Taxonomy of Consumer Complaint Behaviour

Submitted by: Görkem AKDUR

Table of Contents
1 – Abstract ................................................................................................................................ 2

2 – Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 3

3 – Literature Review ................................................................................................................. 4

3.1 - Consumer Behaviour ..................................................................................................... 4

3.2 – Defining Consumer Complaint & Consumer Complaint Behaviour (CCB) .................... 5

3.3 –Complaining Responses and Satisfaction/Dissatisfaction ............................................. 7

3.4 - The Consumer Dilemma ................................................................................................ 8

3.5 – Types of complaint responses....................................................................................... 9

3.6 – Variables and Factors affecting Consumer Complaint Behaviour .............................. 11

3.6.1 - Individual factors .................................................................................................. 12

3.6.2 - Situational Factors ................................................................................................ 13

3.6.3 – Cultural Factors .................................................................................................... 14

4 – Conclusion and Further Research ...................................................................................... 15

5 - References .......................................................................................................................... 17

Table of Figures
Figure 1 Consumer Complaint Behaviour (Day and Landon, 1977:432) ................................... 6

Figure 2 Complaint Behaviour Outcomes (Dacin & Davidow, 1997) ....................................... 10

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1 – Abstract

It has been many years that marketers are arguing on marketing concept idea, which is the

most suitable way to lead every type of businesses. It identifies how to satisfy their

customers by holding their loyal customers. Meanwhile, increasing their customer base to

make more profit in the competitive business environment. In order to implement the

correct strategy, marketing concept will deliver broad understanding on what customers will

use and how their re-purchase actions could be triggered (Peter & Olson, 2005).

The main purpose of this study focuses on what customers do when they be dissatisfied by

the product or service they used. Simply, ‘Consumer complaint behaviour (CCB)’ concept

involves set of responses customers show when they are not happy about their purchase.

This concept analyses the reasons behind consumer’s dissatisfaction and what actions they

can take about it to get a solution. This paper adds better understanding on consumer

complaint behaviour by discussing the main context of consumer behaviour, complaining

methods and factors affecting CCB, consumer dilemma, complaining types and the further

research opportunities for literature expansion and new methodologies.

Keywords: Consumer complaint, consumer complaint behaviour, dissatisfaction, factors

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2 – Introduction

Is it possible for organisations to satisfy each of their customer’s need?

Unfortunately it is not easy to satisfy customers on each purchase they make. There will be

particular consumer dissatisfaction due to a variety of causes. A vast majority of companies

are highly focused on staying profitable; hence they need to have a good customer

satisfaction level in order to keep their customers loyal. Fornell & Wernerfelt (1987) stated

that satisfaction of customers lead into repurchase behaviours. It means, dissatisfaction

from any service or good will directly lower the repurchase intention from that customer.

The result of customer loss can be very costly. It might end up with loss in market share,

revenue decrease and it will require much higher costs to attract new customers (Malhotra,

et al., 2008).

Long term profit extremely depends on how their customers feel about the company

when they use the product/service. Organisation’s continuity in their competitive

environment brings the responsibility of having positive relationship with their customers.

Since making a mistake is inevitable for human beings, they need to use complaints as

strength to improve their deficiencies by strategically solving issues of customers as fast as

possible in most effective way. Behaviours that customers show on every product rest on

many factors. Analysing customers are very tough job, so companies should convene their

marketing mix by looking at their target market’s needs and requests (Metehan & Yasemin,

2011).

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None of the marketing strategy is sufficiently effective without understanding the

behaviours of consumers at first place. Customer complaints have a vital role in

contemporary marketing to get them as a feedback and please the customers by improving

the quality and performance. Some customers prefer to announce their complaints to the

company, while other customers keep their words and expression for themselves. This

paper will introduce the importance of “Consumer Complaint Behaviour (CCB)” and

examined it in details to enlighten organisations to use those complaints in advantageous

way to reduce dissatisfaction level, stay lucrative and grow.

3 – Literature Review

3.1 - Consumer Behaviour

In marketing perspective, the consumer behaviour can be described as “a study of group of

people, individuals or organizations and the processes that they use to choose, secure,

practice, experiences and dispose of products/services or ideas to gratify needs and the

impacts that those processes have on the individuals and society (Perner, 2010)."

It is not an easy task to execute a study on consumer behaviours, but it provides

improvement for company’s marketing strategy by understanding the vital points such as

the consumer’s psychology on how they feel or think about the brands, products and their

alternatives they can choose. Moreover, environment of the consumers is a highly

determiner of their decision. Their families, culture and social media are some examples of

environmental factors (Perner, 2010).

