The main objective of this paper is to investigate the impact of the complaint handling process on the consumer trust and loyalty in the relational services context. In order to do that, a theoretical model was developed and tested. Such a model portrays the interrelationships between complaint encounter-specific evaluations and relational constructs. Thus, this study encompasses three important research streams: justice theory, complaint handling processes and trust studies. The findings, obtained by Structural Equation Modeling, confirm 10 out of 12 hypothesis stemmed from the proposed framework. More specifically, the findings indicate that distributive, procedural and interactional justice perceptions significantly affect the consumer's global justice perceptions and satisfaction with the complaint handling. Post-complaint consumer trust is directly influenced by the final satisfaction level and by the consumer previous experiences with the company. Finally, the consumer's trust and relational value affect his/her loyalty level.
complaint handling; fairness; consumer trust; consumer loyalty; relational exchanges
