What failures cost (chapters 2 and 10)

• Shashank Rao, Stanley E. Griffis and Thomas J. Goldsby. “Failure to deliver? Linking online order fulfillment glitches with future purchase behavior.” Journal of Operations Management 29(7–8), 2011, 692–703.
• Basil Halperin, Benjamin Ho, John A. List and Ian Muir. “Toward an Understanding of the Economics of Apologies: Evidence from a Large-Scale Natural Field Experiment.” Economic Journal 132(641), 2022, 273–298. NBER working paper 25676.
• Alice Harter, Lucas Stich and Martin Spann. “The Effect of Delivery Time on Repurchase Behavior in Quick Commerce.” Journal of Service Research 28(2), 2025.
• Tim Norvell, Piyush Kumar and Mayukh Dass. “The Long-Term Impact of Service Failure and Recovery.” Cornell Hospitality Quarterly 59(4), 2018, 376–389.
• M. Serkan Akturk, Rakesh R. Mallipeddi and Xingzhi Jia. “Estimating impacts of logistics processes on online customer ratings: Consequences of providing technology-enabled order tracking data to customers.” Journal of Operations Management 68(6–7), 2022, 775–811.
• Celso Augusto de Matos, Jorge Luiz Henrique and Carlos Alberto Vargas Rossi. “Service Recovery Paradox: A Meta-Analysis.” Journal of Service Research 10(1), 2007, 60–77.
• Stefan Michel and Matthew L. Meuter. “The service recovery paradox: true but overrated?” International Journal of Service Industry Management 19(4), 2008, 441–457.

The failure index (chapter 3)

• National Institute of Standards and Technology. Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award 1990 recipient profile: Federal Express Corporation.
• Federal Express case study, Exhibit 4, “Service Quality Indicators” (copy read; publisher not stated in the copy).
• Federal Highway Administration. “The Use of Operations Objectives and Performance Measures in Private and Public Organizations,” FHWA-HOP-10-029, citing D. D. Morris and R. J. Baker, “Measuring What Matters,” California CPA, August 2003.
• Quirk’s. “Federal Express uses an ongoing study to track customer satisfaction,” November 1990.

Speed and the promise (chapter 4)

• Marshall L. Fisher, Santiago Gallino and Joseph Jiaqi Xu. “The Value of Rapid Delivery in Omnichannel Retailing.” Journal of Marketing Research 56(5), 2019, 732–748.
• Vinayak Deshpande and Pradeep K. Pendem. “Logistics Performance, Ratings, and Its Impact on Customer Purchasing Behavior and Sales in E-Commerce Platforms.” Manufacturing & Service Operations Management 25(3), 2023, 827–845.
• Shin Oblander and Kinshuk Jerath. “The Nonlinear Impact of Promised Delivery Time on Online Purchasing.” Manufacturing & Service Operations Management 28(4), 1051–1067; published online September 2025.
• Ruomeng Cui, Zhikun Lu, Tianshu Sun and Joseph M. Golden. “Sooner or Later? Promising Delivery Speed in Online Retail.” Manufacturing & Service Operations Management 26(1), 2024, 233–251. Emory Goizueta summary.
• Nooshin Salari, Sheng Liu and Zuo-Jun Max Shen. “Real-Time Delivery Time Forecasting and Promising in Online Retailing: When Will Your Package Arrive?” Manufacturing & Service Operations Management 24(3), 2022, 1421–1436.

Delay notices and the law (chapter 5)

• David H. Maister. “The Psychology of Waiting Lines.” In The Service Encounter, 1985.
• Shirley Taylor. “Waiting for Service: The Relationship between Delays and Evaluations of Service.” Journal of Marketing 58(2), 1994, 56–69.
• Angela M. Legg and Kate Sweeny. “Do You Want the Good News or the Bad News First? The Nature and Consequences of News Order Preferences.” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 40(3), 2014, 279–288.
• Federal Trade Commission. Mail, Internet, or Telephone Order Merchandise Rule, 16 CFR Part 435, as amended at 79 FR 55619, September 17, 2014; Business Guide to the FTC’s Mail, Internet, or Telephone Order Merchandise Rule, including the 2025 civil penalty amount.

Transparency (chapter 6)

• Ryan W. Buell and Michael I. Norton. “The Labor Illusion: How Operational Transparency Increases Perceived Value.” Management Science 57(9), 2011, 1564–1579.
• Ryan W. Buell, Tami Kim and Chia-Jung Tsay. “Creating Reciprocal Value Through Operational Transparency.” Management Science 63(6), 2017, 1673–1695.
• Ryan W. Buell, Ethan Porter and Michael I. Norton. “Surfacing the Submerged State: Operational Transparency Increases Trust in and Engagement with Government.” Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, 2021. INFORMS release, November 2021.
• Ryan W. Buell. “Operational Transparency.” Harvard Business Review, March–April 2019.

Contacts and effort (chapters 7 to 9)

• Bill Price and David Jaffe. The Best Service Is No Service. Jossey-Bass, 2008. Interview with Bill Price on the seven principles, CustomerThink.
• Bill Price. “For a Driving-Force Metric, Consider CPX.” CustomerThink, August 2005.
• Amazon.com. 2002 letter to shareholders.
• Matthew Dixon, Karen Freeman and Nick Toman. “Stop Trying to Delight Your Customers.” Harvard Business Review, July–August 2010. Figures as quoted by MeasuringU.
• Evert de Haan, Peter C. Verhoef and Thorsten Wiesel. “The predictive ability of different customer feedback metrics for retention.” International Journal of Research in Marketing 32(2), 2015, 195–206. Full text.

Continental (chapter 13)

• Marc Knez and Duncan Simester. “Firm-Wide Incentives and Mutual Monitoring at Continental Airlines.” Journal of Labor Economics 19(4), 2001, 743–772.
• Gordon Bethune. From Worst to First: Behind the Scenes of Continental’s Remarkable Comeback. Wiley, 1998.
• Wikipedia. Continental Airlines, on Bethune’s appointment in October 1994 and the airline’s rankings and J.D. Power awards.