Breaking The Mold: Redefining Service Failure and Recovery

Service failure and recovery (SFR) is one of the most estab- lished areas inservice research. Yet despite the extensive body of knowledge, an alarming trend persists in practice: customers are experiencing more service failures than ever before, and an increasing number remain dissatisfied with the way organiza- tions address their issues (Customer Care Measurement and Consulting 2023). This disconnection between theory and prac- tice underscores the urgent need for what we term smart SFR— research that tackles real-world problems using innovative methods and contemporary theoretical frameworks. The notion of “being smart” reflects the importance of reconsidering “old” ways and encouraging the adoption of up-to-date practices. Recent literature reviews (e.g., Grégoire and Mattila 2021; Liu et al. 2024; Mirza et al. 2025; Van Vaerenbergh et al. 2019) highlight that SFR research often remains rooted in traditional paradigms, focusing on dyadic interactions between firms and complainers, established contexts (e.g., hospitality and bank- ing), traditional theories (e.g., justice and attribution), and familiar methodologies (e.g., scenario-based experiments). We argue that the evolving service landscape demands a smarter approach to SFR—one that ventures into new contexts, lever- ages emerging data sources, and adopts fresh theoretical, meth- odological, and analytical perspectives.