drives values   
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 Employee loyalty drives productivity  
 Employee satisfaction drives loyalty  
 Internal quality drives employee satisfaction  
 Leadership underlies the chain of success. 
 
Their study highlighted the fact that there is a 'chain' of interrelated processes and factors that 
contribute to a service outcome. Southwest Airlines provides an example of a company that 
exemplifies the immense value placed on its people. Herbert Kelleher, Chief Executive 
Officer of the airline, is quoted to have said: "anyone who looks at things solely in terms of 
facts that can easily be quantified is missing the heart of business, which is people" (Heskett 
& Schlesinger, 1994). Unfortunately, it was noted that employee satisfaction is not 
considered to be as important as customer satisfaction by airlines (in general) and therefore 
airline employees are noted to have a consistently bad attitude when handling customers as 
they transfer their frustrations (wrongly) to the customer (Bamford & Xystouri, 2005).  
 
Similarly, in focusing on the airline industry, Bamford and Xystouri (2005) cited bad attitude 
of staff in responding to service failures as one of the major areas of service failure. Using the 
action research methodology, which examined cases in real-time and based on actual 
incidents in the service delivery process of the airline, they also posited that service 
interruptions through strikes and service delays, usually technical in nature, were the other 
two causes of dissatisfaction among airline customers.  They identified that airlines did not 
focus their efforts on the top 20% of the failure areas, which produced 80% of the complaints, 
and training was not consistent, leading to repeated avoidable service failures. Service 
employees must be empowered to take action were needed (Bitner et al., 1990). This can be 
achieved through standardized responses or actions for some types of incidents. In most 
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cases, responses must be tailored to the specific incident and some amount of control is 
required for employees to successfully assist customers in a timely manner without having to 
defer to a supervisor (Bitner et al., 1990). 
 
The influence of the culture, in terms of the nationality of the front line staff, has also been 
examined in the extant literature by focusing on the extent to which an individual’s culture 
affects how they offer and receive service (Lorenzoni & Lewis, 2004; Prasongsukarn & 
Patterson, 2012). These studies concluded that culture affects the service delivery of frontline 
staff and more importantly, affects how they interact in service recovery settings (Lorenzoni 
& Lewis, 2004). Where frontline staff of British nationality, were more individualistic in their 
approach to service delivery and recovery, their Italian counterparts were more 
compassionate in their approach. Culture could also have implications for the expression of 
dissatisfaction with a customer where the social norms dictate that negative emotions should 
not be shown in public (Prasongsukarn & Patterson, 2012). As such, the frontline staff has to 
be experienced in being able to gauge the individual customers’ expectations and satisfaction, 
which can be quite problematic for even the most experienced staff (Prasongsukarn & 
Patterson, 2012). Subsequently, the service employee’s perception of management’s 
commitment to service recovery also affects their attitude and approach to the situation. This 
is an opinion put forward by Hvass and Torfadottir (2014) who studied employee recovery in 
the airline industry specific to spatially dispersed employees like cabin crew who handle 
customers and may interact directly in situations of a service failure. This study shifts the 
focus from customers in the recovery process to how employees also perceive the service 
process and what effect it has on them and their work in the future. Employee recovery 
within service research often focuses on frontline employees in general (Hinson, 2006; Bitner 
et al., 1990; Narteh, 2013) and so Hvass and Torfadottir (2014) contribute to the discourse by 
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investigating the recovery of spatially dispersed personnel, who have a workplace away from 
a central location with minimal management contact. How much resources a firm commits to 
the training and monitoring of employees is formally referred to as human intensity, which is 
an important component of service recovery across most service settings (Smith et al., 2009). 
 
2.7 Approaches to Service Recovery 
 
A number of service recovery models have been formulated within the service recovery 
discourse to prescribe approaches to service recovery (Prasongsukarn & Patterson, 2012; 
Komunda & Osarenkhoe, 2012; Zhu et al., 2004). Some approaches contribute to the 
literature by discussing the antecedents (Bamford & Xystouri, 2005; Komunda & 
Osarenkhoe, 2012) whilst others focus on the outcomes of service recovery (Smith et al., 
2009, Prasongsukarn & Patterson, 2012). There are also theoretical approaches in which the 
discussions are based on hypothetical scenarios as a basis for the prescriptive focus on the 
studies (Atalik, 2007). Yet, others concentrate on using empirical, real life incidents in their 
attempt to delve into the issues relating to service recovery (Bitner et al., 1990; Wen & Chi, 
2012; Prasongsukarn & Patterson, 2012).  
 
The theoretical foundation of service recovery draws on justice theory that is adapted from 
social exchange and social psychology, which fundamentally deal with people’s perception of 
fairness of situations, and the decisions they make based on these perceptions (Tax & Brown, 
2012; Smith et al., 1999; Prasongsukarn & Patterson, 2012). Justice theory has three 
dimensions: distributive justice, procedural justice and interactional justice (Smith et al., 
1999).  It is important that all these three are interacting in the right proportions to have a 
good service recovery system in place. These three dimensions are also important antecedents 
of customer satisfaction (Smith et al., 1999). Essentially, therefore, people evaluate recovery 
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efforts by firms in terms of the outcomes, procedures involved and interaction they have with 
the firm during the process (Prasongsukarn & Patterson, 2012). Prasongsukarn and Patterson 
(2012) in providing a model for service recovery, linked customer satisfaction to service 
recovery based on the interaction and relationship between the procedural, interactional and 
distributive dimensions of justice. They suggest that the distributive dimension of justice 
plays a mediating role between the customer’s interaction with the firm, the recovery 
procedure and the eventual aim of satisfaction. This approach to service recovery focusses on 
the perception of fairness the customer has and the attempt by the service firm to ensure that 
customer satisfaction is achieved. Additionally, they suggest that the relationship between the 
three dimensions is a positive one with a strong correlation between service recovery and 
each of the three justice dimensions and a fourth construct – disconfirmation. They opined 
that service recovery could be best achieved through the effective management of all three 
forms of justice.  
 
By drawing a direct parallel to managing a service in general, Komunda and Osarenkhoe 
(2012) suggest that managers should manage service recovery by understanding customer 
expectations.  In their opinion, there are two key areas that a service manager should focus on 
whilst managing service recovery: communication and conflict management. The effective 
management of these two areas will lead to effective complaint handling and finally, 
consumer loyalty with its resultant outcomes of positive word of mouth and repeat purchase. 
Their findings indicate that there is a positive and direct relationship between how a firm 
communicates with its customers and the effectiveness of their attempts at service recovery. 
They also indicate that service recovery communication and conflict handling have a positive 
effect on customer loyalty and therefore service managers need policies and systems for 
service recovery which will ensure improved communication and conflict handling 
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mechanisms. Smith et al. (2009) suggest that the degree of formality of the service recovery 
system has an implication to how successful a firm’s service recovery attempt is. This 
suggests that a comprehensive approach, which seeks to cover all possible customer touch 
points must be taken into consideration as comprehensiveness of the recovery strategy, is an 
important aspect for firms Smith et al. (2009).  
 
The nature of the service failure suggests the approach to service recovery a firm should take. 
This is the view espoused by Zhu et al. (2004) who suggest that a service recovery strategy 
must incorporate both the customer and service firm’s perspective. The customer’s 
perspective concentrates on the failure type and magnitude of the service failure indicating 
that the type of service failure and the extent of loss to the customer directly suggest what the 
firm does to restore the customer’s cumulative perceived value. More importantly, they 
suggest that firms must seek to minimize the overall recovery expenditure in their service 
recovery attempts. However, the cost the firm incurs should not be limited to accounting 
costs only, but rather viewed as value the firm offers the customer after a service failure (Zhu 
et al., 2004). 
 
2.8 Three Perspectives of Service Recovery Management – The tensions  
Even though the discussion on the need to recover from a service failure is prevalent in both 
academia and industry, service is still prone to failure. Michel, Bowen and Johnston (2009) 
posit that the failure of service recovery in organizations is due to the unresolved tensions 
found between the conflicting perspectives of customer recovery, process recovery and 
employee recovery. The growth in the interest of service recovery stems from the fact that 
bad service experiences lead to customer switching (Keaveney, 1995) and so the expediency 
for internal collaboration amongst organizational functions is even more crucial. Customer 
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recovery is the marketer’s perspective of what recovery must focus on – the customer (Smith 
et al., 1999). Its focus is on the attempt to not fail twice (Michel et al., 2009). Operations 
management literature centres more on the processes and how to learn from the failures to 
prevent them in the future. This is known as process recovery (Smith et al., 2009). The third 
perspective is the employee recovery perspective as posited by management literature. The 
focus of this recovery effort is on employees and how to prepare them to recover from service 
failures (Bowen & Johnston, 1999). Employee recovery is aligned to the thinking that 
suggests that employee satisfaction has a direct correlation to customer satisfaction and that 
well trained and motivated employees translate into satisfied and happy customers (Michel et 
al., 2009). Successful service recovery requires an integration of these different perspectives 
based on service logic. This approach will suggest that all functions within an organization 
collaborate to ensure that the recovery is successful without which a continuous tension 
between the three perspectives will lead to a failure of any service recovery attempt (Michel 
et al., 2009). 
  
2.9  Conceptual Framework  
 
A review of the extant literature provides a thorough examination of the issues relating to 
service recovery from the customer and firm-level perspectives. A conceptual framework is 
needed to provide a more succinct view of what this study seeks to focus on.  The conceptual 
framework for this study is based on the work carried out by Smith et al. (2009) as shown in 
figure 2.1. They provided seven dimensions to a service recovery system within an 
organisation. The constructs are formality, decentralization, comprehensiveness, human 
intensity, system intensity, accessibility and influence. This model suggests that service 
recovery is a combination of aspects of process, organisation and customer focus and 
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therefore firms are in a unique position to ensure that these areas are dully addressed in their 
approach (Smith et al., 2009).  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Form = Formality, Decent = Decentralization, Inf = Influence, Comp = Comprehensiveness, Acc = 
Accessibility, Hint = Human Intensity, SInt = System Intensity 
 
 
Adopted from Smith, Karwan and Markland (2009) 
 
2.9.1 Formality 
 
This refers to the extent to which the service recovery process is governed by strict rules and 
procedures. The specific recovery routines placed by the organisation (Lorenzoni & Lewis, 
2004). Bitner, Ostrom and Morgan (2008) suggest that service blueprinting can help solve 
service problems preemptively and help firms identify possible failure points in a service 
operation. Having a formal recovery system reduces the risk of repeat failures and staff not 
knowing what to do in particular situations. In addition, the formality of the recovery process 
Recovery System 
Form Decent Inf Comp Acc HInt
  
SInt 
Figure 2.1 Conceptual Framework 
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can address the inherent challenge of services being variable by providing some amount of 
standardization (Hinson, 2006). Service standards, which are set by service blueprints, can 
enable recovery to take place without the customer even having to make a complaint (Tax & 
Brown, 2012). The formality reduces the amount of variance that the customer will 
experience in their interaction with the company as the company is usually in a state of 
readiness to address possible service failures (Smith et al., 2012).  
 
2.9.2 Decentralization 
 
Training can give employees the perspective that service recovery requires, but the company 
must empower them to act (Hart et al., 1990). This authority to act is what is referred as 
decentralization within the literature (Smith et al., 2009). The staff must have the authority, 
responsibility and incentives to assist customers who have experienced a service failure 
(Bitner et al., 1990).  This construct refers to the level of employee empowerment to be able 
to carry out the laid down (formal) process of service recovery. In the case of airlines, the 
frontline customer facing agents must be able to offer assistance to customers when there is a 
service failure without necessarily having to refer them to a supervisor (Bamford & Xystouri, 
2004). This is also important because of the time constraints associated with air travel. For 
instance, if a customer is unable to make  a flight due to bad weather, the window of 
opportunity to be able to be rebooked at no extra cost on an alternate flight can get very slim 
and possibly become nonexistent very quickly if the customer-facing staff has to wait for 
supervisory approval. That can lead to further inconvenience to an already inconvenienced 
passenger.   
 
