The Relationship Between Satisfaction with Complaint Handling and Repurchase Intentions: Detecting Moderating Influences in E-Tail

Nagel, Mateus; Santos, Cristiane Pizzutti dos

doi:10.15728/bbr.2017.14.5.4

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Articles • BBR, Braz. Bus. Rev. 14 (05) • Sep-Oct 2017 • https://doi.org/10.15728/bbr.2017.14.5.4 copy

The Relationship Between Satisfaction with Complaint Handling and Repurchase Intentions: Detecting Moderating Influences in E-Tail

Authorship SCIMAGO INSTITUTIONS RANKINGS

ABSTRACT

This paper examines which factors affect the relationship between consumers' satisfaction with complaint handling and repurchase intentions. We present a conceptual framework that explains why satisfaction with complaint handling (SATCOM) does not necessary lead to repurchase intention (RI) for online shoppers. The authors test five moderating variables of the relationship between SATCOM and RI: relationship quality (relational factor), economic value, alternative attractiveness (marketplace factor), inferred motives and stability of the failure (failure-related factors). To test our hypotheses, we conducted an online survey with e-shoppers and used moderated regression analysis and a bootstrapping procedure. The findings show that all moderators help to explain the nonlinearity between SATCOM and RI. Hence, this study makes theoretical and managerial contributions related to failures in shopping experiences and repurchase intentions in e-tail.

