The Impact of Customer Complaint Behavior on Customer Satisfaction

Author: Iloka Benneth Chiemelie

Published: 15-October-2014

Conceptual model

Literature Review

Numerous researches have been done in the area of understanding consumer complaint behavior (Gountas & Gountas, 2007; Gursoy, McCleary, & Lepisito, 2007; Jones, McCleary, & Lepisoto, 2002; Kim & Chen, 2010; Singh, 1989, 1990; Susskind, 2005). A common consensus exist in the  area of consumers’ complaint behavior and it points to the fact that customers will always complain for one reason or the other, thus companies don’t necessary need to see such complaints as negative (Gursoy et al., 2007). Also, it has been noted that a customers who has experienced service shortfall and later meet with satisfactory consumer complaint resolution will likely be more satisfied than consumers who experienced no shortfall (Susskind, 2005), further pointing to the idea that customer’s complaint should not be always accorded sense of negativity. It is only by understanding customers complaints behavior that businesses can actually transform their service offering from something detrimental into a more positive experience for the customers, thus increasing loyalty and profitability in the process.

Consumer complaints is a form of litmus test that is used to judge the health of a give business. There is no way that recovery will be put to effect is there is no complaint (Singh and Wilkes, 1996, p. 353). Consumers complaint received by businesses are one of the vital tools that the business can use in the course of creating corrective actions in order to ensure that future customers don’t have the same unpleasant experience as the customers who actually complained. Evidence exist in the literatures that in most cases, consumers who experience service shortfalls will chose not to inform the businesses but will also decide not to return to the same business when they seek the same service, and they sometimes engage in negative publicity about that particular business (Jones, 2002). Some people do conceive the idea that complaining is important, worthwhile and a necessary function of consumerism, while it is conceived by others that such is not the case (Susskind, 2004). A number of factors can influence the decision of consumers to complain and as well as establish barriers to complaint and they are: severity of shortfall, personality of customers, and expected outcome from the complaint (Evanschitzky, Brock & Blut, 2011; Gronhaug & Zaltman, 1981; Jones et al., 2002; Kim & Chen, 2010; Susskind, 2004). It is of high important for the business to reduce the level of complaints towards their products and services as possible because it will make it easier for them to resolve issues with their customers during periods of difficulties. When a business reduces barriers to complaint, it will be able to create an environment where customers perceive their opinions to be important and complaints are then used for the benefit of both the company and the customers.

Customers have many reasons to complaint about any given product or service. Day and Landon (1977) highlighted the main purpose while consumers decide to file complaint as: seeking redress to an issue, complaining, and personal boycott. Seeking redress arises when the customer is in search of a remedy for shortfalls. One of the most common ways that business handle complaint is by issuing discount or offering other products that are complimentary to the one complained about. As noted by Day and Landon (1977), complaining is a form of communicating dissatisfaction for some reasons instead of just seeking redress. A good example of such comes when a notices information on the product is misspelled and complaints for the company to fix their spelling error. These customers are actually not dissatisfied, but instead they are just seeking to make the company aware of things they need to improve on. Finally, personal boycott occurs when a customer decides to discount the purchase of a given product as a result of experienced shortfall in that product but decides not to tell the company about it and Technical Assistance Research Program (as cited in Jones et al., 2002) noted that 90% of these customers are less likely to purchase from the company in the future. As a result of the volume of compensation that complaints are given, there is an emergent of people who engage in opportunistic complaint behavior in order to obtain the reward available for such. Thus, such people can purposely complaint for a given product or service with the intention to obtain items for discounted rate, or free or charge (Ro & Wong, 2012). Although the focus of this research is not on opportunistic complaint, it would be incomplete for this research to discard the opportunity of listing this as a reason why consumers decide to complaint. The difficulty experienced in opportunistic complain is customers who actually received no service shortfall have the same level of damage potential with customers who actually experienced some form of service shortfall.

