Attitude towards, and likelihood of, complaining in the banking, domestic airline and restaurant industries

Abstract

It is imperative that service organisations implement effective service recovery strategies when customers experience a service failure, since unresolved service failures can result in customers spreading negative word-of-mouth communication or defecting to competitors. It is therefore in organisations’ best interests to encourage customers to complain when a service failure occurs. However, if customers do not have positive attitudes towards complaining or are not likely to complain, service organisations will not be afforded the opportunity to offer service recovery. This study aims to determine customers’ attitudes towards complaining as well as their likelihood of voicing a complaint when service failures occur with service providers in the banking, domestic airline and restaurant industries. Non-probability convenience sampling was used to collect data from 915 respondents residing in Gauteng. The results indicate that respondents have fairly positive attitudes towards complaining. Therefore, by creating appropriate channels to complain, customers will in all likelihood use these channels to do so. Significant differences were found between different customer groups pertaining to their overall attitude towards complaining as well as the likelihood of voicing a complaint. Across all three industries, customers are more likely to voice a complaint when they experience a service failure with their current service provider than with a service provider they have never used.