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3.2 – Defining Consumer Complaint & Consumer Complaint Behaviour

(CCB)

There are many academic definitions for consumer complaint. According to L. Landon

(1980), consumer complaint is “an expression of dissatisfaction on a consumer's behalf to a

responsible party.” Simply, Landon pointed out that consumer’s dissatisfaction and negative

thoughts on the product or service is the main reason for grievance.

On the other hand, complaints can be counted as a gift. Complaining customers give chance

to the organisation to learn about what their customers really need and what is expected

from them. If they don’t complain, marketing department has to work harder by doing

extensive researches to identify problems and cause of dissatisfaction, which is waste of

resources (time, money, human) for the organisations. In some cases, it is easier for

consumers to find and use another supplier without saying anything. In a case like that,

company won’t be able to win their customer back (Barlow & Moller, 1996).

Furthermore, interest in consumer complaint and consumer complaint behaviours (CCB)

had been receiving more awareness by researchers since 1960s (Singh, 1988).

Consumer complaint behaviour also recognised as consumer complaint responses (Singh &

Widing, 1991). CCB is a model of research that identifies and analyses the features of

consumer’s reaction to a service or product breakdown which results in disappointment and

observed dissatisfaction (Butelli, 2007).In addition, it is a set of possible reactions that show

displeasure cornering the price or usage of product/service (Ştefura & Cuza, 2010).

All those reactions are expressing dissatisfaction by complaining directly to manufacturers,

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to third parties such as voluntary organisations or telling their families or friends (Singh,

1988).

Numerous academics studied ‘complaints and intentions’ in order to categorise them as

“formal or informal”. Generally, formal ones were considered preventive and not many

consumers made their complaints in a formal way. Commonly, people choose not to

complain at all (Donoghue & Klerk, 2006).S

Since there are few options consumer can do about the situation to express their negative

thoughts, Day and Landon’s (1976) classification of consumer complaint behaviour provided

three possibilities for consumers who are not happy with their acquisition. They are listed

and illustrated on the figure below;

➢ No action (passive consumers)

➢ Private action

➢ Public action

Figure 1 Consumer Complaint Behaviour (Day and Landon, 1977:432)

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3.3 –Complaining Responses and Satisfaction/Dissatisfaction

The theory of Consumer Complaint Behaviour is intensively connected to customer

dissatisfaction. It is the main reason of complaining. Oliver (1980), claims that it has a link

with expectancy disconfirmation theory which states dissatisfaction of customers comes

from an inconsistency among customer’s expectation and end-product’s performance. The

main decisive factor influencing consumer’s evaluation for their experience on purchase is

their expectations (Day & Landon, 1977). When organisations could not greet their

consumers with their existing performance on a product/service, customers start to

complain about their frustration (Nimako & Mensah, 2014).

Contrariwise, customer satisfaction (CS) should be considered within two classifications.

Firstly, ‘transactional’ customer satisfaction is focused on a specific time and it is post-

buying evaluative decision about service/product (Oliver, 1980). Second one is ‘cumulative’

customer satisfaction, which engages in complete evaluation of customer on a

product/service from the time of procurement to using experiences throughout the time

interval (Fornell, 1992).

General experience to decide upon overall satisfaction/dissatisfaction can also be effected

by preceding transactional experiences and the frequency of consumer complaints (Dacin &

Davidow, 1997). When more customers complain, it is highly likely to unfavourably

influence the overall satisfaction of the seller, yet more customer complaints have a positive

effect on consumer’s behavioural intention. Hence, they might recommend the brand

instead of switching to other (Nimako & Mensah, 2014).

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3.4 - The Consumer Dilemma

The biggest paradox inside the CCB theory is having unsatisfied consumers against a

company that think twice about to complain or not. They only voice their criticism

occasionally under specific conditions. Customers directly voice less than half of their issues

that they experienced according to Best and Andreasen (1977). Awareness level of

companies regarding to failure of their product is directly related with customer complaints.

Most of the time problems stay concealed and companies could not take the advantage of

knowing the issue to take them into account as “early warning signal”, so reducing incoming

complains won’t be very constructive for organisations (Reichheld & Sasser, 1990). It is

better for them to know what is going on at the customer-side.

On the contrary, when customers make a decision to tell their thoughts and feelings, they

pass two different but interconnected actions delineated by Albert O. Hirschman (1970):

➢ Evaluation between costs and benefits, not only in economical way but comprise

emotions as well (Andreasen, 1988). The benefit that consumer will get after making

their complaints should satisfy them and influence them thorough voicing their

dissatisfaction, consequently the consumer who has low discontent should also

complain to get the apparent benefit (Day & Landon, 1977).

➢ Consumers believe the act of complaining is beneficial and have positive effect on

having proper solution.