Propensity of complain

The center of focus in numerous complaint research has been the propensity of guest to complain as a result of service failure (Evanchschitzky et al., 2011; Gursoy et al., 2007; Jones et. al 2002, Susskind, 2004; Kim & Chen, 2010). The main reason why such focus has been attributed to it is because businesses desire to receive as many complaints as possible but there is little time for handling these complaints. However, it should be noted that a good service recovery has the potential of turning angry customers into loyal customers (Susskind, 2005, p.165). Almost half of all dissatisfied customers decided not to complain directly to the businesses and three aim reasons have been cited for this. Customers will not complain when they think that such complain is not worth the time and efforts invested, they don’t know how or where to complain, or they think that nothing will be done even if they decide to complain (Lewis, 1987). When customers experience service shortfall and decide not to complain to the business, there have more of the potential to be much more damaging to the business (Susskind 2004, Susskind 2005).

In a different study, Gursoy (2007) made known that numerous factors can contribute to the propensity of consumers’ decision to complain and they include: Locus of Control, Interpersonal Influence and Price Consciousness. The proposal by Gursoy (2007) is that numerous factors exist outside the business’s control that can actually affect consumers’ complain propensity. Numerous studies have adopted the locus of control in predicting complain behavior (Gursoy et al., 2007; Huang & Chang, 2008; Kowalski, 1996). Consumers who exhibit internal locus of control seem to have a high level of complain due to their level of being able to take control away from the business that provides the poor experience, in order to resolve their dissatisfaction (Kowalski, 1996). Price consciousness is viewed as the extent of concern an individual exhibits about the price of a given product or service (Gursoy et al., 2007) and the more they are conscious about the price of a given product or service, the more likely they are going to complain. If a person is less conscious about the price of a given product or service, the person will be less likely to complain to anyone including the business, and this can prove to be problematic (Gursoy et al., 2007; Jones et al., 2002). Finally, the level of susceptibility to interpersonal influence is defined as the extent that an individual will likely be influenced by people around him/her, which include friends and family. Research evidences exist in support of this as having an influence on the propensity of consumers’ to complain n (Gursoy et al., 2007; Jones et al 2002).

Channels of complain

In actuality, consumers have made use of different channels in the course of complaining about their dissatisfaction with a given product or service. However, Susskind’s (2006) article listed four types of complaints as: face-to-face with manager, face-to-face with employee, written (letter, email, and internet), and comment card. Although these channels are in existence, there are numerous other ways that consumers can voice out their dissatisfaction. The newest method is through social media but it is not widely adopted. However, one can easily visualize that the growth of social media as a complain medium in the future is imminent due to its increasing level of penetration and adoption across countries, companies, and continents.

Day and Landon (1977) grouped consumer complaints into two different distinction. The first of such is categorized into action and no action. In its simple sense, no action is used to represent case where customers experience service shortfalls but decide not to complain and still remain loyal to the business. The action option means that customers’ complaint and they can stay or decide not to stay loyal with the business. The action section is divided into two segments as private action or public action. Private action comprises of boycotting the product or brand or customer might decide to engage in NWOM. Public action includes seeking a third-party complaint or legal action about the brand or product. This idea was further expanded into three possible responses as: voice (complaining to the company), private response (boycotting the brand), and third-party response (complaining to others and legal action) (Butelli, 2007).

Influence of dissatisfaction on consumers’ complaint behavior and brand loyalty

Understanding the potential behavior of a dissatisfied customer is in the best interest of the business owner and it is also important that the business understand the factor that influenced such behavioral response in order to reduce the extent of undesired response in the future. A review of literatures done on satisfaction and dissatisfaction in the organizational buyer behavior turns out limited insights in the area of understanding dissatisfaction response behavior. This is because majority of the literatures have focused on defining or measuring the outcomes of satisfaction (Backhaus and Bauer, 2000; Perkins, 1993; Schellhase, Hardock and Ohlwein, 1999) and examining limited outcomes of dissatisfaction such as exit intention and behavior (Barksdale, Powell and Hargrove, 1984; Giller and Matear, 2001, Jones, Mothersbaugh and Beatty, 2002).  In any case, Ping (1993; 1994; 1997) and Hibbard, Kumar and Stern (2001) developed model that can be used to understand the response behavior of customers in different business channels. The research conducted by Hansen, Swan and Powers (1996) also examined the extent of multiple dissatisfaction response behavior, but their finding came out with only clusters of similar responding groups.

