The Role of Anger in a Leisure-Based Service Failure: Lessons for Recovery

Client upset is one of the greatest challenges for service providers. Anger, in particular, can have dramatic and negative effects on clients' responses to hospitality services and to the service providers themselves. This study explores how staff might best respond to angry clients. Guided by justice theory, psychological coping theory, and the service recovery literature, we examine conditions that generate anger among clients and how angry clients prefer to be involved in service recovery efforts. Specifically, we consider whether anger predicts clients' desire to co-create the recovery process. Participants (n = 271) responded to a hypothetical scenario describing a service failure common to hospitality and tourism settings. As expected, participants were most angry when the problem was perceived as severe and when they attributed blame to the provider. Further, anger (and not clients' personal traits) predicted greater preferences for co-created service recovery. We conclude with implications as they relate to understanding service recovery.