This study aims to reveal the relative effects of justice and authenticity on customer responses in service recovery. Prior research on service recovery has emphasized the cognitive aspects of recovery, namely justice and recovery satisfaction. However, at a time when many consumer studies consider not only the cognitive aspects of consumers but also their emotional and psychological dimensions, it is necessary to consider such aspects in service recovery as well. This study proposes authenticity in addition to justice as a service recovery measure and seeks to examine the differential effects these two recovery measures have on customer responses. Through this, the study aims to explore how justice and authenticity change customer responses experienced in service failure situations, leading to recovery. The research findings revealed that authenticity in service recovery efforts had a greater impact on customer forgiveness and recovery satisfaction than justice (distributive, procedural, and interactional justice), and that customer forgiveness had a greater impact on changes in customer emotions, evaluations, and behaviors than customer satisfaction. Specifically, authenticity was found to have a relatively greater impact not only on customers' recovery satisfaction but also on customer forgiveness compared to justice, which has been importantly cited as a recovery measure. Furthermore, customer forgiveness was found to reduce negative emotions and behaviors experienced in service failure situations and increase positive evaluations and behaviors more than recovery satisfaction. These research findings suggest that when companies seek to provide recovery measures in service failure situations, consideration of customers' psychological and emotional aspects is as important as their cognitive aspects. In other words, the findings point out that customers can recognize that service recovery can be achieved not only through the head but also through the heart, and that academic and practical examination of measures that can move customers' hearts is needed.