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Lookup NU author(s): Professor Markus Blut
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Successful complaint management primarily depends on customers' willingness to voice their complaints and on companies' ability to adequately deal with these complaints. This article investigates the impact of one relationship characteristic in the complaint management process: affective commitment. Based on two studies, the authors investigate whether affective commitment moderates the impact of complaint barriers on complaint intention (a) and whether it moderates the link between complaint satisfaction and purchase behavior after the complaint (b). Results show that affectively committed customers exhibit higher complaint intention irrespective of the level of complaint barriers. Furthermore, affectively committed customers display little change in their postrecovery behavior, even after a service failure followed by an unsatisfactory recovery attempt. It seems that these customers are tolerant and want to help the provider improve their business. Affective commitment seems to amplify willingness to help the company by means of voicing dissatisfaction despite considerable efforts in doing so. Moreover, affective commitment buffers the negative effects of service failures on postrecovery behavior. Findings have important implications for managers. They highlight the necessity to measure customers' affective commitment. Based on that, tailored complaint systems can be designed, which help in achieving a more effective allocation of resources for customer recovery.
Author(s): Evanschitzky H, Brock C, Blut M
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Journal of Service Research
Year: 2011
Volume: 14
Issue: 4
Pages: 410-425
Print publication date: 13/11/2011
ISSN (print): 1094-6705
ISSN (electronic): 1552-7379
Publisher: Sage Publications, Inc.
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1094670511423956
DOI: 10.1177/1094670511423956
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