Consumer complaint behavior: Studies on behavioral dimensions and the impact of the Internet

Lynn M Goetzinger, Purdue University

Abstract

Consumer complaint behavior (CCB) is a complicated process that is not fully understood. The dual purposes of this dissertation are captured in two studies. Study One tests a proposed taxonomy of CCB that adds to prior research about complaint dimensionality. Previous classifications of CCB have resulted in the emergence of three commonly accepted dimensions of complaint behavior, including voice complaining (to seller), private complaining (to family members, friends, or acquaintances), and third-party complaining (to third-party agencies). The study proposes and empirically tests a fourth dimension of CCB, termed collective complaining. Collective complaints refer to complaints that are expressed openly to the general public through both offline (e.g. radio talk show, newspaper letter to the editor, picketing) and online (e.g. e-mail, complaint website, review website) channels. Results provide support for the inclusion of collective complaining as an additional dimension in the structure of CCB. This implies that theoretically, researchers should consider and include collective complaining when studying and modeling CCB. Study Two determines how the availability of the Internet has impacted CCB. Consumers are segmented based on whether the Internet has failed to contribute e-complaint behavior in addition to offline complaining (i.e. Failing), added to offline complaint behavior (i.e. Adding), replaced offline complaint behavior (i.e. Replacing), or encouraged online complaint behavior in the absence of offline complaining (i.e. Encouraging). Further analysis calculates the odds of belonging to either the Adding, Replacing, or Encouraging segment compared to the Failing segment for each dimension of CCB. Results show that e-complaint behavior varies depending on the particular complaint dimension. The Internet adds to the offline incidence of voice and private complaining more so than for third-party and collective complaining. The Internet is also found to most often replace offline voice complaints and encourage collective complaints as opposed to the other dimensions of CCB. The findings provide implications for both consumers and sellers. Consumers are becoming more networked in their ability to share complaints with other consumers. In turn, consumers may participate in more collective complaint behaviors due to the availability of the Internet. Sellers should be prepared to monitor and handle collective e-complaints, as well as voice e-complaints, because of their potentially infinite reach. The Internet should be viewed not only as a challenge for monitoring complaints, but also as an opportunity to communicate positively with consumers and implement service recovery efforts. Although the dissertation is restricted by its online data collection and limited population, the results provide evidence that collective complaining should be considered as a new complaint dimension. The results also provide detailed implications for the expression and handling of consumer e-complaints.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Widdows, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Management

COinS