IMPACT OF RECOVERY SATISFACTION ON WORD OF MOUTH: THE MEDIATING ROLE OF CUSTOMER TRUST
Maleeha Shahid Sameeni  and Muhammad Rizwan 
ABSTRACT
Service failure can occur despite the best efforts of the company; it is a moment of truth for the company to handle the situation for retaining customers. The purpose of this study is to measure the impact of recovery satisfaction on word of mouth and also to determine mediating role of customer trust between variables of interest. Using purposive sampling technique, 400 responses were taken from the users of different telecommunication networks who faced some service failure in the recent past that has been successfully recovered. The findings reveal that the recovery satisfaction has a positive impact on customer trust in the company. Recovery satisfaction also positively affects word of mouth after a service failure occurs and successfully recovered. Further, customer trust significantly affects word of mouth and finally customer trust partially mediates the relationship between recovery satisfaction and word of mouth. This study is helpful for academia as it investigates influence of recovery satisfaction on one of the most viral marketing technique i.e. word of mouth. It will also help managers to understand how critical word of mouth and customer trust is, especially for service sector so that managers can allocate their company resources and prioritize their strategic initiatives after service failures.
KEYWORDS: Word of mouth, recovery satisfaction, trust, consumer behavior, services marketing