Promotional games in service recovery: Luck works

This research proposes a proactive strategy for alleviating unfavorable post-failure consequences from a luck-based perspective-offering discounts through promotional games before service failures. Findings show that winning discounts through promotional games (vs. direct discounts) induces higher perceived luck, recovery expectancy, and customer forgiveness. Additionally, results indicate that in crowded environments, messages about the winning result framed as non-losses (vs. gains) are more effective in generating positive customer outcomes. However, in non-crowded environments, both types of message framing yield similar results. Findings bring new knowledge to an under-researched area-proactive service recovery and expand the literature on luck and promotional games in the tourism service recovery field. Results suggest hotels should proactively conduct promotional games to counteract negative post-failure influences.(c) 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

This research proposes a proactive strategy to mitigate unfavorable consequences after service failures by offering discounts through promotional games before failures. Results show that winning discounts through promotional games induces higher perceived luck, recovery expectancy, and customer forgiveness. Additionally, the framing of winning results as non-losses is more effective in crowded environments, while both framing types yield similar results in non-crowded environments. These findings contribute new knowledge to the under-researched area of proactive service recovery and expand the literature on luck and promotional games in the tourism service recovery field.