ccasionally some businesses have customers who are initially dissatisfied with a service experience and then experience a high level of excellent service recovery, seemingly leading them to be even more satisfied and more likely to repurchase than if no problem had occurred at all; that is, they appear to be more satisfied after they experience a service failure than they otherwise would have been! 9 To illustrate, consider a rental car customer who arrives to check in and finds that no automobile is available of the size reserved and the price quoted. In an effort to recover, the car rental agent immediately upgrades this customer to a much better vehicle at the original price. The customer, thrilled with this compensation, reports that she is extremely satisfied with this experience, is even more impressed with the firm than she was before, and vows to be loyal into the future. Although such extreme instances are relatively rare, this idea—that an initially disappointed customer who has experienced good service recovery might be even more satisfied and loyal as a result—has been labeled the recovery paradox.