ABSTRACT
This chapter illustrates how firms can appeal to their frontline providers and to travelers simultaneously. More specifically, if properly motivated, employees are more likely to participate in extra-role behavior in order to go the extra mile to please the customer. Hence devices for motivating employees, such as soliciting and implementing employee suggestions, are discussed. In addition, the chapter delves into the importance of designing top-rate service failure-recovery systems. Such failure-recovery systems have a marked influence on both customer and employee sentiments – when failures occur, customers have a heightened awareness of the service situation. Under the appropriate conditions, this heightened awareness allows an opportunity for the service provider to direct an excellent recovery effort and catapult customer post-failure satisfaction above its pre-failure level.
