Moving Towards Successful Complaint Management

Abstract

This chapter analyses the impact of customer complaint behaviour and classifies potential types of behaviour after a dissatisfying incident. Besides the opportunity of contacting a company directly, three alternative options are discussed which can be utilised by customers to vent their frustration. Thereafter, four different traditional complaint channels are introduced. This part is followed by a definition of social networks as a potentially emerging complaint channel. The remaining part of this chapter emphasizes the importance of complaint channels and describes three scientific theories which are important for customer satisfaction analysis: justice theory, behaviour theory and attribution theory. Each theory is described in detail and linked to the context of the study.Keywords Attribution theory Á Behaviour theory Á Communication channels Á Customer complaint behaviour Á Customer dissatisfaction Á Customer satisfaction Á Justice theory Á Online social networks This chapter begins with a system of customer complaint behaviour and highlights potential customer choices once a product or service failure has occurred (Sect. 2.1). A typology of existing communication channels for contacting companies is provided (Sect. 2.2) and extended by incorporating social networks into existing models (Sect. 2.3). After this, fundamental aspects of the underlying scientific theories are discussed (Sect. 2.4). Impact of Customer Complaint BehaviourCustomer Complaint Behaviour (CCB) has several antecedents, characteristics, and implications. To provide a consistent basis for this study, the term customer complaint behaviour can be defined as "a customer's protest to a firm with the goal of obtaining an exchange, a refund or an apology" (Larivet and Brouard 2010). However, researchers have shown that a certain dissatisfaction threshold needs to be crossed in order for customers to take action (Rust and Chung 2006). Thus, not

Understanding customers’ intention to use social network sites as complaint channel: an analysis of young customers’ perspectives

“…Furthermore, in light of business tools, SNSs can be used as tools for customer engagement. According to Garding & Bruns [11], SNSs have the potential as a new complaint channel to accommodate any complaints voiced by customers. Customers may use SNSs to file their complaints to companies.…”