Key attributes of internal service recovery strategies as perceived by frontline food service employees

This paper reports on a study investigating key attributes of internal service recovery strategies from the perspectives of frontline food service employees in restaurants. Insights into the employees’ perceived importance of different attributes were obtained through the use of conjoint analysis. The study examined how customer-contact employees evaluate internal service recovery strategies, and revealed four key attributes of internal service recovery strategies—monetary reward, recognition, empowerment, and reward method consistency. The analysis indicated that the food servers surveyed, favored recovery strategies with attributes such as pay raises, recognition from colleagues, full empowerment, and a case-by-case reward method. This exploratory study can be used as a basis for restaurant service managers to develop successful service recovery strategies for their internal customers.