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2 – Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 3
3.2 – Defining Consumer Complaint & Consumer Complaint Behaviour (CCB) .................... 5
5 - References .......................................................................................................................... 17
Table of Figures
Figure 1 Consumer Complaint Behaviour (Day and Landon, 1977:432) ................................... 6
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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
methods and factors affecting CCB, consumer dilemma, complaining types and the further
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2 – Introduction
Unfortunately it is not easy to satisfy customers on each purchase they make. There will be
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
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
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
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
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
3 – Literature Review
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)."
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
determiner of their decision. Their families, culture and social media are some examples of
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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
responsible party.” Simply, Landon pointed out that consumer’s dissatisfaction and negative
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
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).
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
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).
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to third parties such as voluntary organisations or telling their families or friends (Singh,
1988).
“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
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
➢ Private action
➢ Public action
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3.3 –Complaining Responses and Satisfaction/Dissatisfaction
dissatisfaction. It is the main reason of complaining. Oliver (1980), claims that it has a link
main decisive factor influencing consumer’s evaluation for their experience on purchase is
their expectations (Day & Landon, 1977). When organisations could not greet their
buying evaluative decision about service/product (Oliver, 1980). Second one is ‘cumulative’
product/service from the time of procurement to using experiences throughout the time
by preceding transactional experiences and the frequency of consumer complaints (Dacin &
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
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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
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
➢ Consumers believe the act of complaining is beneficial and have positive effect on
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).
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
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,
own social network. Basically, it involves warning relatives and friends not to use
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
organisation will loss more than a few consumers (Dacin & Davidow, 1997).
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
• 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
against dissatisfying occurrence to publish on newspaper are all part of third party
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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
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
Here are several examples that affect consumer complaint behaviours such as customers
having more dissatisfaction with services compared to products (Andreasen & Best, 1977).
use (Day & Landon, 1977). Every customer has a unique perception through the
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
The next part is about classifying all the factors that affect customer complaining behaviour
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3.6.1 - Individual factors
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
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
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
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talks with many people and it increases their chance to discuss negative
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
individuals around, hence they might make negative comments about the
In order to explain customer choices, both individual and situational factors should be
concern and interest to the purchase decision task, and Landon (1977),
have higher involvement in their purchase decision complain more then who
around and their impact on consumers are related with negative word of
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about the company to illustrate their frustration to others next to him/her
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
Multicultural countries (e.g. South Africa) have deeper understanding on how culture affects
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
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Consumer complaint behaviour is still in premature stage of enhancement, subsequently
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
with the service? Should they wait before they voice up or directly engaging with
• What are the long-term effect of having negative responses and how It affect the
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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