 
 
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2.9.3 Comprehensiveness 
 
The dyadic interaction between the customer and the airline at several points makes the 
airline a suitable pick for a ‘service’ (Lorenzoni & Lewis, 2005). There are several touch 
points within the travel experience that a customer can experience a service failure and 
therefore the recovery strategy must be exhaustive in considering all potential recovery 
activities once a failure has occurred (Smith et al., 2009). From the point of ticket purchase to 
the point of exiting the airport, the passenger potentially interacts with the airline at several 
points therefore, it is important that the airline ensures that all possible failures at all points 
are anticipated to make the process comprehensive (Smith et al., 2009). 
 
2.9.4 Human Intensity  
 
The reliance on the employees of a service firm in the service delivery process has been 
extensively discussed in the extant literature (Bitner et al., 1990; Hart et al., 1990; Heskett et 
al., 1994; Lorenzoni & Lewis, 2004; Wen & Chi, 2013; Bamford & Xystouri, 2005). The 
firm’s commitment to service recovery is evidenced in its willingness to and the actual 
training of customer-facing staff (Hart et al., 1990). Companies with high human intensity 
have well-trained staff who are able to handle service recovery situations (Smith et al., 2009). 
 
2.9.5 System Intensity 
 
In evaluating an organization’s commitment to service recovery, one must consider the 
amount of resources applied to the effort (Zhu et al., 2004). The construct of system intensity 
measures the magnitude of resources committed to the tracking and monitoring of service 
failures and recovery efforts (Smith et al., 2009). 
 
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2.9.6 Accessibility  
 
Even though service recovery goes beyond complaint handling service firms must create 
channels through which customers can have direct access to make complaints or suggestions 
on the service (Hinson, 2006). This construct seeks to incorporate the voice of the customer 
into the recovery process (Tax & Brown, 2012). It looks at the extent to which customers are 
able to directly complain through the availability of published phone numbers, or a point 
where they can go and fill out a form for additional assistance. 
 
2.9.7  Influence 
  
The final construct describes the amount of control or the effect a customer has on the service 
recovery activity (Smith et al., 2009). It suggests that the situation and position of the 
customer influence what the firm does to recover their custom. For airlines, the level of 
patronage of the customer is usually measured by their status in relation to the airlines loyalty 
programmes. Frequent flyer programmes, which promote customer loyalty, offer incentives 
to consumers based on their cumulative purchases of the airlines' offering over a given period 
(Atalik, 2007). The customer lifetime value also comes into play. The customer lifetime value 
is the entire stream of purchase that the customer would have over a lifetime of patronage 
(Kotler & Armstrong, 2010). Even though service recovery processes may be standardized 
for airlines, the influence of particular customers is taken into consideration (Smith et al., 
2009).  
 
 
 
 
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2.10 Conclusion 
 
There are generally three foundational disciplines that approach the issue of service recovery 
including; marketing, management and operations (Johnston & Michel, 2008). This review 
has examined all three – the customer perspective (marketing) – relating to customer 
satisfaction, loyalty and complaint handling; the employee perspective (management) – 
relating to front line employees, decentralization, training and empowerment; and the internal 
processes perspective (operations) – the processes at the firm level that support service 
recovery. These three views provide a rounded view of service recovery and must be 
approached in a collaborative, comprehensive manner if service recovery will be successfully 
achieved (Hvass and Torfadottir. 2014). 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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CHAPTER THREE 
 
CONTEXTUAL FRAMEWORK 
 
3.0         Introduction 
 
This chapter defines the boundaries of the study by establishing its context. The contextual 
framework includes an outline of the geographical and physical setting of the airline industry, 
a description of the key stakeholders and current issues in the industry.  
 
3.1     Geography and Physical Setting of Ghana 
 
Ghana is geographically located in the west of Africa. It has a population of 24,658,823 with 
its capital city, Accra accounting for 16.3% of the total population (Ghana Statistical Service, 
2013). The country’s neighbor on the west is Cote D’Ivoire, on the east - Togo, on the north - 
Burkina Faso. Formed from the merger of the British colony of the Gold Coast and the 
Togoland trust territory, Ghana in 1957 became the first sub-Saharan country in colonial 
Africa to gain its independence (CIA, 2014). Ghana has ten regions – Greater Accra, Eastern, 
Ashanti, Central, Volta, Western, Brong Ahafo, Northern, Upper East and Upper West. 
 
3.2     Airports 
 
The country’s main international airport is located in Accra – the Kotoka International 
Airport. The airport occupies 1610 acres (651 hectares) within the Airport City of Accra and 
is about 10 kilometres from the city centre. The reference point co-ordinates are 05° 35’ 47” 
North Latitude by 000° 10’ 12” West longitude. Elevation is 63.5m (205 ft.). K.I.A’s central 
location in the world, (on the Greenwich Meridian and close to the Equator) makes it easily 
accessible from any part of the world (Ghana Airports Company, 2013). There is a second 
international airport is in Kumasi. There are two other (domestic) airports in Tamale and 
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Sunyani with several airstrips, which serve as bases for domestic commercial, and military 
flights (Ghana Airport Company, 2013).  
 
3.3 Airlines 
 
At the time of this study, there are twenty-six (26) airlines operating out of Kotoka 
International Airport. Out of this number, twenty-one (23) are international carriers and three 
(3) are domestic carriers. A table illustrating the airlines and their hubs is shown below: 
 
Table 3.1. Airlines in Ghana and their Hubs 
 
Item No. Airline Hub 
1. Aero Contractors Lagos, Nigeria 
2. Africa World Airlines* Accra, Ghana 
3. Air Burkina Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso 
4. Air Cote D’Ivoire Abidjan, Cote D’Ivoire 
5. Antrak Accra, Ghana 
6. Arik Air Lagos, Nigeria 
7. Asky Airlines Lomé, Togo 
8. British Airways London, United Kingdom 
9. Ceiba International Airlines Malabo, Equatorial Guinea 
10. Delta Air Lines New York, United States 
11. Egypt Air Cairo, Egypt 
12. Emirates Dubai, UAE 
13. Ethiopian Airlines Addis Ababa, Ethiopia 
14. Gambian Bird Banjul, Gambia 
15. Iberia Madrid, Spain 
16. Kenya Airways Nairobi, Kenya  
17. KLM – Royal Dutch Airlines Amsterdam, Netherlands 
18. Lufthansa  Frankfurt, Germany 
19. Med View Airlines Lagos, Nigeria  
20. Middle East Airlines Beirut, Lebanon 
21. Royal Air Maroc Casablanca, Morocco 
22. Rwand Air Kigali, Rwanda 
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23. South African Airlines Johannesburg, South Africa 
24. Starbow (Aero Survey)* Accra, Ghana 
25. Turkish Airlines Istanbul, Turkey 
26. Tap Portugal Lisbon, Portugal 
Source: Ghana Civil Aviation Authority, 2015 
*Also provides services to Lagos, it therefore falls into two groups - international and domestic.  
 
3.4 Structure & Stakeholders of the Industry 
 
The industry is regulated by the Ghana Civil Aviation Authority, which is established by 
PNDC law 151 of May 16, 1986, as the regulatory agency of government on air 
transportation in Ghana (GCAA, 2014). In 2004, by the enactment of the Civil Aviation Act 
678, the airport management functions to the GCAA were ceded to a new company, the 
Ghana Airport Company Limited (GCAA, 2014). The GCAA and GACL are supported by 
the Ministry of Transport lead by the Minister as the political appointee and the Chief 
Director as the technocrat (GCAA, 2014). 
 
3.5 Ghana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) 
 
The Ghana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) is the regulatory agency for air transport in 
Ghana. It also provides air navigation services within the Accra Flight Information Region 
(FIR), which comprises the airspace over the Republics of Ghana, Togo and Benin and a 
large area over the Atlantic Ocean in the Gulf of Guinea (GCAA, 2014). 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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Its core functions are as follows: 
1. Licensing and Certification of Air Transport Operators 
2. Licensing and Certification of Aerodromes and the Construction, Operation, 
Maintenance and Managements of Navigation Sites. 
3. Provision of Air Navigation Services (Air Space Management) within the Accra Flight 
Information Region (FIR). 
4. Regulation of Air Transport Services. 
5. Promoting the Development of Civil Air Transport Industry in Ghana. 
6. Advising Government on all matters Concerning Civil Aviation, among other functions. 
. Licensing and Certification of Air Transport Operators 
7. Licensing and Certification of Aerodromes and the Construction, Operation, 
Maintenance and Managements of Navigation Sites. 
8. Provision of Air Navigation Services (Air Space Management) within the Accra Flight 
Information Region (FIR). 
9. Regulation of Air Transport Services. 
10. Promoting the Development of Civil Air Transport Industry in Ghana. 
11. Advising Government on all matters Concerning Civil Aviation, among other functions. 
12. Provision of oversight for all activities related to civil aviation (GCAA, 2014). 
 
3.5.1 Ghana Airport Company Limited (GACL) 
 
The Ghana Airports Company Limited (GACL) is the management company for all airports 
in Ghana and strives to position Ghana as the preferred aviation gateway and Leader in 
Airport Business in West Africa (GACL, 2013). It manages and maintains all airports and 
aerodromes in Ghana namely the Kotoka International Airport (KIA) in Accra and the 
regional airports in Kumasi, Tamale, Sunyani as well as various airstrips (GACL, 2013).  
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3.5.2 International Air Transport Association (IATA) 
 
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) is the trade association for the world’s 
airlines, representing some 250 airlines or 84% of total air traffic (IATA, 2015). The 
association manages the relationship between airlines and travel agencies in their flagship 
central payment system where travel agents sell tickets for airlines and remit the payments on 
a bi-weekly basis through an IATA appointed bank (IATA, 2015).  
 
3.5.3 International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) 
 
The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) is a UN specialized agency, created in 
1944 by the signing of the Convention on International Civil Aviation (Chicago 
Convention). ICAO works with the Convention’s 191 member states and global aviation 
organizations to develop international Standards and Recommended Practices (SARPs) 
which States reference when developing their legally-enforceable national civil aviation 
regulations (ICAO, 2015).  
 
3.5.4 Ghana Tourism Authority (GTA) 
 
The Ghana Tourism Authority is also a regulatory institution of government but focused 
mainly on the tourism aspect of the airline industry. The Authority regulates travel agencies 
and ensures that all service providers in the travel, tourism and hospitality sectors are duly 
trained and able to provide world-class service to visitors – both domestic and international.  
 
 
 
 
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3.5.5 Ghana Association of Travel and Tour Agencies (GATTA) 
 
GATTA is the association of travel and tour agencies. The travel agencies act as 
intermediaries for airlines. There are up to 200 travel agencies in Ghana but a good number 
of them are non-IATA accredited agencies. There are presently 69 IATA-accredited agencies.  
 
3.6 Key Developments in the Airline Industry 
 
The signing of the Open Skies Agreement in March 2000 between the governments of Ghana 
and the United States of America paved the way for the entry of US carriers like Delta Air 
Lines, in 2006 and United Airlines, in 2011 to offer direct service from Accra into their hubs 
in the US. The Open Skies Agreement provided the ground rules and the liberalization of the 
airspace to carriers from Ghana and the US (United States Department of State, 2000). The 
agreement between the United States and other countries (including Ghana) expands 
international passenger and cargo flights by eliminating the usual rigorous and bureaucratic 
government interference in commercial airline decisions relating to pricing, routes and 
capacity (United States Department of State, 2000). Another key development in the industry 
is the growth of the domestic airline industry since 2003. There are currently three domestic 
airlines offering service to various cities within Ghana. These three airlines are Starbow, 
African World Airlines and Antrak Air. In addition to offering service to domestic cities, 
Starbow and African World Airlines also offer service to cities within the West African sub-
region.  
 