First step is greatly related with understanding of how complaining is important in both

materialist and psychological way. It is not a free-of-cost action. The most important thing,

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‘time’ invested in making complaints and the emotional factors such as fear and

discomfiture cannot be unseen (Butelli, 2007). After complaining, consumers look for the

possible outcomes. Refund, exchange or repairs are tangible solutions that they expect and

hearing apologies compensates their emotional status. Moreover, they would like to hear

from company that they will counteract against the reason of their dissatisfaction in order

to eliminate same thing happens to other consumers (Day & Landon, 1977).

3.5 – Types of complaint responses

Numerous complaining response models have been proposed to classify the actions taken

by customers. Theory of exit, voice and loyalty is the first consumer complaint responses,

which was proposed by Hirschman (1970). According to him, consumers might voice their

complaints to the seller directly or a third-party before they exit from making new purchase

and end their relationship with the retailer by using another seller. ‘Exit’ and ‘voice’ is highly

depended on customers’ loyalty (Hirschman, 1970).

As mentioned above on section “3.2 – Defining Consumer Complaint & Consumer Complaint

Behaviour”, Day and Landon (1977) implied three level classifications, which states taking no

action or some action with its subcategories of private and public responses. Furthermore,

this hierarchical model extended by Singh (1988) into three-dimensional model.

• First dimension is private response. It is a behaviour showed by customer to his/her

own social network. Basically, it involves warning relatives and friends not to use

that service or specific company’s product. Dissatisfied customer has different

options to execute their private response. He/she can choose to boycott the service

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 or product and the organization will lose only a customer. However, if customers

involve other people in their complaining by doing ‘word of mouth’ response,

organisation will loss more than a few consumers (Dacin & Davidow, 1997).

• Second dimension is voice response. It refers to make a complaint against the

retailer/provider directly. Depends on the situation, the consumer can talk with

them face to face, call them by telephone or write them an e-mail in order to voice

their dissatisfaction (Tronvoll, 2008). “No complaint action” also counted under this

dimension (Singh, 1988). It is similar with Hirschman’s (1970) “loyalty” concept.

• Last but not least dimension is the third party responses. Consumers express their

complaints to an external group of people who are not engaged with affronting

seller directly but may have some power on them (Tronvoll, 2008). Taking legal

actions such as contacting to lawyers or protection agencies and writing a report

against dissatisfying occurrence to publish on newspaper are all part of third party

responses (Singh, 1988).

Figure 2 Complaint Behaviour Outcomes (Dacin & Davidow, 1997)

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3.6 – Variables and Factors affecting Consumer Complaint Behaviour

For many years academic researchers have been trying to figure out all of those variables

that have an influence on consumer complaint behaviour directly or indirectly. CCB is a

complex concept that makes it interesting and reveals the weak points of many researches

on complaint behaviour at the same time. There is no comprehensive model that consist all

of those factors involved in CCB (Butelli, 2007).

Here are several examples that affect consumer complaint behaviours such as customers

having more dissatisfaction with services compared to products (Andreasen & Best, 1977).

In addition, product’s durability is important for consumers to understand if it is for daily

use (Day & Landon, 1977). Every customer has a unique perception through the

service/product and each person evaluates it differently. Hence, dynamic interrelation

between service provider and customer is important (Butelli, 2007). Those points are only

few factors to take the attention of organisations on what consumers complain for and it

provides a guidance for them to solve problems. For instance; “is there any relationship

between CCB and attitude?”, “is it true that past experiences affect the CCB? How?”, “is

customer loyalty directly related with CCB?” are some question to be answered by

organisations (Rizwan, et al., 2013).

The next part is about classifying all the factors that affect customer complaining behaviour

into different categories and elucidate them broadly.

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3.6.1 - Individual factors

Personal characteristics of every people varies, therefore tackling against dissatisfaction

condition sourced from a service/product will show different behaviours from each

customers. Some of them might choose to keep quiet and some of them may speak up, if

their character is more social. We can examine three personality concepts under individual

factors;

1. Self-confidence has two types: specific and general. First one is about

particular task’s performance and second one is related to overall self-

confidence of an individual. A person who believes he/she is qualified,

successful and commendable has a high general self-confidence

(Coopersmith, 1967). This personality has a direct relationship with

expressing their dissatisfaction by word-of-mouth. Day (1978), found out that

consumers who tend to complain more have higher self-confidence. In

addition, confidence level of customers from higher social classes seems

boosted and they don’t be shy to voice up their complaints (Bearder, et al.,

1980). To sum up, those who has high self-confidence pledge to discuss their

destructive experience with others easily compared to people who has less

self-confidence (Lau & Sophia, 2001).

