The Impact of Relationship Type on Customer Loyalty in a Context of Service Failures

This article examines the impact of relationship type (true service relationship, pseudorelationship, and service encounter) on customers’ behavioral intentions in a context of service failures. Overall, the results from the two scenario-based experiments indicate that building a true service relationship with the customer might be a critical factor in ensuring customer loyalty with a failed recovery attempt. Moreover, the findings suggest that bonding the customer to the company might reduce customer resistance to premium prices.