 
 
 
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3.7 Importance of the Airline Industry to the Ghanaian Economy 
 
Air transport plays a pivotal role in supporting international trade, travel and tourism by 
being the most widely used means of transportation globally (Chan, 2000). There are three 
main modes of transportation in Ghana – by rail, by road or by air. A fourth lesser used 
method is by sea. Air transport in Ghana is however, the source of the majority of the inflows 
in terms of passenger numbers and value to the economy with the total number of passengers 
who travelled via the Kotoka International Airport in the excess of 1.6 million passengers in 
2013 (GCAA, 2013).  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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CHAPTER FOUR  
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 
 
4.0 Introduction 
This chapter provides a description of the methodology employed in this study. In relation to 
the objectives of the current study, this section offers a description of the research strategy, 
research design and the data analysis approach.  
 
4.1  Research Purpose 
The purpose of research in general is to provide a better understanding of an issue. Research 
can be explorative, descriptive or explanative (Robson, 2002). Nonetheless, some scholars 
opine that there are some special instances where a researcher may have to combine two of 
these approaches (Saunders et al., 2009). By this, Saunders et al. (2009) explain that a study 
can be both descriptive and explanatory at the same time depending on research questions 
postulated by the researcher. Additionally, aside the opportunity to combine two research 
purposes, Robson (2002) also admits that a researcher may also migrate from one research 
purpose to the other and thereby postulates that it is imperative for the researcher to ensure 
flexibility and adaptability to such change when needed. 
 
Explorative research focusses on seeking new insights, asking questions and gaining better 
understanding of an existing issue or phenomenon (Robson, 2002). In a similar vein, 
Saunders et al. (2009) also note that the exploratory approach is best when the study seeks to 
have a limpid comprehension of a phenomenon. Additionally, these authors also hold the 
view that this approach is better than other approaches, as it affords the researcher higher 
flexibility and adaptability to the changes that may occur during the research process. Adam 
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and Schvaneveldt (1991) note this flexibility is often demonstrated by the exploratory 
researcher’s ability to narrow in from a broader and diverse focus at the tail end of the 
research. 
 
Descriptive research, by its nomenclature, seeks to define in detail the profile of people, 
events or situations. According to some scholars, it offers a definitive account of a person, 
event or phenomenon (Robson, 2002). The approach is often suggested extensive approach 
the piggybacks on either exploratory or explanatory research. In this respect, the descriptive 
is often combined with other approaches to offer a deeper understanding of a phenomenon. In 
connection with this, some scholars have suggested the term “descripto-explanatory studies” 
to mean studies that start with a descriptive approach and ends up with an explanatory 
research (Saunders et al., 2009). 
 
Explanative research is directed at understanding a specific situation. Saunders et al. (2009) 
explain that explanatory researchers are often focused on establishing causality between 
factors. In this respect, such studies attempt to identify the independent and dependent 
variables within a given a phenomenon or event. The current research is primarily explorative 
in nature, as it seeks to gain a better understanding of service recovery as it relates to the 
airline industry.  
  
 
 
 
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4.2 Research Approach 
Two main research approaches have been popularized over the last two decades. These are 
the quantitative and qualitative research design. Scholars suggest the adoption of one of these 
research approaches may depend on the overall goal of the study. In this respect, such 
scholars suggest that studies that seek to discover new relationships often adopt the 
qualitative approach, whereas, those seeking to establish conclusion often adopt the 
quantitative approach to research (Malhotra, 2007).  In addition, some scholars associate the 
deductive and inductive design of research to the quantitative and qualitative respectively 
(Amaratunga et al., 2002). Saunders et al. (2009) explain that the deductive design focuses on 
collecting data before theory formulating a theory. Whereas, the inductive design considers 
hypothesizing before collecting data in that respect.   
 
The qualitative inductive approach was used in this research. The main reason for this choice 
was to provide a detailed understanding of the issue of service recovery. This detailed 
understanding can only be established by speaking directly to the people involved. 
Qualitative research captures the perspectives of participants in the study and not the values, 
preconceptions and meanings held by the researcher (Yin, 2011).  By employing the 
qualitative approach to research, this researcher collected data in a natural setting sensitive to 
the issue under investigation. The researcher interviewed management staff of the airlines 
selected as the sample interacting with them face-to-face. In contrast to a quantitative 
approach, where data collection instruments are sent out to respondents, the qualitative 
approach gathers data by directly talking to people who are related to the issues under 
investigation. The data analysis of a qualitative study is inductive in nature and establishes 
what the existing patterns and main themes are (Creswell, 2007).  
 
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The nature of qualitative research is also interpretative. This suggests that the researcher is 
required to construe meaning from the data collected. The interpretation of the data cannot be 
separated from the person of the researcher and their experience, background and prior 
understandings play a role in this process. Yin (2011) suggests that a qualitative study 
requires that the researcher has a well-grounded understanding of the area of study as a 
prerequisite for a successful study.  
 
 
4.3  Research Design and Strategy 
The research design speaks to the entire process of research – from the formulation of the 
research problem, establishing the research gaps, collecting data, data analysis and the 
interpretative inductive discussion of the findings, followed by essential proffering of 
recommendations for managerial adoption. Malhotra (2007) describes the research design as 
the framework that offers a description of the research process adopted by the researcher in 
carrying out the study. This goes to suggest that the research design serves as a guide to the 
researcher, and as a framework. It also serves as a monitoring tool to keep the researcher on 
the right track. In discussing the need for a research design, Guy et al. (1987) explain that 
adopting it ensures replicability, which further ensures objectivity. 
A qualitative methodology was used in this study to explore how airlines in Ghana apply 
service recovery strategies in their operations. According to Creswell (2007), there were three 
major methods of qualitative research that could have been used to address the purpose of 
this study. These are focus groups, case studies and depth interviews. Though focus groups 
and depth interviews could have applied to this study, the case study approach was chosen as 
the most appropriate. Even though focus groups were valuable to provide information from 
different sources at the same time, having participants from different airlines in the same 
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focus group will not yield the best results. This is because the airline industry is competitive 
and participants would not be generous with information in the presence of their competitors. 
In the same vein, depth interviews would not have been the best option given its unstructured 
mode of investigation through discussion. Multiple case studies were adopted to explore 
different single entities and collect detailed information to show different perspectives on the 
issue of service recovery within a bounded system (Yin, 2009).  
 
4.4 Population and Sample Selection 
The study is focused on the airline industry and, therefore, all airlines in the industry 
operating in Ghana makes up the population i.e. a total of 26 airlines. Since the study is an 
industry-wide investigation, it was necessary to use multiple cases instead of a single case. 
This approach was selected to provide an in-depth understanding of service recovery system 
of the airline industry. In essence, therefore, this study was done through data collection from 
interviews and a perusal of the extant literature. The purposive sampling method was used to 
select the airlines in this study. The purposive sampling approach was used as this ensures 
that the data collected from the sample is the most relevant to the study (Yin, 2011). 
 
The sample covered management of five airlines serving customers to the Middle East, West 
Africa, East Africa, North America and one airline that flies domestically within Ghana.  The 
choice of airlines for this study is based on three selection criteria. Firstly, based on the 
Ghana Civil Aviation Authority’s (2013) data of the geographical spread of passenger 
destination and secondly, based on the relevance to the study and finally based on industry 
endorsement of their operations by the Chartered Institute of Marketing – Ghana (CIMG, 
2014). This approach of sample selection is consistent with Yin’s (2011) approach to case 
study research.  
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Three of the five airlines were selected based on their geographical importance to the 
Ghanaian traveler. The Ghana Civil Aviation’s statistics of International Passenger 
Distribution (2013) indicates that 14.6% of passengers originating out of Ghana fly to the 
Middle East, 23.5% of passengers fly to West African destinations and 9.7% fly to Eastern 
African countries. Hence, one airline each from these three geographical locations was 
selected. The two other airlines, which will form part of the study were selected due to their 
relevance to the study and their endorsement by the Chartered Institute of Marketing, Ghana 
(CIMG). One of them, at the time of the study, was the only airline offering service to North 
America and the other was relevant as it served the domestic market with flights into Kumasi, 
Takoradi, Sunyani and Tamale. 
 
4.5 Sources of Data and Data Collection Methods 
There are two main sources of research data – primary data and secondary data. In this study, 
primary data was obtained by direct face-to-face interviews of management of the selected 
airlines. An interview guide was designed to provide some structure for the researcher’s 
interaction with the management of the airlines. This approach was selected because of the 
exploratory nature of the research, which required that perceptions and attitudes towards 
service recovery be uncovered. The study focused on service recovery from the firm’s 
perspective as such, the firm’s representatives (in management) were the interviewees. 
During the interviews, the seven constructs that this study focusses on were examined whilst 
focusing on achieving the research objectives. To this end, the discussions sought to uncover 
the existing systems and structures relating to comprehensiveness, decentralization, formality, 
accessibility, human intensity system intensity and influence. The interviews lasted between 
twenty to twenty-five minutes and there was an audio recording of the interview with the 
consent of the interviewee.  
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4.6 Data Analysis  
The method of analysis employed for the current study was a qualitative data analysis 
approach as suggested by Yin (2011). The approach followed five iterative stages – 
compiling, disassembling, reassembling interpreting and concluding. These five steps are 
described below:  
 
In the compiling stage, the recorded interviews were transcribed individually. Each of the 
five interviews was treated as an individual case and the transcripts were duly labelled as 
Case A, B, C, D, and E. The transcripts, therefore, formed the formal database of data for the 
study. Secondly, there was the disassembling stage at which the researcher has to study each 
case and retrieve the different themes in relation to the conceptual framework. This process 
provided a basis for the thematic analysis of the study. In this study, the individual themes 
were presented in tabular form after the individual case analysis. The third stage of the data 
analysis process was the reassembling stage. At this stage, there was a cross-case analysis 
with particular attention to the constructs in the conceptual framework. This stage allowed the 
researcher to draw out similarities among the cases as well as unique differences. The 
reassembling stage was then followed by the fourth stage – the interpretation stage. At the 
interpretation stage, the data was analyzed to draw out the actual issues and determine the 
findings based on the objectives of the study. The fifth and final stage was the concluding 
stage. This stage is where the findings of the study were presented and recommendations for 
practitioners were proffered.    
 
 
 
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4.7 Ethical Considerations 
With regard to the current study, several ethical considerations were made. This was mainly 
to ensure that the personal rights of the respondents were respected and given the necessary 
acknowledgements. The ethical considerations were mostly with regard to the researcher’s 
relationship and interaction with the respondents. These considerations were also necessary 
because most of the respondents consider their service recovery strategies as a strategic 
managerial tool that is used to gain a competitive advantage over their competitors.  
 
In view of this, such ethical assurances were necessary to ensure respondents could freely 
offer information about their firms without fear of having such information handed over or 
exposed to competitors. For this reason, the researcher had to discuss matters of 
confidentiality with the respondents, by which the researcher assured the respondents that 
information received by virtue of the current study would only be used for academic 
purposes. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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CHAPTER FIVE 
 
DATA ANALYSIS, FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 
 
 
5.0  Introduction 
 
This chapter presents the major findings of the study using a thematic analysis of the data 
collected through interviews with managers of five airlines in Ghana. The interviews were 
carried out to gain a better understanding of what pertains in the practice, application and 
perception of service recovery. Additionally, the chapter presents the findings from the interviews 
carried out and juxtaposes them with the extant literature in service management field. This includes a 
description of each case, a cross-case analysis and a discussion of key findings under each research 
question. The responses were then analysed under nine main themes. These are the seven constructs 
of the conceptual framework, an understanding of the concept of service recovery and their perception 
of service recovery’s importance to their business.   
 
5.1  Analysis of Individual Cases 
 
5.1.1 Case A  
 
Introduction 
The airline serves travellers within the West African sub-region. Statistics from the Ghana 
Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA, 2013) indicates that 23.5% of the total passenger traffic out 
of Accra flies to a destination within West Africa. As such, this airline serves an important 
segment of the Ghanaian travelling market. The airline operates from Accra to twenty-two 
destinations in West and Central Africa via its hub in Lomé, Togo. Its top five destinations out 
of Accra include Abuja, Dakar, Douala, Bamako and Conakry. The interviewee is the Sales 
Manager for Ghana who handles corporate accounts and travel accounts. He manages the 
airline’s local customer relationship management and acts as a liaison between the airline and 
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customers when there are issues relating to service recovery.   
 
