TY - JOUR
T1 - Will you tolerate this? The impact of affective commitment on complaint intention and postrecovery behavior
AU - Evanschitzky, H.
AU - Brock, Christian
AU - Blut, Markus
N1 - Copyright 2011 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2011/11
Y1 - 2011/11
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
KW - complaint management
KW - complaint stimulation
KW - complaint satisfaction
KW - postrecovery behavior
KW - affective commitment
KW - double deviation effect
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84255194913&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/1094670511423956
DO - 10.1177/1094670511423956
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84255194913
SN - 1094-6705
VL - 14
SP - 410
EP - 425
JO - Journal of Service Research
JF - Journal of Service Research
IS - 4
ER -