The Influence of Intangible Recovery Strategies on Consumer Forgiveness after Service Failure：The Moderating Roles of Consumers’lay Rationalism

Service recovery is an important way for businesses to recover consumers, and consumer forgiveness is an im- portant indicator of customer retention. Based on the background of service failure in online shopping, this paper explores the relationship between service recovery, consumer self-esteem, and consumer forgiveness from the perspective of consumer psychology. It also explores the moderating role of consumer rationalism between self- esteem and consumer forgiveness. Empirical results show that intangible recovery strategies can increase consumers’ self-esteem and, in turn, con- sumer forgiveness. Consumer’s level of lay rationalism moderates the relationship between self-esteem and con- sumer forgiveness; the higher consumer’s lay rationalism, the weaker the relationship.