Understanding of Service Recovery 
The interaction with this manager revealed a good understanding of what service recovery is 
and why it is needed for airlines in their delivery of service to customers. The interviewee 
indicated, “Service recovery is trying to get your dissatisfied customers satisfied”. In 
addition, the interviewee believes that service recovery contributes to improving the brand 
image of the airline and helps generate positive word of mouth.  
 
Formality 
Case A has laid down procedures for carrying out service recovery. These procedures are 
initiated when the airline becomes aware of a service failure and may be handled by different 
process owners within the airline. However, the final responsibility for resolution lies with 
the Country Manager. Depending on the calibre of the customer, either the Sales Manager or 
the Country Manager directly gets involved in the follow-up to the resolution process. After 
the issue is resolved, they also follow up to ensure that the customer is satisfied and there are 
no pending issues. The interviewee mentioned in the interview that, “when all is done, the 
country manager ensures that everything is sorted out and the customer is satisfied”.   
 
Even though the interviewee indicated that they have proactive service recovery measures, he 
was unable to explain in detail what they do proactively to recover service.  
 
 
 
 
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Decentralization 
Within the context of an airline, service recovery efforts are dependent largely on frontline 
staff. Frontline staff should be trained, empowered and motivated to carry out service. The 
interviewee indicated that frontline staffs are aware of the service recovery procedures and 
are able to handle the service recovery effort to some extent. However, their level of 
participation in the process is limited and require authorization to compensate customers. As 
an example, he indicated,  
“If a customer complains that he can’t find his or her luggage, we give the customer 
$50 instantly as transportation whilst we attempt to locate the bag. This is known by 
all our staff and they are authorized to offer this amount instantly. However, if the 
customer has missing items, the frontline staff needs assistance from a supervisor to 
process the complaint and compensation”.   
 
The decision on what to defer to a supervisor is dependent on the level of authorization the 
frontline staff has and there are procedures for that as well. The first thing the frontline agent 
must do in all situations is to offer an explanation. In some instances, passengers do not get 
information because the travel agency they purchased their ticket from failed to pass on the 
information. When this is not done and a dissatisfied customer shows up at the airport, the 
interviewee stated,  
“we don’t blame the agent instead we apologise and then explain the situation to the 
customer. After explaining to the customer, we look for alternatives that can suit the 
customer’s needs. If the frontline agent is not able to fully handle the situation, they 
can request assistance from a supervisor”.  
 
 
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Human Intensity 
Concerning human intensity, Case A provides quarterly customer service training for staff. 
The respondent answered by stating, “we organize quarterly customer service training which 
includes how to handle complaints and customers who are dissatisfied with our service”.  
There is the collaboration between frontline staff and management in the process and 
depending on the magnitude of the service failure; handling may have to be escalated to 
management.   
 
System Intensity  
The company has no specific budget allocated to service recovery and resources are 
disbursed depending on the situation that arises. The interviewee stated,  
“There is no set amount or specific budget for service recovery issues. Basically, it is 
addressed when it comes”.   
 
There are, however, specific amounts for specific incidents. For instance with delayed 
baggage, customers are immediately given $50 cash for first needs and transportation. 
Monitoring the service recovery processes is an important step in ensuring that recovery is 
effective. This is done mainly through follow-ups by the sales manager or the country 
manager after the recovery activities have been completed.  
 
Comprehensiveness 
The respondent agreed that there is a wide range of possible service failures within the 
service encounter between the airline and the customer. Service recovery, therefore, 
anticipates several scenarios. However, the interviewee indicated that the main service failure 
incidents had to do with baggage - loss, delay or damage. The interviewee revealed,  
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“We once had a minister on travel on us and one of his bags did not arrive. The first 
thing we did was to report the incident to operations…we could not find his bag after 
a few attempts. He took us to court but before the court case ended, we found his bag 
and all its contents were intact. We made sure he was satisfied and has a good 
perception of us”.  
 
Accessibility 
For this case, customers may complain through their travel agents whom they purchased their 
tickets from or directly through published contact information. He added that this information 
is published on the ticket jackets handed when they buy tickets directly from the airline. 
Unfortunately, since a good number of the customers purchase tickets through travel agents, 
they do not have the airlines contact information and may have to rely on their travel agents 
to pass on information. It is, therefore, common that some dissatisfied customers may go 
unnoticed. The interviewee asserted,  
“Sometimes customers are not able to reach us with their complaints and agents may not 
pass it on. Also, customers who get our ticket jackets do not read the information on it which 
includes how to reach us if something goes wrong”.  
 
Influence 
The type of customer and the type of service failure has an impact on the levels of 
compensation offered. There is a standard level of compensation that all customers are 
entitled to, but Case A “pays special attention to frequent flyers and loyal customers” by 
ensuring they are well taken care of but do not offer them more compensation to them.  
 
 
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Perception of the Importance of Service Recovery 
When asked what the importance of service recovery is to the business, Case A indicated that 
it helps the airline maintain its customers and win back dissatisfied customers. A good service 
recovery effort provides an opportunity for the airline to gain positive word of mouth since 
customers are likely to tell other people about their experience. The main challenge Case A 
faced with service recovery is that of,  
“internal bureaucracy which slows down the processing time of issues relating to service 
recovery and, therefore, customers tend to have to wait for protracted periods for responses 
further aggravating the situation”. However, the challenge is not significant enough to deter 
the continued commitment to ensuring that whenever there is a service failure, the airlines 
does its best to win the customer back. 
  
5.1.2  Case B 
 
Introduction 
Case B is an airline that flies to the United States of America. At the time of this study was 
the only airline offering service from Accra to its hub in New York. The airline commenced 
service to Accra in December 2006 and has maintained a minimum frequency of four flights 
a week. The interviewee is the Ticketing Supervisor in charge of the City Ticket Office 
(CTO) and the Field Ticket Office (at the airport) and is the customer care handler for the 
airline in Ghana. 
 
 Understanding Service Recovery 
Case B described service recovery as being an effort to please an aggrieved customer and to 
ensure they return to the airline after a service failure has occurred.  
 
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Formality  
The presence of a structured, laid-down procedure for handling service recovery exists in 
Case B. There are procedures for medallion passengers and for regular passengers:  
“medallion customers are customers who are our frequent flyers and are loyal to us. 
They also spend a lot of money on us so we go the extra mile to take care of them 
when there are service failures. So even if it means we have to lose money, we do 
whatever we have to do to make sure the medallion customer is happy and they keep 
coming back to us”.  
 Additionally, there are procedures for the “general public” which is the standard procedure 
for every customer who experiences a service failure. Some of the service failures may be 
due to the attitude of staff during the check-in process or due to the fact that a customer is 
asked to pay a fee they are not happy. When they complain,  
“we have a procedure to ensure that they are also taken care of. We have a toll-free number, 
which is for the customer care desk in the U.S., and customers can call that number and get 
assistance. They can also get assistance directly from us in Ghana as their first point of 
contact”.  
 
In relation to proactive service recovery, Case B provides information and compensation to 
customers when they anticipate a service disruption. For instance, if a flight will be delayed, 
Case B is aware before the customer is and ensures that all customers who may be impacted 
are informed and alternative arrangements offered to them. This ensures that even before the 
customer notices the service failure, there is some service recovery option available, reducing 
the level of dissatisfaction.   
 
 
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The complaint handling procedure starts from the point the customer makes the complaint. 
Most complaints are done directly to the airline at the City Ticket Office to frontline staff of 
the airline or at the airport at to any representative of the airline. Case B has special 
supervisors on duty at the airports that are referred to as “Red Coats”. These supervisors have 
the ability to resolve customer issues in a prompt manner and on the spot.  
“They go the extra mile to assist customers and ensure that their issues are resolved. When a 
customer writes to us, their complaint is handled by the customer care desk in Atlanta. Some 
of those complaints are handled locally by me and we make sure we do our best to regain the 
customer’s confidence”.  
For medallion customers who complain, Case B offers travel vouchers, refunds, 
complimentary upgrades or bonus miles. Travel vouchers are not transferrable to other 
customers and must be used within a twelve-month period.  
 
Decentralization 
Frontline staff are trained to know what the procedures for managing service failures and 
carrying out service recovery and are expected to be able to offer some level of assistance. 
However, frontline staff can handle not all situations and depending on the gravity of the 
issue; a supervisor may be needed to assist. Staff are aware of the procedures and are required 
to follow through.  In instances where the front line staff is able to assist the customer, they 
are required to report to a supervisor after the fact and document the interaction with the 
customer into the customers’ reservation.  
“This allows the next agent who assists the customer to know what has already been 
offered and to have some background to the encounter the airline has had with the 
particular customer”. Staffs are empowered to handle customer complaints and where 
they are unable to do so fully, request assistance from a supervisor”.  
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Human Intensity 
In relation to the role, staff play in carrying out service recovery, Case B relies heavily on its 
frontline staff as the first point of contact. As such, they also provide quarterly training for 
customer facing staff and annual refresher courses. 
 
System Intensity 
The resource allocation of Case B was not clear. This was evidenced by the fact that the 
interviewee had no knowledge of budgetary allocation for the purpose of service recovery. 
Even though she affirmed that there is an allocation, no amounts were indicated. The 
effectiveness of service recovery by Case B is monitored mainly through feedback from 
customers. “Customers have sent us compliments on a number of occasions after we have 
recovered their service”. Understandably, Case B affirmed that no all their agents stick to the 
laid down procedures at all times. They are allowed to use some amount of discretion. 
Frontline staff are trained to follow the procedures but are empowered to make some 
exceptions.  
 
Comprehensiveness 
Case B focusses mainly on flight disruptions in its service recovery efforts. Even though 
there could be a number of other service failure incidents, the local need was related mainly 
to flight disruptions. This is because this is the most frequent service failures they encounter. 
With flight disruptions Case B does not wait to receive complaints, they compensate all 
passengers impacted.  
 
 
 
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Accessibility 
Customers can complain to Case B through three main channels – directly to their staff, in 
writing by email or online through their website. The interviewee indicated that their 
medallion customers are aware of these procedures. The regular non-medallions are more 
inclined to complain to the first point of contact and not go through the formal modes of 
complaining. They concede that some customers do not complain.  
 
Influence 
Interestingly, Case B does not offer special treatment to different categories of customers 
when they are in the same service failure situation. The interviewer probed further to find out 
if medallion customers did not get preferential treatment and the interviewee indicated,  
“We don’t compensate medallions more than regular customers”.  
 
Perception of the Importance of Service Recovery 
Case B perception of service recovery importance to the business is that it is very important. 
The interviewee opined that service recovery when properly handled could lead to positive 
word of mouth as well as repeat business. She noted, “Service recovery helps improve the 
overall service to the customer and has the potential to improve the industry’s image to the 
public”. Even though there are challenges relating to the cost of service recovery, Case B 
believes the benefits far outweigh the challenges.  
 
 
 
 
 
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5.1.3 Case C 
 
Introduction  
Case C is a member of the Sky Team Alliance and a leading African airline flying to 65 
destinations worldwide, 38 of which are in Africa. It offers service to approximately three 
million passengers annually. The interviewee for this case is the Sales Executive in charge of 
Ghana and has worked with the airline for five years. He has a total of ten years’ experience 
in customer service and sales in the airline industry in Ghana.  
  
Understanding of Service Recovery 
In giving a brief explanation of what service recovery is, Case C explained that anything that 
occurs to a customer out of what they expect from the airline is a service failure. If a guest 
goes through an unexpected incident, the airline has the responsibility to resolve the situation 
in the form of compensation for the passenger’s loss. The process of getting the customer to 
regain confidence in the airline is what service recovery is according to Case C.  
  
Formality 
With regards to whether there are laid down procedures for handling service recovery, Case C 
indicated they do have a procedure. This procedure is initiated when a customer complains 
and the customer service desk begins the process of recovery. A customers with a complaint 
can go online to their website to complain or send an email to the office locally or 
internationally to the headquarters. When proactivity is needed, for instance, when there is an 
operational failure, the airline relies on the staff at the scene carry out service recovery. The 
interviewee stated that the cabin crew are required to apologise and explain when there are 
service failures.   
 
