Organizational Responses to Customer Complaints: What Works and What Doesn’t

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to summarize the current research in the field of complaint handling, specifically to focus on how the organizational response to a customer complaint affects the postcomplaint customer behavior. A model framework is presented that divides these organizational responses into six separate dimensions (timeliness, facilitation, redress, apology, credibility, and attentiveness) and takes an in-depth look at each dimension in turn. Major questions and conclusions are presented for each dimension, which attempt to clarify what is really known or not known about the effect of that dimension on postcomplaint customer behavior. Special topics of future areas of research are discussed and a revised framework is presented to facilitate future research.