13.19 The influences of transaction history and a thank-you statement. A service failure is defined as any service-related problem (real or perceived) that transpires during a customer’s experience with a firm. In the hotel industry, there is a high human component, so these sorts of failures commonly occur regardless of extensive training and established policies. As a result, hotel firms must learn to effectively react to these failures. A recent study investigated the relationship between a consumer’s transaction history (levels: long and short) and an employee thank-you statement (levels: yes and no) on a consumer’s repurchase intent.¹³ Each subject was randomly assigned to one of the four treatment groups and asked to read some service failure/resolution scenarios and respond accordingly. Repurchase intent was measured using a nine-point scale. Here is a summary of the means: