The influence of relationship intention and population group on South African cell phone users’ positive attitude towards complaining

Abstract

As most customers do not voice their dissatisfaction to service providers following service failures, it is important to identify those customers most likely to do so. Since customers with positive attitudes toward complaining are the most likely to voice their dissatisfaction, identifi able customer characteristics – such as customers’ relationship intentions and population group – infl uencing such attitudes can be an effi cient way to acquire feedback from customers. This study accordingly investigated the infl uence of relationship intention and population group on cell phone users’ positive attitude towards complaining to their cell phone network providers. By means of non-probability convenience sampling, 605 respondents from South Africa’s Johannesburg metropolitan area participated in this study. The results indicate that population group as well as relationship intention practically signifi cantly infl uence respondents’ positive attitude towards complaining. Despite this fi nding, no interaction effect was found between respondents’ population group and relationship intention on positive attitude towards complaining.