The Effects of Perceived Justice on Complainants Negative Word-Of-Mouth Behavior and Repatronage Intentions

Previous research has found that dissatisfied consumers choose to seek redress, engage in negative word-of-mouth behavior, and exit (i.e., vow never to repatronize the retailer) based upon the perceived likelihood of successful redress, their attitude toward complaining, the level of importance they attach to the defective product, and whether they perceive the problem to be stable or to have been controllable. The authors extend previous research by modeling consumer complaining behavior as a complex, dynamic process, hypothesizing that once a consumer seeks redress, negative word-of-mouth behavior and repatronage intentions are dependent (primarily) upon the consumer's post-complaint perception of justice. As hypothesized, perceived justice was found to be the main determinant of complainants' negative word-of-mouth behavior and their repatronage intentions, and was found to mediate the effects of likelihood of success, attitude toward complaining, product importance, and stability and controllability on complaining behavior. The model fit the data very well, explaining 49.1 percent of the variance of negative word-of-mouth and 68.5 percent of the variance of repatronage intentions. These findings point to the importance of customer service/customer satisfaction, especially since the cost of keeping a current customer satisfied is much less than the cost of attracting a new customer.