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Decentralization 
Frontline staff of Case C are not able to handle complaints directly at their level. They are 
required to refer all complaints to the customer service desk who handles them. Even though 
they know what the procedures are, they do not process complaints. The interview added that 
“Frontline staff are required to get all the necessary information of what the customer’s issue 
is and then pass them on to the customer care desk to be processed”.  
 
Human Intensity 
All staff of this airline are expected to be able to listen to a customer’s complaint and transfer 
a customer to be assisted by the appropriate individual or office. Therefore, Case C trains and 
ensures that frontline staff are able to process customers through the initial stages of filling 
out a complaint form and re-directing them to where they will get the needed assistance. 
Training is a pivotal part of the process and so staff have quarterly training and daily briefing 
to keep them abreast with new trends.  
 
System Intensity 
Regarding the resource allocation committed to the airline’s service recovery efforts, Case C 
was unable to provide anything concrete.  Even though he stated that there was a budgetary 
allocation, the amount involved was not known. Monitoring the effectiveness of the system is 
also important and Case C considers sales and repeat business as a direct consequence of 
effective service recovery. The airline has an  
“Opportunity to Improve (OTI) measurement matrix which is monitored on a monthly basis. 
This OTI matrix is usually seen as an indication of progress in handling complaints vis-à-vis 
the number of complaints received during the period and the number of resolved cases”.  
 
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Comprehensiveness 
In explaining the comprehensiveness of the service recovery strategy of Case C, the 
interviewee highlighted a concentration on operational failures like flight cancellations and 
delays, delayed or lost.  
 
Accessibility 
Customers can contact Case C through email, social media or directly by calling or visiting 
the airline’s office. Some customers who are not aware of these channels may complain 
through their travel agencies. The website is the main source of information. Customers who 
need assistance with situations are more likely to get assistance from using links provided 
online.  
 
Influence 
There is a basic level of compensation for every customer. Case C adheres to the “guidelines 
provided by ICAO’s Warsaw Convention”.  
 
Perception of the Importance of Service Recovery 
In response to the question of what the importance of service recovery is, the interviewee 
stated that service recovery is a differentiator and sets one airline apart from the others. Case 
C was of the opinion that taking service recovery seriously was important to ensure that 
customers are well taken care of. The interviewee provided information of what the airline 
was doing to improve the customer experience; including developing a new terminal in their 
hub, changing their aircraft to one with more capacity to transport baggage in a better 
manner, and changing the uniforms of its cabin crew.   
 
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The biggest challenge Case C perceived of service recovery was the fact that sometimes 
nothing an airline does to try to win back a customer works. He, however, added that some 
situations could not be resolved or compensated for. In spite of the challenges, the benefits 
make it expedient for an airline to focus on having effective service recovery systems.  
 
5.1.4 Case D 
 
Introduction  
The only domestic airline in this study, Case D is significant because it serves a unique 
segment of the market – the domestic traveller. Case D commenced domestic flights in 2011 
and expanded into the West African region. It has since suspended its international service 
due to weak demand. It currently flies from its hub in Accra to Kumasi, Takoradi and Tamale. 
The interviewee is the Sales Manager of the airline with ten years cumulative experience in 
the airline industry having worked with two other airlines in Togo and Ghana. 
 
Understanding of Service Recovery 
The perspective given to the meaning of service recovery by Case D was an interesting one. 
Service recovery was explained in a very broad sense as  
“All the activities that happen after the sale and after the passenger has used the service. It is 
the airline’s last chance to please the customer”.  
 
Formality 
In providing an indication of the level of formality of their approach to service recovery, Case 
D highlighted the channels through which customers complain and how their complaints are 
handled. The Customer Care Manager is in charge of handling these complaints and that 
individual reports to the Sales Manager. The first step is to thoroughly investigate the incident 
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as reported by the passenger, liaising with the appropriate department and then providing 
support for a conclusion of the matter. In some instances, Case D indicated that the resolution 
of the complaint could be by offering “a simple official apology or a commercial gesture”. 
The “commercial gesture” he explained was in the form of “compensation”.  
 
Proactive service recovery was usually carried out in direct response to the anticipation of 
operational failures like flight cancellations or delays. In situations like that, the list of 
passengers affected is generated and they are informed of the anticipated incident and an 
apology is rendered. The interviewee, however, admitted, “This is not done often”. 
  
Decentralization 
The presence of procedure does not in itself suggest that a procedure will work. The frontline 
staff must also know this procedure and be able to apply it. Case D admitted that even 
through frontline staff know the procedure; they are not empowered to be able to readily 
assist customers without having to refer to a supervisor. This he attributed to the level of 
access they have to the Global Distribution System (GDS), which is their reservations 
software for ticket sales. The frontline staff can only process transactions within the limit of 
their access and have to refer all other issues to a supervisor.  The presence of the airport 
station manager at the airport during flight operations makes it a seamless process for airport 
front line staff to get assistance for customers readily. This was however not the case for 
ticketing agents in the sales offices who were spatially distant from their direct report.   
 
 
 
 
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Human Intensity 
The human resource of Case D is crucial to their operation. The interviewee emphasized that 
the “Their people were their most important asset and they fully rely on them to provide 
service to customers”. Even though he believed that technology had a part to play in service 
recovery, the people were the pivot. He was of the opinion that every office within their 
organisation should have at least one person who could readily solve customer issues without 
having to do it from a centralized point all the time. As part of the induction process for new 
hires, customer service training is done. “We’ve done some training for them in the past, but 
we need to take it a step further to empower them. Currently, we are not there yet. That would 
be our next step”.  
 
System Intensity 
There was no information available on the airlines resource allocation towards service 
recovery.  Monitoring the system is done through direct reporting from the customer care 
manager to the sales manager at weekly management meetings. At these meetings, they 
discuss all customer related issues that have reached the desk of the customer care manager. 
He, however, stated, “Not all complaints get to the customer care manager”. When asked 
how the airline’s management ensures staff follow through on laid down procedures, Case 
D’s response was “This is a really hard question. We only know what comes to the customer 
care desk”. This is an indication that some complaints may go unnoticed.  
 
Comprehensiveness 
Service recovery for Case D depends on the type of service failure. This airline mainly 
anticipates that failures will be due to either operational challenges or sales issues. 
Operational challenges have to do with the flight, on-time departure or delays. Sales issues 
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were mainly due to errors by staff – wrong input of data, cancelled reservations, and general 
mistakes in processing customer requests.  
  
Accessibility 
Case D provides customers an option to complain via their website “Contact us” tab. The 
interviewee, however, believes that their main channels are direct complaints in their office or 
through the call centre. Emails are also an option customers have, but they hardly use this as 
a method of contact. Sadly, he noted that “having worked in Ghana for some time now, I have 
observed that Ghanaian customers do not complain, they simply walk away and never come 
back”.  
 
Influence 
There may be a slight difference between what different customers receive but Case D offers 
compensation based on ICAO’s regulations under the Warsaw Convention. They tend to treat 
each case as a unique one and approach the offers of compensation on a case-by-case basis.  
 
Perception of the Importance of Service Recovery 
As an indication of the premium Case D places on service recovery, the interviewee indicated 
that service recovery is the firm’s last chance to get a customer back. Although he admits the 
airline has some processes in place, there was the need for more effort. “Everybody should be 
empowered to take a decision; up to a level obviously so that customer complaints can be 
sorted out quickly”. To achieve the level of service Case D plans to offer, training and 
empowerment are needed. “Training is expensive and compensation is also a cost to us but 
for me the most important thing is empowerment”. “The benefits of service recovery are 
enormous”, he added.  
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5.1.5 Case E  
 
Introduction 
This airline has offered service from Accra into its hub in Dubai for a decade. Case E 
provides service to a significant segment of the travelling market for both business and 
pleasure. The airline operates daily flights into Dubai with connections to 142 destinations in 
80 countries. The interviewee is the Sales Manager of the airline with five years’ experience 
in the industry.  
 
Understanding of Service Recovery 
Case E believes that service recovery is an attempt at exceeding the customer’s expectations 
when things go wrong. Service recovery is therefore needed to gain back the customer’s 
confidence. Providing an example, the interviewee used operational delays, which affect 
customers’ schedules. Service recovery is, therefore, the attempt to get the customer to “love 
us again”.  
 
Formality 
The airline has laid down rules to carry out service recovery and this is dependent on the 
failure type. Some failures are due to ticketing errors or airport challenges. The complaint 
handling procedure starts from when the customer complains. An investigation is carried out 
to understand fully what went wrong so that the airline can apologise and improve in the 
future. In being proactive, Case E has procedures in places as well. For instance, in an 
overbooking situation, the airline is aware before the flight by checking the flight loads and 
offers passenger options to accommodate them on other flights.  
 
 
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Decentralization 
Case E handles service recovery access based on the magnitude of the complaint. Frontline 
staff are able to handle generic complaints. Other more serious service failures have to be 
fully investigated to before they are handled. However, frontline staff are empowered to 
handle the basic complaints like a cancelled flight needing a reroute or a delayed bag needed 
to be tracked for recovery. Any issue a frontline agent is not able to handle is referred to the 
“customer service officer who looks into the issue, finds out what exactly happened and deals 
with it. She has the requisite training to handle these things”, he stated.  
 
Human Intensity 
The frontline staff are an integral part of the process and the customer service officer works 
closely with them to resolve customer issues. Training is done in a discursive manner at staff 
meetings where all staff are able to discuss their experiences and share with other team 
members on best practises. This is aside the more specific training that staff are taken through 
in their home country.  
 
System Intensity 
Case E does not have a specific resource allocation for service recovery. Resources are 
allocated on a case-by-case basis. Monitoring the effectiveness of the processes is based on 
customer feedback. Even though staff are aware of the procedure for handling complaints and 
there is a presence of a customer care officer, there is no method for ensuring that staff follow 
through on these procedures. Case E assumes that the importance of the customer to the 
business should compel the frontline staff to act on the complaint. “When a customer goes to 
the extent of writing out a complaint, it means that the customer feels this is very important. 
We take that very seriously. We have an officer who handles these complaints directly, logs 
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them and ensures all issues are resolved”.  
 
Comprehensiveness 
The main issues that Case E encounters in terms of service failures are related to operational 
delays and overbooking of flights. The other issues that come up as customer feedback are 
customers “inability to reach us via our call centre. So we now have a new call centre to be 
able to measure the call centre productivity and be able to query unproductive staff”. The 
airline also manages customer wait time in their office and ensures that frontline staff are 
readily available to assist customers who walk into the office at all times.  
 
Accessibility 
Customers can provide feedback through email, the call centre over the phone or directly by 
walking to the office to make a complaint. Our contact information is available on our 
website and customers to have easy access to this. He stated, “It is published on our website 
and if they are dissatisfied with anything they can contact us. We also have a feedback form 
on board all our flights”.  
 
Influence 
For two customers involved in the same service failure, the cabin of service the customer was 
in will be the first differentiator of compensation is offered to each customer.  Aside this, 
compensation is offered equally.  
 
 
 
 
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Perception of the Importance of Service Recovery 
Case E strives to achieve zero service failures by being the best in the industry. The airline 
has won several awards including best for on-time departures out of Accra, best for business 
class travel and best in economy service. The objective is to offer service that is so good that 
it is a key differentiator. The challenges encountered are “people challenges”. Customers who 
are difficult to please or staff who are unwilling to give off their best”.  
 
 
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Table 5.2 Summary of Cases 
 
Elements 
 
Case A 
 
Case B 
 
Case C 
 
Case D 
 
Case E 
Understanding of 
Service recovery 
Trying to get dissatisfied 
customers satisfied. 
Service recovery has 
implications for the brand 
image and generates 
positive word of mouth 
An effort to please an 
aggrieved customer and to 
ensure that they return to 
the airline.  
Anything outside of what 
the customer expects and 
what the airline has 
promised to offer is a 
service failure. 
 
