Faculty Publications

The Importance Of Understanding Different Complaint Themes' Impact On Commitment

Document Type

Article

Keywords

Community, Complaint, Non-parametric statistics

Journal/Book/Conference Title

International Journal of Consumer Studies

Volume

32

Issue

6

First Page

628

Last Page

632

Abstract

The research establishes that different complaint themes do not impact commitment with the same intensity. In other words, managers should not give the same amount of attention to all of the complaints received by the company. Thirty-five complaints were recorded and eventually categorized into four groups. These groups were: (1) high price; (2) lacking a sense of community; (3) firm procedures; and (4) other. The fourth theme was labelled ‘other’ because of the heterogeneity that existed among the complaints that did not fit with the other three themes. These four themes were compared with each other concerning their effect on commitment. Because of the small sample size, a Kruskal-Wallis test was used to analyse the data. Next, a post hoc test was conducted using a series of Mann-Whitney tests. The results show that the theme with the most complaints (high price) did not have the biggest impact on commitment. Rather, another complaint (lacking a sense of community) demonstrated the largest impact on commitment. This research highlights the importance of analysing complaint groups with other relationship variables, and not just choosing the most frequently stated complaint as the area to improve an organization. © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Department

Department of Marketing

Original Publication Date

1-1-2008

DOI of published version

10.1111/j.1470-6431.2008.00717.x

Link to Full Text

Comments?

Share

COinS