Recovery Strategies of a Micro Restaurant in Nigeria: Implications on Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty

ABSTRACT Given the increasing lucrativeness and competitiveness of the restaurant industry in Nigeria, a number of micro operators have emerged, and many operate within a defined market such as university environments. Knowing the service failure and recovery strategies applicable to this set of restaurants is necessary in building customer satisfaction and loyalty after failure encounters. Since this knowledge is currently lacking in the literature, this study anchors on the justice theory to close the gap. First, an exploratory research helped to identify common service failures and recovery strategies in micro restaurants. Thereafter, a survey involving a purposive sample of 140 customers of a micro-restaurant was conducted and collected data assessed with Hierarchical Multiple Regression Analysis in SPSS 23.0. Findings indicate that the service recovery strategies significantly influence customer satisfaction and loyalty, with ‘sincere apology’ having the highest influence. Besides, failure severity was found to mediate the relationship between service recovery strategies and customer satisfaction/loyalty.