Theoretical analysis of the effect of complaint management on customer loyalty: proposal for a conceptual model

Abstract

Customers often react strongly to service failures, so it's essential that an organization's recovery efforts are equally strong and effective. In this research, the aim is to study the effectiveness of complaints management according to the elements of justice (distributive, procedural and interactional) to achieve customer loyalty. The literature review revealed three approaches. The first is behaviourist, defining and measuring loyalty in terms of simple, repeated purchasing behaviour (Franck, 1967; McConnell, 1968). The second, cognitivist (attitudinal), places greater emphasis on the attitudinal dimensions of loyalty (Day, 1969; Labarbera and Marzusky, 1983). These two approaches have been brought together in a third strand of literature, which considers the concept to be dual: both attitudinal and behavioral, and is part of a composite approach (Jacoby and Kyner, 1973; Dick and Basu, 1994). After presenting a review of the conceptual literature in this field, we propose a research model considering the impact of dissatisfaction following a service incident on satisfaction with complaint management, and then this satisfaction on loyalty.

Key words: Dissatisfaction, complaint management, satisfaction, distributive justice, procedural justice, interactional justice, loyalty.

Classification JEL : M31, M39  

Paper type : Theoretical Research