Service recovery is when 
the airline takes the 
responsibility to regain the 
customer’s confidence.  
The effort by the airline to 
fix anything that goes 
wrong after the customer 
has used the service. The 
last chance to win a 
customer’s confidence.  
Service recovery is the 
attempt by the airline to 
exceed the expectations of 
a dissatisfied customer.  
Formality The laid down procedure 
is initiated when the 
airline becomes aware of a 
service failure. Either by a 
complaint or by their own 
internal mechanisms.  
 
Proactive measures were 
not a priority. 
 
There are procedures for 
handling complaints and 
priority is given to 
frequent flyers.  
 
 
 
Proactive measures are in 
place to anticipate 
dissatisfaction due to 
operational failures and 
compensation is offered 
before customers 
complain.  
Complaints are handled 
and managed by the 
customer service desk.  
 
On-board handling can be 
done by cabin crew when 
there is an operational 
delay.  
 
Proactive measures are 
mainly related to 
operational delays where 
customers are sent 
information on delayed 
flights.  
Service recovery is 
managed by the customer 
care manager who reports 
to the Sales Manager.  
 
Service recovery may 
conclude with an apology 
or a commercial gesture. 
 
 
Service recovery is 
handled by the Customer 
Service Officer.  
 
Proactively, service 
recovery is done by 
anticipating possible 
service failure points like 
the overbooking of 
business class.  
Decentralization There is some amount of 
decentralization. Frontline 
staff are aware of 
procedure but are not fully 
empowered to handle all 
cases completely.  
 
Frontline staff have the 
authority to handle a wide 
range service recovery 
options and simply report 
to a supervisor after the 
incident.  
 
Frontline staff are not able 
to handle complaints. 
They are required to 
collect information and 
pass it on to the Customer 
Care desk for handling.  
Frontline staff are not 
empowered to handle. All 
issues are deferred to a 
manager. The level of 
access they have in the 
GDS restricts them from 
being able to resolve 
Frontline staff can only 
handle basic complaints 
related to routing changes 
or initiate a claim on a 
missing or delayed bag.  
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Supervisors are usually 
referred to for full 
resolution. Senior 
Management gets 
involved depending on the 
type of customer and 
magnitude of the service 
failure.  
 
Where a frontline staff is 
unable to assist, “red 
coats” are available to 
assist at the airports. 
 
Staff are required to put 
remarks in the reservation 
of customers they assist as 
a form of record keeping 
and reporting. 
 
ticketing related 
complaints.  
Human Intensity There is quarterly training 
for staff and constant 
interaction between 
frontline and management 
to resolve issues.  
Service recovery is 
dependent on staff. 
Training is done quarterly 
and there are annual 
refresher courses.  
Training of staff is done 
during daily briefing 
sessions for staff at the 
airports and quarterly for 
the whole team.  
 
Training is done as part of 
their new hire orientation 
process and occasionally 
for the team.  
Training is done 
frequently through 
discussions with team and 
training.  
System Intensity There was no knowledge 
of budgetary allocation to 
service recovery. 
However, specific 
amounts are handed out as 
“first needs 
compensation” to 
customers when there are 
baggage delays. 
 
There was no knowledge 
of budgetary allocation for 
service recovery. 
 
Monitoring of the 
effectiveness of the 
system is based on 
customer feedback 
Opportunity To Improve 
(OTI) matrix is used as a 
tool to measure the 
effectiveness of service 
recovery and stations are 
queried.  
 
OTI success is based on 
customer feedback and 
repeat purchase from 
customers recovered.  
Monitoring of 
effectiveness is done 
through management 
reporting at management 
meetings. There is no 
system to ensure that staff 
follow through on 
complaints within their 
service recovery effort.  
Measuring effectiveness is 
based on customer 
feedback. 
Comprehensiveness Focus is on baggage 
related service failures, 
flight delays and 
cancellations.  
Focus is on flight 
disruptions as this was the 
most frequent service 
failure for this airline. 
Focus is on operational 
failures and baggage 
related service failures.  
Focus is on operational 
issues and ticketing errors 
by staff.  
Focus is on operational 
service failures 
Accessibility  Complaints can be via 
travel agents or directly. 
The information is printed 
on the airline’s ticket 
jackets but most 
customers do not notice it. 
Customers can complain 
directly to staff, via email 
or online via the website.  
 
Frequent flyers have more 
access to the airline and 
Customers can complain 
via Social Media, in 
person or by email. 
Contact information is 
published online.  
Online via their ‘Contact 
Us’ tab. Customers can 
also walk in and complain 
directly.  
 
Customer can provide 
feedback by filling out 
feedback forms on board 
the flight or online at the 
airline’s website 
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 are more aware of 
channels than non-
frequent flyers.  
Influence There are standard levels 
of compensation but 
frequent flyers are given 
preferential treatment. 
 
There is no preferential 
treatment for service 
recovery for frequent 
flyers.  
Standardized 
compensations based on 
ICAO’s Warsaw 
Convention.  
Complaints are handled 
on a case-by-case basis 
using the ICAO Warsaw 
convention as a guide.  
Compensation may be 
differently offered based 
on the cabin of service of 
the customer.  
Perception of the 
Importance 
An opportunity to win 
back a dissatisfied 
customer and generate 
positive word of mouth 
 
Bureaucracy as the 
biggest challenge leading 
to delays in response time.  
 
Very important. It leads to 
positive word of mouth as 
well as repeat business.  
 
 
Service recovery is a cost 
to the airline but its 
benefits far outweigh the 
costs.  
Service failures are being 
prevented by an 
investment into the 
service delivery. Better 
terminals at their hub and 
a switch to wider body 
aircraft, which can 
accommodate more bags.  
Service recovery could be 
approached in a better 
manner as it is that last 
chance for the airline to 
get it right with a 
customer.  
 
Staff need to be 
empowered for service 
recovery to be successful.  
There is an attempt to 
achieve ’zero defects’ but 
in the unlikely incident of 
a service failure, the 
airline must do everything 
to regain the customer’s 
confidence.  
 
 
 
 
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5.2 Cross-case Analysis and Discussion of Findings by Research Questions 
 
The individual analysis of each of the five cases used in this study was necessary to provide an 
understanding of what each case has in place to carry out service recovery. A cross-case analysis 
is necessary at this stage to provide a comparison of the cases and to extract the main themes.  
 
5.2.1 Cross-case Analysis for Research Question One  
 
The first research question sought to find out what service recovery strategies airlines in Ghana 
have in place. The sample of airline managers interviewed covered five key geographical 
destinations and their responses can be indicative of the general population of airlines. Their 
responses to addressing the first question can be addressed looking at the seven constructs of the 
conceptual framework of this study i.e. formality, decentralization, comprehensiveness, human 
intensity, system intensity, accessibility and influence.  
  
There was a good understanding of what service recovery is amongst all five cases in this study. 
Interestingly, all cases indicated that customer satisfaction after a service failure was necessary to 
win a customer back to the airline. There was a general understanding that things can go wrong 
during the service encounter and airlines had to ensure they worked on regaining the customer’s 
confidence. Case E was alone in their approach to service delivery by striving to ensure there 
were no service failures in the first place. Case E maintains that its service delivery is its key 
differentiator and as such commits significant resources and training to ensure the customer is 
happy the first time. Case D described service recovery as the airlines “last chance to win the 
customer’s confidence”.  
 
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In relation to the formality construct in answering the first objective of this study, there was also 
a general trend of some amount of laid-down procedure for carrying out service recovery. Cases 
B, D and E have all customer complaints managed by a Customer Care desk or officer. This 
suggests that there is a structure and laid-down procedure for handling service recovery. When 
customers complain, the managers in charge are responsible for ensuring that they investigate the 
issues and resolve them – either by offering an apology or compensation. Case A and Case C 
managed service recovery in a collaborative manner between different functional departments 
within the airline. In the situation of in Case A, service recovery was handled by the either the 
airport station manager or the sales manager. In Case C, the Ticketing Supervisor handles all 
customer care issues in collaboration with the Station Manager and an external customer service 
desk.  
 
Proactive service recovery has received little attention by all the airlines. Service recovery is 
carried out as a reaction to customer complaints. Case A had nothing in place to anticipate 
service failures and attempt to recover the service before the incident. The other four cases 
indicated that in situations where they anticipate a flight delay or cancellation (possibly due to 
weather), they are able to inform passengers ahead of time and offer an apology and 
compensation to mitigate their loss. Case C and Case E provided alternative routing options for 
passengers they anticipate would be impacted by operational disruptions. Case E had a peculiar 
situation where premium passengers flying in business class may be denied boarding due to 
overbooking during peak travel periods. Such customers were offered compensation and rerouted 
on a later date. All the cases in this study provide some amount of compensation to their 
customers.  
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The role of frontline staff in the service recovery process was also addressed by research 
question one under the decentralization construct. It is worth noting that even though the 
interviewees provide an indication of the importance of people as part of the service delivery 
process’, only Case B has frontline staff with some semblance of empowerment to be able to 
resolve customer complaints and be actively part of the service recovery process. They are able 
to resolve customer issues relating to operational disruptions and report to a supervisor after the 
incident has been resolved. Additionally, they had red coats (supervisors) on duty at the airport to 
assist customers who had situations, which were beyond the frontline staff’s technical ability to 
resolve. All other cases required that their frontline staff collect some required information from 
the customer and pass that on to a supervisor who handle the issue from that point onwards. Case 
D’s restrictions on frontline went beyond guidelines to the technology they used. Frontline staff 
had limited access to their Global Distribution System (GDS), which is the computer software 
used to sell tickets, so they were also limited in how much assistance they could provide to 
customers.  
 
Training of staff was a generally observed practice amongst all five cases albeit to varying 
extents. Cases A, B and C provide quarterly customer care training (locally and in their home 
countries). This is done to prevent service failures as well as handle service recovery in the event 
of service failures. However, Case D and E had a less structured approach to training with Case 
D stating, “We have some training, but it could be more”. Case E has training as part of staff 
discussions.  
 
 
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Unfortunately, none of the airlines was able to give any concrete indication of resource allocation 
towards service recovery. The fact that all those interviewed were management level staff yet 
were unable to give the interviewer any indication of their resource commitment to service 
recovery is an indication that the decision for such things is made at a higher level, may be 
handled at a higher level than that of the interviewee or that such an allocation is non-existent. 
Moreover, the airlines in this study seemed not to have any clear indication on how they monitor 
the effectiveness of their service recovery efforts outside of customer feedback. The only 
exception to this was Case C that has an Opportunity To Improve (OTI) matrix, which is used to 
measure the effectiveness of service recovery through the number of resolved complaints and 
repeat purchase from a customer who has previously complained. Case D measures effectiveness 
based on management reporting but when asked how they ensure that the recovery procedures 
are followed through, the response was “we only know what gets to the customer care manager’s 
desk”  
 
It is worth noting that the cases in this study focussed their service recovery efforts on 
operational service failures – flight cancellations and delays. Only Case D indicated service 
failures due to ticketing errors causes by their staff. Additionally, Case C had a received a good 
number of complaints relating to the delayed arrival of passenger baggage. They had identified 
that this was due to the size of the aircraft they previously used out of Accra. As such, they had 
recently upgraded to a wider body aircraft to be able to transport all passenger bags. None of the 
airlines focussed on people failures. Customers who have experienced service failures have a 
number of channels through which they can gain access to the airlines in this study. The main 
channels included in-person interactions in the airline sales offices, online through social media 
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or their website, by email or over the phone. Interestingly, Case D noted that “having worked in 
Ghana for some time now, I have observed that Ghanaians don’t complain, they walk away and 
never come back”. Case E provides onboard feedback forms to facilitate feedback. The 
dominance of online options by Cases A, B, C, and E is evidently not the preferred mode of 
contact for domestic passengers flying on Case D. The interview revealed that not only do they 
receive very few complaints; the complaints are mainly in-person directly in their office. The fact 
that they do not receive complaints is because their customers are more likely not to complain. A 
fact that the interviewee attributed to the peculiarities of the Ghanaian customer. The presence of 
a social media option was peculiar to Case C.  
 