2. Sociability involves people who are very sociable by going out more often,

likes to spend time with others and has a participative personality. Social

network plays a huge role in word-of-mouth incidence so, a social person

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 talks with many people and it increases their chance to discuss negative

experiences they had from a product/service (Lau & Sophia, 2001).

3. Social responsibility covers people who try to help others even they won’t

gain anything from them. They show a great effort to defend strong standard

of right. Socially responsible people mainly concern about wellbeing of

individuals around, hence they might make negative comments about the

dissatisfactory product/service (Lau & Sophia, 2001).

3.6.2 - Situational Factors

In order to explain customer choices, both individual and situational factors should be

reflected (Engel, et al., 1969). Situational factors consist two variables;

1. Purchase decision involvement shows the behaviour of consumers at post-

purchase after a brief period of time due to cognitive disagreement or

excitement produced by procurement (M.B & Hawkins, 1978). People bring

concern and interest to the purchase decision task, and Landon (1977),

intended that it influences the dissatisfaction level on the product, increases

the tendency of complaining when dissatisfaction happens. Customers that

have higher involvement in their purchase decision complain more then who

involves less in their purchase decision (Lau & Sophia, 2001).

2. Proximity of others means that social surrounding; characteristics of people

around and their impact on consumers are related with negative word of

mouth action. If a consumer face with a bad experience from a product or

service, they immediately start to complain and make ruthless comments

13
 about the company to illustrate their frustration to others next to him/her

(Lau & Sophia, 2001).

3.6.3 – Cultural Factors

Culture is a system, which has shared meaning that, controls the individual’s perception and

learnt behaviours (Reichert & Gill, 2004). Old generations passes believes, norms and values,

plus learnt behaviours to new generations for the continuity of their culture in the society.

There are many different cultural practices in the world and every ethnic group may show

different behaviours opposed to same situation (Walters, 2010).

It regarded that culture has a great influence on consumer’s complaint behaviour.

Multicultural countries (e.g. South Africa) have deeper understanding on how culture affects

customer behaviour especially when it comes to complaining (Walters, 2010). Different

cultures show a discrepancy on approaches and patterns, therefore the expectation of

consumer from same services differ. Organisations should be very sensitive toward cultural

differences and they need to modify their interactions according to customer evaluations.

Based on the particular culture, people might show dissatisfaction in their own way

(Reichert & Gill, 2004). Collectivism and individualism also play a role under cultural

disparity for CCB. Less individualistic consumers complain less compared to high

individualistic consumers when they receive modest service by any organisation (Liu, et al.,

2001).

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4 – Conclusion and Further Research

This study reveals the literature on consumer’s behaviours toward their dissatisfaction on

experienced product/service. Complaint intention and actions are all depends on many

variables and factors that was discussed on previous chapters in this study. The main

purpose is to identify what consumer complaint behaviour (CCB) means for customers and

organisations. Focus point for consumers and organisations are different. Consumers need

to know their rights against unsatisfactory practise over a brand and their products or

services. Nevertheless, companies should listen those complaints and take a lesson to adapt

and adopt new strategy immediately to keep their customers and increase their profits

eventually.

Some consumers choose not to take any action in contradiction to their dissatisfied

experience and others prefer to speak up in private or public ways to justify their inner

anger about the situation. They might share their thoughts with third-party organisations or

directly make their complaints to the company. However, the biggest dilemma in CCB

concept is; complain or not to complain. Studying the variables and factors affecting

consumer complaint such as individual, situational and cultural will provide better

understanding on the behaviours of consumers and how they act in the case of

dissatisfaction is highly important for every organisation as a feedback understand the

internal reasons behind complaints.

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Consumer complaint behaviour is still in premature stage of enhancement, subsequently

more researches should be made on the concept. More information is necessary to

understand the dynamic process which emphasis on activation and variation of the CCB

throughout interaction in services and how adverse incident effects connection over a

particular time period. Those points should be clearly identified:

• What influence consumers to decide on complaining or not during the interaction

with the service? Should they wait before they voice up or directly engaging with

company about the situation is more appropriate?

• What are the long-term effect of having negative responses and how It affect the

relationship between consumer and the company?

• Is it possible to observe behaviours of loyal customers’ fluctuations to get additional

insight about the process?

The further researches should not be restricted on theoretical framing and growth of

complaining behaviour. Methodological areas should also boldly identified and new

methods that would be appropriate to use has to be involved. In addition to that, contextual

environment about complaining behaviour has a lack of literature and industrial knowledge.

Elements such as the design and colour of the product has also effect on complaint

behaviour and intention of consumers, but there is no research on this field (Tronvoll, 2008).

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