Satisfaction with complaint handling: A replication study on its determinants in a business-to-business context

Abstract

Research on the drivers of satisfaction with complaint handling (SATCOM) underlines the importance of procedural, relational, and interactional justice (Orsingher et al. 2010). Since these SATCOM-studies are largely conducted in business-to-consumer (B2C) markets, it is unclear what drives SATCOM in business-to-business (B2B) markets. Therefore, we replicate the justice model in an industrial context and find significant differences for procedural justice and interactional justice but not for distributive justice. While distributive justice is equally important in both contexts, procedural justice is more important in B2B markets whereas interactional justice drives SATCOM only in B2C markets.

To be or not to be (loyal): Is there a recipe for customer loyalty in the B2B context?

“…In addition, in the B2B context the average transaction value is higher while the number of customers is lower than in consumer market. This enhances the importance of building an effective complaint management system (Brock, Blut, Evanschitzky, & Kenning, 2013). As such, a key premise of the current research is that a robust product returns management could help increase customer loyalty by overwhelming switching behaviors, in the form of a tacit switching cost.…”

Measuring client-based corporate reputation in B2B professional services: scale development and validation

“…Properly understanding reputation and its facets in a professional services context is important, given the growing interest in the literature devoted to professional service firms and their reputations (e.g., Brock et al, 2013;Hansen et al, 2008). Nachum (1999, p. 127) contends, "the price that a professional service firm is able to charge is strongly affected by its reputation in a manner that may not necessarily and not directly reflect its output level."…”

A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Business Complaint Management Expectations

“…Finally, distributive justice is also pursued as the buyer expects financial benefits and maintaining supplier and customer relationships. This suggests more granular results compared to the study of Brock et al (2013), which suggested that interactional justice drives satisfaction with complaint handling only in B2C markets. Our findings show that in long-term business relationships interactional justice plays a key role.…”