Service failures have been categorized by Bitner et al. (1990) according to employee behaviors when failures occur, relating to: the core service; requests for customized service; and unexpected employee action. A subsequent study (Bitner et al. 1994) included a typology of problematic customers, and Kelley et al (1993) and Hoffman et al. (1995) added product and policy failures. Further, Johnston (1994) classified sources of failure as attributable to the organization or the customer; and Armistead et al. (1995) offered three types of failure – service provider error, customer error, or associated organizational error ( e.g. air-traffic controllers on strike).
There are various consequences of service failures, namely