The tourism and hospitality industries are notably highly likely to experience service failures due to frequent contact with service personnel. These industries actively seek innovative strategies to enhance consumers’ post-recovery satisfaction without increasing costs. Drawing on social exchange theory and regulatory focus theory, this study examines whether uncertainty can be an effective recovery method for service failures through four experiments. Findings indicate that uncertainty can enhance perceived fun and post-recovery satisfaction in situations of low-severe failure severity and hedonic consumption. However, in cases of high-severity failures and utilitarian consumption, uncertainty can lead to perceived insincerity and reduce post-recovery satisfaction. We also investigate the moderating role of customer inoculation and find that customer inoculation is effective in amplifying the positive impact of the uncertainty effect and mitigating its negative impact. This paper expands the literature on uncertainty utilization and service recovery strategies by determining whether and when uncertainty is appropriate in service recovery.

中文翻译：

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盲盒会更有效吗？不确定性对消费者康复后满意度的影响

旅游和酒店业由于与服务人员的频繁接触而极有可能出现服务失败的情况。这些行业积极寻求创新策略，在不增加成本的情况下提高消费者的康复后满意度。本研究借鉴社会交换理论和监管焦点理论，通过四个实验来检验不确定性是否可以成为服务失败的有效恢复方法。研究结果表明，在低严重失败严重性和享乐消费的情况下，不确定性可以增强感知乐趣和恢复后满意度。然而，在严重失败和功利性消费的情况下，不确定性可能会导致人们认为不真诚并降低恢复后的满意度。我们还研究了客户预防的调节作用，发现客户预防可以有效放大不确定性效应的积极影响并减轻其负面影响。本文通过确定不确定性是否以及何时适合服务恢复，扩展了关于不确定性利用和服务恢复策略的文献。