The ICAO Warsaw Convention provided the basis for airlines in this study to provide 
compensation for service failures. Case A and B provided some preferential service and in some 
cases different compensation for their frequent flyers and loyal customers. However, they 
emphasized that the compensation levels are standardized. Case E, on the other hand, focussed 
more on their premium passengers in carrying out service recovery. They ensured that their 
business class passengers were well taken care of at all times as these passengers accounted for a 
larger volume of business to the airline. Interestingly, Case B, which indicated that it, provided 
preferential treatment to its medallion customers but did not offer higher compensation to this 
segment. Even when the interviewer probed, the interviewee indicated that the compensation 
levels were the “same across board”.  
 
 
 
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5.2.2 Discussion of Findings for Research Question One 
 
In discussing the findings under research question one; the study has revealed three main areas of 
deficiency amongst the airlines in this study and by extension the industry of focus. These are - a 
lack of decentralization, a lack of proper systems to track service recovery (system intensity) and 
a lack of comprehensiveness. These three issues are discussed with reference to the extant 
literature within the service management field.  
 
Lack of Decentralization 
The importance of the frontline staff in service recovery has received extensive attention in the 
extant literature (Bitner et al., 1990; Hart et al., 1990; Heskett et al., 1994; Lorenzoni & Lewis, 
2004; Wen & Chi, 2013; Hinson, Owusu-Frimpong & Dasah, 2011). Their role in ensuring that 
service recovery is effective is hinged on the fact that frontline staff must be well trained and 
empowered to assist customers (Hinson, 2006). Additionally, the extant literature suggests that 
frontline staff that are trained and empowered have been noted to have higher levels of job 
satisfaction, which translates to customer satisfaction (Heskett & Schlesinger, 1994). The 
service-profit chain suggests that the level of job satisfaction of frontline staff is directly linked 
to the level of service they offer customers and invariably the profitability of the firm (Heskett & 
Schlesinger, 1994). Unfortunately, the interaction with all the cases revealed that airline staff in 
Ghana are not able to fully handle issues of service recovery. They are mainly able to process 
complaints by collecting information, filling out forms and then referring the customer to a 
supervisor. This suggests that the processing of complaints will be a longer one and lead to 
higher levels of dissatisfaction.  
 
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Hinson (2006) affirms that a properly managed complaint management system provides valuable 
feedback to firms and firms must ensure that complaints are processed promptly. To break 
customer silence and encourage feedback, firms must be seen to be acting promptly when they 
receive complaints (Hart et al., 1990). International airlines like Cases A who have to work with 
an external office in processing customer complaints are likely to be slow in their resolution of 
customer issues leading to increased levels of customer dissatisfaction. Case A indicated in the 
interview that one of their challenges is that of “…bureaucracy when complaints get to the head 
office, it takes time before we get feedback”.   
 
By taking into consideration Atalik’s (2007) guidelines for handling complaints, the inability of 
frontline staff to start and finish the process from the point the customer complaints to the point 
of resolution casts further doubts on the effectiveness of service recovery in the airline industry 
in Ghana. As indicated by Cases C, D and E, the frontline that may be the first point of contact 
for the customer is required to hand over information to a customer service desk or officer who 
continues the process. Interestingly, there was no mechanism to ensure that, that procedure is 
complied with and staff is processing complaints through to their logical conclusion. This 
supports the assertion by Hart et al., (1990) that over fifty percent of companies who receive 
complaints fail to respond to them and by such actions reinforce the customer’s original negative 
perception of the firm. 
 
 
 
 
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Lack of System Intensity 
The second key finding under research question one is the lack of system intensity. Aside from 
the inability of any of the cases to give any clear indication of financial commitment to service 
recovery, only Case C had a system in place to measure the effectiveness of service recovery. All 
other cases relied on customer feedback which, considering the fact that only five to ten percent 
of customers actually complains, (Tax & Brown, 2012; Hinson, 2006), relying on customer 
feedback is not tenable. Instead of complaining, customers are likely to silently walk away and 
switch airlines or in some cases try to gain attention by spreading negative word of mouth about 
the airline (Narteh, 2013).  
 
Lack of Comprehensiveness in the Approach 
Thirdly, there was a lack of comprehensiveness in the approach to service recovery. Of the five 
cases, four of the airlines relied fully on customer complaints instead of being proactive in their 
approach. Proactivity was limited to Cases B and E who contacted customers when a service 
failure was anticipated. Service recovery goes beyond complaint handling to being a proactive 
effort by firms to anticipate service failures and address them promptly (Komunda & 
Osarenkhoe, 2012). In this vein, Case B and E were able to provide evidence of some attempts at 
this. However, the focus on possible service failures was fully skewed towards operational 
failures – flight cancellations, delays and overbooking. People failures (Keaveney, 1995) were 
downplayed in all the cases. These people failures included the fact that airline staff are noted to 
have consistently bad attitudes when handling customers in service failure situations (Bamford & 
Xystouri, 2005). 
 
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5.3. Cross-case Data Analysis for Research Question Two 
 
Research question two was to determine what the perception of airline management is towards 
service recovery. The interviewer found out the managers interviewed understood by service 
recovery, what the benefits and challenges of service recovery. Most importantly, whether or not 
they felt the challenges of service recovery outweighed the benefits.  
 
There was a general agreement that service recovery was crucial to an airline’s attempt towards 
maintaining its customers. Customer who were dissatisfied needed to be appeased and their 
custom maintained. The airlines detailed that service recovery was necessary and had its benefits. 
Some of the benefits highlighted were positive word of mouth, regaining customer confidence 
and exceeding customer expectations. Aside of Case E who approached service recovery from 
the perspective of getting it right the first time, the other cases believed it was near-impossible 
for things not to go wrong with airlines because of the myriad of issues that were outside of the 
scope of control of the airline.  
 
The challenges of service recovery as stated by the manager interviewed included bureaucracy, 
the cost implications to the airline, the inability to satisfy customers after a service failure and the 
lack of empowered frontline staff that are not able to assist customers fully. Bureaucracy in 
processing complaints affected the speed of response to dissatisfied customers, which in turn led 
to more dissatisfaction. The cost implications suggested by Case B include the cost of 
compensation and refunds to the airline. Additionally, there is a cost of service failure, which 
cannot be quantified in monetary terms – negative word of mouth as well as a negative 
perception of the brand.  
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There was a consensus that service recovery was important for their business and the industry as 
a whole. Emphatically, Case E mentioned that airlines must attempt not to have any errors and 
service recovery should only be a contingency. Case D stated that the inability of frontline staff 
to be able to assist customers was their biggest challenge and were optimistic that once this is 
addressed, service recovery will be more effective.  
 
5.3.1 Discussion of Findings for Research Question Two 
 
The benefit of service recovery to the airline is the key finding of research question two. The 
airlines detailed their perception of the benefits and challenges of service recovery. As supported 
by the service management literature, the benefits of service recovery are extensive. These 
benefits include - enhancing customers’ perception of the quality of the service and the 
organization, positive word of mouth, enhancing customer satisfaction and building customer 
relationships and loyalty (Komunda & Osarenkhoe, 2012). There is the acceptance of the fact 
that customer loyalty has a positive influence on organisational performance (Atalik, 2007). The 
recovery paradox supports the assertion that customers who have experienced a service failure 
and have also experienced effective service recovery are more loyal than customers who have 
not experienced a service failure at all (Hart et al., 1990).  
 
The cost implication of service recovery in terms of the accounting costs was one of the 
challenges mentioned by the airlines in this study. However, Zhu et al. (2004) suggest that cost 
the firm incurs is not limited to accounting costs only, but should rather be viewed as value the 
firm offers the customer after a service failure. Finally, not being able to meet customer’s 
expectations is directly linked to their perception of fairness. Customers evaluate recovery efforts 
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by firms in terms of the outcomes, procedures involved and interaction they have with the firm 
during the process (Prasongsukarn & Patterson, 2012). As such, airlines must ensure that they 
are there is the effective management of all three forms of justice for service recovery to be 
effective (Prasongsukarn & Patterson, 2012). 
 
5.4 Cross-case Data Analysis for Research Question Three 
 
The third research question of this study sought to find out how airlines apply service recovery 
systems in their handling of service failures. During the interviews, the interviewer probed on 
how the airlines ensure that laid down procedures are followed through by their staff as well as 
how they measured and ensured that their efforts in service recovery were successful. The 
interviewer deduced from the interview and the discussions that there was the minimal 
application of proactive service recovery across all the cases as the airlines were more reactive in 
their approach.  
 
Generally, all the cases were more likely to apply service recovery when they were made aware 
of a service failure. This meant that in the event that a customer did not complain, there was the 
possibility that no service recovery will be carried out. The only exception to this was in flight 
cancellation situations where the airlines attempted to contact customers so they were aware of 
the situation prior to arrival at the airport. Case A was unique in offering an instant compensation 
of $50 to a customer who had not received their luggage upon arrival in Accra. This amount was 
to cater for first needs and transportation of the customer whilst the airline tried to track and 
retrieve their bags. This offer of compensation is consistent with service recovery attributes. Case 
C mentioned that where necessary, they rely on cabin crew to provide apologise for flight delays. 
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This approach of rendering an apology is consistent with all the airline and Case D remarking, 
“Sometimes, a simple apology is all that is needed”. To offer compensation in the form of a 
refund or a monetary compensation for loss of time or property to a passengers, Cases A, B, C, 
and D all used the ICAO standards in providing compensation to customers. This suggests that 
they offered a standard compensation to customers. Case E distinguished its offering of 
compensation based on the cabin of service and of the customer. Cases A and B provided some 
preferential treatment to its frequent flyers but maintained a standard compensation for all 
customers in a particular service failure situation.  
 
5.4.1 Discussion of Findings for Research Question Three 
 
The key findings under research question two are related to the degree of formality, influence of 
different types of customers on the type of resolution offered or applied and how airlines resolve 
service failures – relating to the use of service recovery attributes.  
 
Overall, the interviews provided evidence that there was some degree of formality in the 
approach to service recovery. All the cases had complaints handled by a manager in charge or a 
specialized desk. However, there was the absence of service blue prints. Service standards are set 
by service blueprints, which enable recovery to take place without the customer even having to 
make a complaint (Tax & Brown, 2012). The formality reduces the amount of variance that the 
customer will experience in their interaction with the company as the company is usually in a 
state of readiness to address possible service failures (Smith et al., 2012). The airlines in this 
study were more reactive and relied on their staff for good nature to follow through on 
procedure.  
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The practice of offering compensation by airlines is consistent with the opinion of Narteh (2013) 
who opines that an effective complaint management system should form part of the service 
recovery system and should include apologies and compensation where losses are suffered. The 
customer perceives the compensation or apology as satisfactory based on their perception of 
fairness (Smith et al., 1999). Therefore, how the customer interacts with the firm, the procedure 
they are taken through as well as the outcome collectively have implications for how the 
customer perceives the service recovery attempt by the airline (Smith et al., 1999). Interestingly, 
customer influence played an insignificant role in what was offered to customers by way of 
compensation. Even though two cases out of five made some provision for their frequent flyers to be 
handled in a preferential manner, they did not offer any additional compensation to this segment of 
customers.  This is inconsistent with what scholars like Kotler and Armstrong (2010) and Smith et al., 
(2009) who are of the opinion that the customer lifetime value has implications on the level of 
compensation offered to customers in situations of service failure.  
 
5.5 Chapter Summary 
 
This chapter has provided an interpretation of the findings from interviewing five managers in 
five airlines in Ghana. The interviews were conducted to answer the research questions with 
particular focus on the constructs of the conceptual framework.  This chapter forms the basis of 
the last chapter, which covers the summary of the study, conclusions and recommendations. 
 
 
 
 
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CHAPTER SIX 
 
SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 
 
 
6.0  Introduction 
 
This thesis has explored the application of service recovery by airlines in the airline industry in 
Ghana. A review of extant literature provided the basis for the study and its focus on the firm’s 
perspective. This chapter is a summary of the research findings, conclusions from the research 
outcomes, recommendations for the firms within the selected industry as well as suggestions for 
future research in the area. The chapter also presents the summary of the findings under each 
research question.  
 