Keywords:
E-commerce; Satisfaction with complaint handling; Repurchase intention

Authors	Independent variable	Moderator	Dependent variable	Findings
Martin; Smart (1994)MARTIN, Charles L.; SMART, Denise T. Consumer experiences calling toll-free corporate hotlines. Journal of Business Communication, v. 31, n. 3, p. 195-212, 1994.	Satisfaction with the complaint handling (SATCOM)	-	Repurchase propensity	Consumer SATCOM impacted on repurchase propensity.
Gilly; Gelb (1982)GILLY, Mary C.; GELB, Betsy D. Post-purchase consumer processes and the complaining consumer. Journal of Consumer Research, p. 323-328, 1982.	Satisfaction with organizational complaint response; satisfaction with complaint response	-	Brand repurchase	Consumer satisfaction with organizational complaint response predicted brand repurchase.
Gilly (1987)GILLY, Mary C. Postcomplaint processes: from organizational response to repurchase behavior. Journal of Consumer Affairs, v. 21, n. 2, p. 293-213, 1987.	SATCOM	-	Repurchase intentions (RI)	SATCOM influenced repurchase intentions.
Spreng et al. (1995)SPRENG, Richard A.; HARRELL, Gilbert D.; MACKOY, Robert D. Service recovery: impact on satisfaction and intentions. Journal of Services Marketing, v. 9, n. 1, p. 15-23, 1995.	Overall SATCOM	-	RI	The overall SATCOM influenced positively their repurchase intention.
Conlon; Murray (1996)CONLON, Donald E.; MURRAY, Noel M. Customer perceptions of corporate responses to product complaints: The role of explanations. Academy of management journal, v. 39, n. 4, p. 1040-1056, 1996.	Satisfaction with the speed of reply	-	Likelihood of future business with the company	The consumers' satisfaction with the speed of the reply influenced the likelihood of future business with the company.
Dube; Maute (1998)DUBE, Laurette; MAUTE, Manfred F. Defensive strategies for managing satisfaction and loyalty in the service industry. Psychology & Marketing, v. 15, n. 8, p. 775-791, 1998.	Value-recovery (complaint-management)	Competitive environment	Satisfaction, loyalty.	Value-recovery influenced consumer loyalty. Competition environment did not moderate the relationship between value-recovery and satisfaction. Besides, satisfaction mediated the relationship between value-recovery and situational loyalty and enduring loyalty.
Webster; Sundaram (1998)WEBSTER, Cynthia; SUNDARAM, D. S. Service consumption criticality in failure recovery. Journal of Business Research, v. 41, n. 2, p. 153-159, 1998.	Failure recovery effort	-	Satisfaction, loyalty.	The firm recovery efforts impacted customer SATCOM and loyalty.
Smith; Bolton (1998)SMITH, Amy K.; BOLTON, Ruth N. An experimental investigation of customer reactions to service failure and recovery encounters paradox or peril?. Journal of service research, v. 1, n. 1, p. 65-81, 1998.	Stability attributions; prior repatronage intentions; SATCOM	-	Repatronage intention; cumulative satisfaction	Cumulative satisfaction of consumers' e their repatronage intentions were lower when they believed that failure was likely to happen again. Besides, consumer's repatronage intentions were higher when their cumulative satisfaction was higher.
Davidow (2000)DAVIDOW, Moshe. The bottom line impact of organizational responses to customer complaints. Journal of hospitality & tourism research, v. 24, n. 4, p. 473-490, 2000.	SATCOM	-	RI	Consumer SATCOM predicted RI.
Matilla (2001)MATTILA, Anna S. The effectiveness of service recovery in a multi-industry setting. Journal of Services Marketing, v. 15, n. 7, p. 583-596, 2001.	Service type; compensation; magnitude of failure	-	Loyalty; satisfaction with recovery; interactional justice; procedural justice; distributive justice	Effective service recovery (apology with tangible compensation) increased SATCOM, and also increased loyalty ratings for hair stylist scenario, this impact was lower for dry-cleaning and restaurant services.
McColl-Kennedy et al. (2003)MCCOLL-KENNEDY, Janet R.; DAUS, Catherine S.; SPARKS, Beverley A. The role of gender in reactions to service failure and recovery. Journal of Service Research, v. 6, n. 1, p. 66-82, 2003.	Allow voice; Display of concern; Compensation; Service provider gender	Gender	Future intentions, satisfaction, employee effort	Consumers were more satisfied with recovery when the outcome of the compensation was high (50% rebat on a night's stay), and then had more future intentions with the company. This impact was stronger for women than for men when the service provider was male compared when there was a female service provider.
Mattila, Mount (2003)MATTILA, Anna S.; MOUNT, Daniel J. The impact of selected customer characteristics and response time on e-complaint satisfaction and return intent. International Journal of Hospitality Management, v. 22, n. 2, p. 135-145, 2003.	SATCOM	-	Repeat patronage	SATCOM increases the probability of repeat patronage.
Matilla (2004)MATTILA, Anna S. The impact of service failures on customer loyalty: The moderating role of affective commitment. International Journal of Service Industry Management, v. 15, n. 2, p. 134-149, 2004.	Post-failure atittude	Affective commitment	Loyalty intentions	Emotional bonding moderated customer responses to service failures and loyalty intentions.
Kim et al. (2004)	SATCOM	-	Revisit intention	SATCOM was positively associated with revisit intention.
Holloway et al. (2005)HOLLOWAY, Betsy Bugg; WANG, Sijun; PARISH, Janet Turner. The role of cumulative online purchasing experience in service recovery management. Journal of Interactive Marketing, v. 19, n. 3, p. 54-66, 2005.	SATCOM	Cumulative online purchasing experience	RI	The effect of SATCOM on RI was higher for consumers with high experience in online purchasing in general than for those with low online purchasing experience.
Harris et al. (2006)HARRIS, Katherine E.; MOHR, L. A.; BERNHARDT, K. L. Consumer responses to service recovery strategies: the moderating role of online versus offline environment. Journal of Business Research, v. 59, n. 4, p. 425-431, 2006.	Satisfaction with remedy (satisfaction with service failure recovery)	Online/offline environment; type of service	Intention to return	Recovery level had a positive impact on RI, and this effect was greater for offline than online environment. Moreover, airline customers were more satisfied and more likely to show loyal behaviors than are bank customers.
Kau, Loh (2006)KAU, Ah-Keng; LOH, Wan-Yiun Elizabeth. The effects of service recovery on consumer satisfaction: a comparison between complainants and non-complainants. Journal of Services Marketing, v. 20, n. 2, p. 101-111, 2006.	SATCOM	-	Customer loyalty	The loyalty of customers was significantly related to satisfaction with complaint handling.
Liao (2007)LIAO, Hui. Do it right this time: the role of employee service recovery performance in customer-perceived justice and customer loyalty after service failures. Journal of applied psychology, v. 92, n. 2, p. 475, 2007.	SATCOM	-	RI	Consumer SATCOM impacted RI.
Santos; Fernandes (2008)	SATCOM; trust; perceived value	Switching costs	Loyalty (retention)	SATCOM impacted on loyalty, but switching costs did not moderate this relationship. Trust was an important antecedent of loyalty and switching costs and perceived value also impacted repurchase intention.
Pizzutti; Fernandes (2008)PIZZUTTI, Cristiane; FERNANDES, Daniel Von der Heyde. Antecedents and consequences of consumer trust in the context of service recovery. BAR-Brazilian Administration Review, v. 5, n. 3, p. 225-244, 2008.	SATCOM; trust in employees; trust in the company; perceived value	-	Loyalty (retention)	SATCOM impacts on RI; consumer trust in the company and perceived value also impact on RI.
Joireman et al. (2013)JOIREMAN, Jeff. et al. When do customers offer firms a "second chance" following a double deviation? The impact of inferred firm motives on customer revenge and reconciliation. Journal of Retailing, v. 89, n. 3, p. 315-337, 2013.	SATCOM	Inferred motive	Desire for reconciliation	When inferred motive was positive (vs. negative), desire for reconciliation lead customers to choose more reparatory than retaliatory behaviors.
Gohary et al. (2016)GOHARY, Ali. et al. Understanding effects of co-creation on cognitive, affective and behavioral evaluations in service recovery: an ethnocultural analysis. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, v. 31, p. 182-198, 2016.	SATCOM	-	RI, customer loyalty	SATCOM was positively related with RI and consumer loyalty (behavioral loyalty).
Gohary et al. (2016)GOHARY, Ali. et al. Understanding effects of co-creation on cognitive, affective and behavioral evaluations in service recovery: an ethnocultural analysis. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, v. 31, p. 182-198, 2016.	SATCOM	-	Intention to reuse	SATCOM was positively associated with intention to reuse mobile banking services.

