Two studies were designed to explore several changes that occur in customers who engage in complaint behavior due to marketer failure. Study 1 analyzed whether customers' perceptions of corporate ethicality become activated after experiencing failure and recovery compared to before, such that perceived corporate social responsibility ('perceived CSR') emerges as an important criterion determining post-hoc attitudes and behaviors toward the firm. The analysis revealed that after the failure-recovery experience, the direct effect of perceived CSR on customer trust becomes stronger, and perceived CSR also exerts stronger indirect effects on repurchase intention and word-of-mouth intention through customer trust than before. Study 2 investigated the causes that promote customers' moral reasoning about corporate ethicality after the failure-recovery experience, analyzing the aftermath of negative emotions as moral intuitions arising at the time of failure and during the complaint behavior process. The study empirically demonstrated that negative emotions occurring at the point of failure have a direct adverse effect on customer trust, while negative emotions arising during the complaint behavior process have a direct adverse effect on perceived CSR. Furthermore, it identified the intriguing phenomenon that negative emotions generated during the complaint behavior process—that is, the recovery stage—rather than the failure stage, expand customers' evaluation domain of the firm from the private domain of the customer-firm relationship to the public domain of the firm-society relationship. This study contributes as an important link connecting two fields—service failure-recovery literature and corporate ethicality or perceived CSR—in a context where, despite the rich accumulation of failure-recovery literature, research connecting it to corporate ethicality or perceived CSR remains insufficient. Practically applicable implications were also derived from the research findings. The study's limitations were presented in conjunction with future research directions.