6.1 Summary of Findings  
 
6.1.1 Service Recovery Strategies in the Airline Industry 
 
There is a general acceptance of the need for service recovery and its importance for airlines in 
this study. However, there is little structure to the approach to service recovery. Even though 
there are processes, there is no emphasis on monitoring to ensure that their staff follows through 
procedures internally. The inability of most frontline staff to readily assist customer who are 
dissatisfied and recover the service promptly suggests that these airlines are yet to fully grasp the 
importance of service recovery. Their inability to assist customers, who could lead to further 
dissatisfaction, was quite glaring. Furthermore, the inability of any of the managers interviewed 
to give a clear indication of resource allocation is an indication of a more centralized approach to 
service recovery, which places approvals, and authorizations to external offices beyond the scope 
of the local manager.  
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Therefore, the study revealed lacked of decentralization in their approach to service recovery in 
the airline industry. The interviews revealed that airline frontline staffs were unable to resolve 
customer issues without having to defer to a supervisor. Not only does this lead to delays in 
processing customer complaints, but also leads to higher levels of dissatisfaction. The four 
international airlines in this study also relied on external offices outside of Ghana to assist in 
carrying service recovery. This increased the processing time and effectiveness of the service 
recovery effort. Even though frontline staff were received training in customer service, they were 
not empowered in most cases to be able to provide prompt assistance to customers when there 
were service failures.  
 
Secondly, the study revealed that the majority (four out of five airlines interviewed) did not have 
any scientific approach to tracking effectiveness of their service recovery efforts. They relied 
fully on the feedback from their customers. They also had no way of ensuring that complaints 
received were processed and seen through to their logical conclusion. In most cases, they relied 
on the good nature of their staff to ensure that complaints were processed. The interaction with 
the airlines also revealed that even though they practise service recovery, they do not do so in a 
proactive manner in most cases. They rely a lot on customer complaints.  
 
The airlines have some structure in their approach to service recovery and have specific process 
owners within their teams who handle service recovery. There was however, the absence of 
service blueprints to ensure that the procedures are followed through and effectively executed. 
The firms in this study were not able to provide any indication of budgetary allocation towards 
handling service recovery and that suggests further lack of decentralization, so the local 
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managers are not aware of it or the absence of such a commitment.  
 
Finally, the approach to service recovery was narrow and limited to operational disruptions and 
baggage delays or loss. Interestingly, they airlines did not mention issues relating to customer 
service or people failures. This suggests that this is an area that been neglected by airlines yet 
could be potentially problematic for them.  
 
6.1.2 The Perception of Airline Management of the Importance of Service Recovery  
 
There is a positive perception of airline management towards service recovery. They believe it is 
important and necessary for customer retention. Even though they encounter some challenges, 
they do not see the challenges as outweighing the benefits. Some of the benefits they mentioned 
included – generating positive word of mouth, improving brand image, contributing to customer 
satisfaction and enhancing the customers’ perception of service quality. Even though they faced 
challenges in carrying out service recovery, they believed that the benefits they derived by 
effectively recovering from service failures outweighed the challenges they face. More 
importantly, the managers interviewed agreed service recovery need more attention their 
respective airlines as well as the industry. 
 
6.1.3 The Application of Service Recovery 
 
The airlines apply service recovery attributes in their operations albeit not in a comprehensive 
manner. There is some semblance of formality as staff are aware of what procedures are in place 
and what has to be done. However, the focus was on complaint handling and not proactive 
service recovery. In addition, airlines offered apologies and compensation as resolution to service 
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failures. Case E who had a peculiar situation of overbooking, offered customer the option of the 
next available flight in addition to compensation for denying them their preferred flights. There 
was a good understanding of service recovery and it was being applied by airlines but in a 
limited manner.  
 
The third research objective was to find out how the airlines apply service recovery in their 
operations. The study revealed that the recovery attributes of apology, compensation and refunds 
were applied by the airlines. They adopted the International Civil Aviation Authority’s (ICAO) 
guidelines as provided for in the Warsaw Convention to compensate customers who experience 
service failures and loss. Contrary to the views of scholars in the service and management field 
suggesting that, recovery is influenced by the situation and the customer’s profile (Smith et al., 
2009, Atalik, 2007). Even though some airlines provided preferential treatment to their frequent 
flyers and loyal customers, the majority indicated they did not offer extra compensation based on 
loyalty.  
 
6.2  Conclusions  
 
The study conceptualized seven constructs in exploring the application of service recovery 
strategies by airlines in Ghana. These constructs of formality, decentralization, 
comprehensiveness, accessibility, human intensity, system intensity and influence provided the 
framework for the study. The research questions were therefore addressed with these constructs 
as the basis of enquiry.  
 
 
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First, the study revealed that airlines have service recovery strategies to ensure that when there 
are service failures, they are able to win the customer back. They do this by offering apologies or 
compensation. In some instances, refunds are offered for ticket purchases or fees charged. 
Service recovery carried out by the airlines is one within a formal structure of complaint 
handling and managed by either a customer care manager or a specialized desk. Even though 
they rely on their frontline staff, most of them are unable to assist customers, as they are not fully 
empowered to do so. There are some areas of possible service failures that airlines neglect in 
their planning of service recovery strategies. They focus mainly on operational disruptions and 
therefore neglect other service touch points, which may be sources of service failure.  
 
Since the airlines lack well laid down systems to track the effectiveness of service recovery, it 
can be concluded that a good number of complaints go unnoticed and unresolved. As such, their 
ability to regain customers after service failures would be a mirage. The fact that some customers 
would decide not to complain provides further evidence that levels of dissatisfaction may be high 
but not brought to the notice of these airlines. Customer may challenge their frustrations into 
spreading negative word of mouth about their experiences.  
Secondly, frontline customer facing staffs of airlines are not empowered to support service 
recovery efforts in a timely manner. Since they have to defer to supervising officers, they are not 
able to assist customer readily and that contributes to the negative sentiments of dissatisfaction 
by customers. The lack of full access by frontline staff within the global distribution systems of 
airlines, which limits what they can do on tickets, is worrying. Given the real-time nature of 
service delivery, the fact that air travel is time-bound, not being able to assist customers quickly 
is a challenge to service delivery.  
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Third, the inability of airlines to anticipate possible service failures in a proactive manner at all 
times, suggests that some service failures will not be recovered. The concentration of efforts 
towards operational disruptions was quite glaring. Even though the airlines operation is the core 
of its business, other service touch points where passengers interact with airline representatives 
may be sources of people failures.   
 
Fourth, the lack of monitoring within airlines to ensure that complaints are processed thoroughly 
and service failures are fully recovered from suggests that the approach to service recovery is not 
an effective one. They rely on their staff and assume that they will do what is best for the 
customer.  
 
Finally, the management of airlines have a positive perception towards service recovery. They 
know the benefits of service recovery and its impact on their business. Thus, the challenges they 
face does not deter them. This perception however, has to be translated into a full commitment to 
ensuring that service recovery is proactively carried out and outcomes are monitored strictly. 
Staff must be training and empowered to resolve customer issues where there are service failures 
in a timely manner.  
 
6.3  Recommendations for practitioners  
 
This study has provided insight into the airline industry and its application of service recovery 
strategies. The researcher’s interaction with the managers of the selected airlines provided a 
better understanding of what pertains in practise and exposed the deficiencies within their exiting 
approach. It is therefore expedient to proffer recommendations to practitioners. These are as 
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follows: 
1. Frontline staff must be fully trained and empowered to be able to assist customers who 
experience service failures in a very timely manner. It is therefore recommended that 
supervisor level access and authority must be granted to frontline staff that directly 
interface with customers. To this end, just like pertains in most airports, where the 
airline’s station manager is on duty or a supervisor is available to assist customer, staff in 
ticketing offices must also always have supervisory level staff available on hand to assist.  
2. Customers who take the time to complain must be appreciated and rewarded. If a 
customer takes the time to complain, the customer had done the organisation a great 
service. This customer must be rewarded with a speedy apology and possible resolution 
of their complaint. This will ensure that customers gain confidence in the complaint 
management system and continue to provide feedback.  
3. Airlines should not rely on their staff to do the right thing. They must put in place 
monitoring systems adopting simple but effective technology to monitor all complaints 
received and their resolutions. This will ensure that complaints do not go unnoticed and 
customers are not aggrieved.  
4. Service recovery must be comprehensive in its approach. This can be achieved by the 
adoption of service blueprints, which will include all possible customer touch points and 
anticipate areas of failure. Additionally, staff will be more prepared to address slip-ups 
when they are fully aware of the procedure and trained to address them. Without service 
blueprints, processes are not carried out systematically and errors and service failures are 
likely to be recurrent.  
 
 
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6.4  Limitations and Future Research  
 
The present study has been exploratory in nature and even though much effort was made to 
follow quality quantitative research approach, some limitations were encountered.  
The main challenge encountered was that of access to airline managers and their unwillingness to 
participate in the research. Only five airlines managers were interviewed to represent a 
population of twenty-seven airlines. This was because other airlines approached to be part of the 
study were reluctant to be interviewed. Even though the assurance of confidentiality and 
anonymity in the findings were assured, they were unwilling to participate. The ones that were 
interviewed were contacted severally and the interviewer was limited to the number of minutes 
to interact with each manager due to their busy work schedules.  
 
Future research into the area of service recovery in the industry would be recommended to focus 
on frontline staff and their role in practice from the perspective of the staff as well as the 
perspective of the customer receiving the service.  
Another recommended research area will be a quantitative study to explore the level of customer 
satisfaction after service recovery as an indication of the effectiveness of the service attempt by 
airlines.  
 
Finally, a mixed method approach to combine customer perspectives of service recovery and 
firm’s approach to service recovery. This will be to determine whether there is a direct 
relationship between the service recovery approach and the level of satisfaction of the customer 
receiving it. 
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APPENDIX -INTERVIEW GUIDE 
 
Briefing: Thank him/her for participation, introduce myself (name and occupation), define the 
situation for the interviewee (confidentiality, recording, about 15 minutes, plus a short discussion 
afterwards), briefly state the purpose of the interview, and ask if the interviewee has any 
questions before the interview. 
Name of interviewee: 
Job Title: 
Organisation: 
Length of service: 
Date of interview:   Time started:    Time completed: 
 
Objective 1: To explore the service recovery strategies of airlines in Ghana. 
1. Give a brief explanation of what you understand as service recovery  
2. Does your organization have laid down rules, procedures and processes for carrying out 
service recovery (Formality)? If yes, please explain the procedures for: 
a. Complaint handling procedures 
b. Proactive service recovery procedures 
3. Do your frontline employees know the procedures and are they able to make decisions on 
compensations, explanations, etc. on their own? Or do they need a supervisor’s approval 
(Decentralization) 
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4. What are the guidelines as to what the frontline staff can do and what has to be referred to 
a supervisor? 
5.  What scenarios does your service recovery strategy anticipate/cover? Get examples 
(Comprehensiveness). To aim here is to get a good idea of if they have a wholistic, all-
encompassing approach to service recovery of are they limited to a few possible areas of 
service failure. 
6.  How much involvement will you say your staff  have in the service recovery process? 
Do you depend on your frontline staff to handle complaints or is this a management 
function?  
7. How often do you have training of your staff to handle ( Human intensity) 
8. What type of resource commitment do you have towards service recovery in your 
organisation? Is there a set amount, conscious allocation of funds for research, data 
collection and gaining back dissatisfied customers?  
9. How do you monitor if the service recovery effort was successful? (System intensity)  
10. What are the routes through which customers can complain? Are your customers aware 
of the routes/channels? How have you published them? (Accessibility). 
11. Do you have any different levels of compensation for different categories of customers? 
If yes, what are they and what criteria is it based on? (Influence) 
 
 
 
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Objective 2: To ascertain perception of airline management and frontline staff towards service 
recovery.  
12. What do you think is the importance of service recovery to your business? 
13. What are some of the challenges you face in carrying out service recovery? 
14. Do the challenges outweigh the benefits? 
Objective 3: To ascertain the application of service recovery strategies by the airline industry 
in Ghana.  
15. In reference to Q2 – are the procedures applied? Is the procedure followed through and 
how do you ensure this is the case? 
 
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