---
Title: "What Is Service Recovery? Steps and Examples"
Url: "https://computer.io/glossary/service-recovery"
Topic: "Customer service"
Description: "Service recovery is how a company responds after a service failure to fix the problem and win back the customer's trust. Steps, examples and best practices."
---

# What is service recovery?

Service recovery is how a company responds when its service fails, by acknowledging the problem, apologizing, fixing it quickly and often adding a goodwill gesture, so the customer's trust is restored and, ideally, their loyalty strengthened.

## Steps

1. Listen and acknowledge.
2. Apologize sincerely.
3. Fix the problem fast.
4. Offer appropriate compensation.
5. Follow up.
6. Fix the root cause.

## Example

A delayed shipment: the agent apologizes, upgrades shipping for free, adds a credit and confirms delivery.

## The service recovery paradox

Customers whose problems are handled very well can end up more loyal than those who never had a problem, though results vary.

## FAQ

### Why is service recovery important?

Failures happen; good recovery prevents churn and negative word of mouth.

### What is the service recovery paradox?

The idea that excellent recovery can increase loyalty beyond pre-failure levels.

### Can AI help with service recovery?

It can detect frustration, prioritize and offer approved remedies quickly.

## Related terms

- [Customer empathy](https://computer.io/glossary/customer-empathy)
- [Customer loyalty](https://computer.io/glossary/customer-loyalty)
- [How do you rebuild customer trust after a mistake?](https://computer.io/answers/how-to-rebuild-customer-trust)

## How Computer helps

- [Customer agent](https://devrev.ai/solutions/customer-agent)

## Further reading

- [The role of empathy in customer support](https://devrev.ai/blog/the-role-of-empathy-in-customer-support)