There are numerous researches that have been done outside organizational buyer behavior and such researches can be traced to early times such as Hirschman’s response model (1970). Hirschman’s response model has been accorded widespread recognition in different areas of social science such as: political science, psychology, organizational behavior, and consumer behavior (Singh, 1991). The model is of the view that consumers react to dissatisfaction experienced from purchase decision by exiting the brand, voicing out their opinions, or remaining loyal to the brand (Hirschman, 1970; Singh, 1991). By existing the service provider, the customer is determined to sever relationship with the selling firm, but decision to voice out opinion is a clear demonstration of customers desire to change undesirable situation and seek for solution that will enhance overall satisfaction. Loyalty is a passive outcome of dissatisfaction, it is brought about by existing or voicing. In order to further expand the understanding already led down by the model, Singh (1990) took the model a step further by introducing another option to consumers which is somewhat similar with voicing, but required that classifications be made. This option is negative word-of-mouth; which involves the dissatisfied customer spreading the dissatisfaction experience to other potential consumers (Sing, 1990). A number of researches have come out strong in support of this model, and some of them have actually tested the antecedent on response behavior and found support for the effects discussed above and also for the use the model in response to differing variables (Ping, 1993; Ping, 1994; Ping, 1997; Hibbard, Kumar and Stern, 2001) within the channels settings. Thus, it is evidence that the model is reliable in terms of measuring effects of dissatisfaction on consumers’ complaint behavior and decision to stay loyal with a given brand.

Sing has also conducted extensive researches in response to the behavioral aspect of consumer dissatisfaction literatures and such researches include a typology of response styles of consumers (Sing, 198l; 1990; 1991). Hansen, Swan and Powers (1996) made use of Singh’s (1990) typology of consumers’ response style in the industrial market view in order to develop four groups of dissatisfaction as: complaint, wait and squawkers, activities and squawker. These groups where clustered in terms of their behavioral response to dissatisfying experience and the finding is that the behavioral response included decision to: do nothing, complain, switch to another brand, warn others, and take third-parry action. Thus, it is clear that dissatisfaction from product experience influence consumers loyalty and complaint behavior. The outcome can be negative or positive depending on the decision of a consumer to complaint or not.

Influence of personality on consumers’ complaint behavior and brand loyalty

Differences in terms of human thinking, feeling, and action has been determined for centuries with the aid of personality test. It is also important to understand that there are wide range of personality tested that can be used to test different aspects of an individual’s personality such as parenthood, education, socialization etc. In the realm of consumer behavior, a number of factors in an individual’s personality has been proven to have effect on complaint behavior (Frew & Shaw, 1999; Gountas & Gountas, 2006; Gursoy et al., 2007; Huang & Chang, 2008; Jones et al., 2002; Kowalski, 1996). Locus of Control (Gursey et al., 2007; Huang & Chang, 2008; Kowalski, 1996), Verbenke emotional types (Gountas & Gountas, 2006), price consciousness, Madrigal personality theories (Frew & Shaw, 1999), and interpersonal influence (Gursey et al., 2007) are the major personality feature that has been linked to complaint behavior. Besides these tests, there are other popular personality tests that have been used in the business world such as Meyers-Briggs, Jung, the Big Five, Keirsey temperament, Eysneck and color code. Although each of these tests have been used in academic studies and each having its own weakness and strengths, it is important to understand that each of these require huge commitment of time in order to be utilized accurately.