Questions	Factor loading	Mean² 2 Mean, SD, AVE, Alpha and Composite Reliability are the ones after removing the items.	SD	AVE	Cronbach's alpha	Composite reliability
SATCOM¹ 1 all items were measured on a 7-point scale (1 = Strongly Disagree and 7 = Strongly agree) (Tax et al., 1998TAX, Stephen S.; BROWN, Stephen W.; CHANDRASHEKARAN, Murali. Customer evaluations of service complaint experiences: implications for relationship marketing. The Journal of Marketing, p. 60-76, 1998.)	-	5.03	2.11	.99	.99	.99
I'm happy with how the website handled my complaint.	.994
I'm pleased with the manner in which the complaint was dealt with.	.994
Overall I'm not satisfied with the way the complaint was handled. ³ 3 Items removed from the analysis.	.451
RI (Tax et al., 1998TAX, Stephen S.; BROWN, Stephen W.; CHANDRASHEKARAN, Murali. Customer evaluations of service complaint experiences: implications for relationship marketing. The Journal of Marketing, p. 60-76, 1998.)	-	5.16	1.84	.91	.97	.98
Make purchases from this website again?	.972
Do more business with this website in the future?	.968
Consider this website as your first choice to buy other things?	.970
Have a larger volume of business with this website in the future?	.903
RQ	-	5.92	.87	.80	.87	.92
Trust (Grégoire; Fisher, 2008________________; FISHER, Robert J. Customer betrayal and retaliation: when your best customers become your worst enemies. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, v. 36, n. 2, p. 247-261, 2008.)
...very undependable/...very dependable	.933
...very incompetent/...very competente	.936
...of very low integrity/...of very high integrity	.922
...very unresponsive to customers/...very responsive to customers	.867
Commitment (Grégoire; Fisher, 2008________________; FISHER, Robert J. Customer betrayal and retaliation: when your best customers become your worst enemies. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, v. 36, n. 2, p. 247-261, 2008.)
I was very committed to my relationship with this website.	.931
The relationship was something I intended to maintain for a long time.	.927
I put the efforts into maintaining this relationship.	.825
Satisfaction De Wulf, et al. (2001)DE WULF, Kristof; ODEKERKEN-SCHRÖDER, Gaby; IACOBUCCI, Dawn. Investments in consumer relationships: a cross-country and cross-industry exploration. Journal of marketing, v. 65, n. 4, p. 33-50, 2001.
I was satisfied with my relationship with this website.	.970
My relationship with this website was quite good.	.968
I was happy with the effort this website was making towards consumers like me.	.961
IM (Joireman et al., 2013JOIREMAN, Jeff. et al. When do customers offer firms a "second chance" following a double deviation? The impact of inferred firm motives on customer revenge and reconciliation. Journal of Retailing, v. 89, n. 3, p. 315-337, 2013.)	-	5.30	1.58	.80	.88	.92
...had bad intentions/...had good intentions	.882
...intended to take advantage of me/...did not intend to take advantage of me*³ 3 Items removed from the analysis.	.063
…was primarily motivated by its own interest/...was primarily motivated by my interest	.877
…tried to abuse me/… did not try to abuse me	.929
EV (Mathwick et al., 2001MATHWICK, Charla; MALHOTRA, Naresh; RIGDON, Edward. Experiential value: conceptualization, measurement and application in the catalog and Internet shopping environment. Journal of retailing, v. 77, n. 1, p. 39-56, 2001.)	-	5.58	1.08	.70	.78	.87
The products from this website have good economic value.	.947
Overall, I'm happy with the prices of this website.	.944
The prices of the product(s) I purchased from this website are too high, given the quality of the merchandise.	.553
AA (Jones et al., 2000JONES, Michael A.; MOTHERSBAUGH, David L.; BEATTY, Sharon E. Switching barriers and repurchase intentions in services. Journal of retailing, v. 76, n. 2, p. 259-274, 2000.)	-	4.58	1.43	.71	.86	.91
If I needed to change website, there are other good websites to choose from.	.840
I would probably be happy with the products and services of another website.	.896
Compared to the website that I had that problem, there are other websites with which I would probably be equally or more satisfied.	.931
Compared to the website that I had that problem, there are not very many other websites with whom I could be satisfied. ¹ 1 all items were measured on a 7-point scale (1 = Strongly Disagree and 7 = Strongly agree)	.705
FS (Boldgett, 1994BLODGETT, Jeffrey G. The effects of perceived justice on complainants' repatronage intentions and negative word-of-mouth behavior. Journal of Consumer Satisfaction, Dissatisfaction and Complaining Behavior, v. 7, n. 1.14, 1994.)	-	3.30	1.38	.75	.68	.85
This type of thing probably happens all the time with this website.	.792
This website hardly ever makes mistakes.	.930

