Online complaint intention and service recovery expectations of clothing retail customers

Abstract

It is important for clothing retailers to be aware of customer complaint behaviour, and to take such complaints seriously when they occur, since service failures within the highly competitive clothing retail industry are inevitable. Given that the resolution of a customer complaint is critical, in order to restore customer satisfaction, retailers are providing customers with a variety of complaint channels, such as online complaining. Due to the limited literature and research available, the purpose of this study was to determine the interrelationships between the constructs attitude towards complaining, service failure severity, online complaint intention, and the strength of service recovery expectation. Nonprobability sampling – in the form of quota and convenience sampling – was used to collect the data from 397 clothing retail customers residing in Gauteng. Results of the structural equation modelling indicate that respondents’ perceptions of the severity of the service failure experienced significantly and positively influence their strength of service recovery expectations, while no further significant positive influences were uncovered between any of the other constructs, including online complaint intention, as hypothesised in the proposed model for the study.