The  main reason why individual personality is widely acknowledge as a reliable source for measuring consumers’ complaint behavior and brand loyalty is because numerous researches (Frew & Shaw, 1999; Gountas & Gountas, 2007; Gursoy et al., 2007; Huang & Chang, 2008; Jones et al., 2002; Kowalski, 1996) have found it to be a perfect predictor of why consumers react the way they do. The most widely adopted aspect of personality as an influential factor on consumers’ complaint behavior is Locus of Control. One of the major reason for this is because numerous studies have shown that it is an accurate predictor of an individual’s propensity to complain (Gursey et al., 2007; Huang & Chang, 2008; Kowalski, 1996). Locus of Control is used as a measure of the extent of an individual’s perception that rewards are controlled by their actions, as the extent that rewards are controlled by external forces and not dependent on their action (Rotter, 1966). Thus, if a consumer perceives that his/her action controls the events that affects their lives, they are said to have an internal locus of control. However, if they perceive that external events outside of their own control determine the outcome of an event in their lives, they are said to have an external locus of control. As such, a customer with an external locus of control will believe more in luck, fate, and chances. On that note, the two dichotomies are blended by the old saying that “luck is when preparation meets opportunity.” Additionally, people have also adopted the locus of control as a form of defense mechanism against failure (Rotter, 1966). Many consumers will attribute their success to hard work and failure to bad luck.

From the above understanding, it is becomes clear that individual personality influences consumers’’ complaint behavior and decision to remain loyal with a given brand. This is because when consumers perceive their action as having direct influence on outcome of complaint decision, they will likely make such complaint (Nowicki & Strickland, 1973). Even when consumers are guided by external locus of control, they are also likely to seek the help of third-party in order to effect. In the same way, customers will likely stay loyal with a brand because they perceive the brand as being responsible and capable of addressing their complaints in the future. Thus, personality influences an individual’s complaint behavior and loyalty to a given brand.

Influence of emotion on consumers’ complaint behavior and brand loyalty

Besides the level of dissatisfaction and personality discussed above, emotion also influences and individual’s complaint behavior and brand loyalty (Gronhaug & Zaltman, 1981; Jones et al., 2002; Kim and Chen, 2010; Singh, 1990). Unlike the two earlier variable discussed, emotion has the highest level of influence because it shapes what the consumer feel about a given product or brand. Strong emotional attachment is key to strong loyalty because consumers with strong emotional attachment will find it very difficult to desert that particular brand. This is because their satisfaction is not influenced by other variables like price and quality, instead it is influenced by the inner joy derived from making use of the brand (Susskind, 2006). A number of studies have also been conducted in the area of understanding how emotional attachment of a consumer influences their complaint behavior and loyalty (Butelli, 2007; Day & Landon, 1977; Gountas & Gountas, 2004, 2007; Gursoy, Mcleary & Lepsito, 2007; Jones Mcleary & Lepsito, 2002). Findings from this studies indicate that consumers who attach strong level of emotion to brand seem themselves as part of the brand and as being a member of a strong family that cannot be broken part irrespective of whatever outcome experienced from making use of the brand. They are also encouraged by other members who showcase their strong commitment to the same brand, and their decision to stay loyal to that brand is somewhat personal instead of influenced. Thus, these consumers are less likely to complaint or exit the brand irrespective of whatever issue they experience in the course of making use of the brand. In the other hand, consumers with low level of emotional attachment experience somewhat lack of commitment to a brand are more likely to complaint and/or exit in the course of bad experience with that particular brand.

Influence of consumer complaint behavior on satisfactions

Figure 2.1: How consumer complaint behavior influences satisfaction

The overall finding from this research is summarized above, and it is that consumers’ complaint behavior influences brand loyalty. Such understanding is based on the three channels of decision making and complaint when consumers experience issues with their quality of product obtained. However, the outcome of such decision is greatly influenced by quality of service delivery. First, is consumer decides to handle the issue personally, the consumer will come to an instant conclusion to either stay or exit the brand. If the consumer decides to address the issue by voicing his or her opinion to the brand or by seeking the help of third-party, the consumer will come to the same decision to either stay or exit the brand depending on the quality of service recovery offered and reward obtained from such complain. Thus, it is evidenced from literature as demonstrated above that complaint behavior does influence satisfaction level of consumers, which then influences their decision to exist the brand or remain loyal.

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