	MI	AA	FS	RI	RQ	SATCOM	EV
MI	0,8042
AA	0,0938	0,7126
FS	0,2100	0,0631	0,7459
RI	0,4384	0,2642	0,2223	0,9089
RQ	0,2433	0,0429	0,2129	0,3268	0,8028
SATCOM	0,5635	0,1566	0,1743	0,5725	0,1665	0,9875
EV	0,2076	0,0303	0,2036	0,2346	0,3084	0,1169	0,6984

	Dependent variable
	RI
Relationship quality (RQ)¹ 1 The RQ moderation test was performed with a sample of 389 cases, because we removed from final sample (N = 425), 36 cases that had not previously purchased from the website. For the other variables, the test of moderation was performed with the total sample (N=433).	R² = .70	LLCI	ULCI	Hypothesis
Main effect		β (t-value)
RQ	.29 (3.72)^ p< .01	.1386	.4491
SATCOM	.40 (8.00)^ p< .01	.2986	.4933
Interaction effect
RQ x SATCOM	-.10 (-3.53)^ p< .01	-.1625	-.0464	H1 is accepted
Inferred motive (IM)	R² = .71
Main effect
IM	.04 (.60)	-.0901	.1695
SATCOM	.43 (7.44)^ p< .01	.3136	.5387
Interaction effect
IM x SATCOM	-.04 (-2.00)^* * p<.05;	-.0786	-.0007	H2 is accepted
Failure Stability (FS)	R² = .71
Main effect
FS	-.04 (-.94)	-.1330	.0465
SATCOM	.44 (7.99)^ p< .01	.3352	.5536
Interaction effect
FS x SATCOM	.06 (3.01)^ p< .01	.0197	.0931	H3 is accepted
Economic value (EV)	R² = .71
Main effect
EV	.14 (2.35)^* * p<.05;	.0234	.2605
SATCOM	.45 (8.44)^ p< .01	.3499	.5624
Interaction effect
EV x SATCOM	-.06 (-2.34)^* * p<.05;	-.1044	-.0091	H4 is accepted
Attractive of alternatives (AA)	R² = .73
Main effect
AA	-.32 (-7.45)^ p< .01	-.4121	-.2402
SATCOM	.41 (7.08)^ p< .01	.3003	.5310
Interaction effect
AA x SATCOM	.10 (4.99)^ p< .01	.0612	.1412	H5 is accepted

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