Why and when customers participate in service recovery: From the perspective of perceived group emotional intelligence

Abstract

Customer participation contributes to tourism service recovery effectiveness. However, few studies pinpoint specific group characteristics of employees that involve customers into recovery process. This study intends to unlock why and when perceived group emotional intelligence influence customers’ service recovery participation via four scenario-based experiments. Results indicate that (1) High (vs. low) perceived group emotional intelligence enhances customer participation in service recovery, rapport and customer trust sequentially mediate this relationship; (2) customer fatigue and customer inoculation exert moderating impacts on the effect of perceived group emotional intelligence on rapport. This research enriches out-group action mechanisms of group emotional intelligence and antecedents of customer participation in service recovery. Managerially, tourism firms are suggested to cultivate group emotional intelligence to facilitate favorable service recovery outcomes.