رضایت از رسیدگی به شکایت: مطالعه تکثیر روی عوامل مؤثر بر آن در زمینه تجارت بنگاه به بنگاه

Research on the drivers of satisfaction with complaint handling (SATCOM) underlines the importance of procedural, relational, and interactional justice (Orsingher, Valentini, & de Angelis, 2010). Since these SATCOM-studies are largely conducted in business-to-consumer (B2C) markets, it is unclear what drives SATCOM in business-to-business (B2B) markets. Therefore, we replicate the justice model in an industrial context and find significant differences for procedural justice and interactional justice but not for distributive justice. While distributive justice is equally important in both contexts, procedural justice is more important in B2B markets whereas interactional justice drives SATCOM only in B2C markets.

Within the last 20 years, strong interest in consumer reactions to service failures and ways to recover customers has emerged. Numerous constructs have been suggested to correlate with satisfaction with complaint handling (SATCOM). Particularly, justice theory has uncovered the importance of procedural, distributive, and interactional justice as the major determinants of SATCOM (Blodgett et al., 1993, Goodwin and Ross, 1992 and Tax et al., 1998). While procedural justice refers to the processes of complaint handling, distributive justice is determined by the quality of the failure compensation, and interactional justice refers to the behavior of the employees during the complaint process. Among the three justice dimensions, a recent meta-analysis by Orsingher et al. (2010) suggests distributive justice to have the strongest effect on SATCOM followed by interactional justice and procedural justice. The authors note that their results are based on 60 independent samples from 50 empirical studies exclusively from business-to-consumer (B2C) markets; the drivers of SATCOM in business-to-business (B2B) markets have been largely neglected. This is surprising since in industrial markets the average transaction value is higher and the number of customers is lower than in consumer markets, making an effective complaint management system potentially more important. Due to the lack of empirical studies, it is unclear whether industrial customers expect the provider to handle the complaint professionally by being equally excellent in terms of processes (procedural justice), interpersonal contact (interactional justice), and compensation of the failure (distributive justice) or whether the business customers do not care much about procedural or interactional justice and instead primarily evaluate complaint handling in terms of the received compensation. To the best of our knowledge, the only available studies assessing the impact of justice dimensions on SATCOM using (at least in part) business customers are Homburg and Fürst (2005), Yanamandram and White (2010), and Ellyawati, Purwanto, and Dharmmesta (2012). Homburg and Fürst (2005) assess the impact of organizational complaint handling on customer loyalty. As part of a broader model, they also assess the links between three justice dimensions and SATCOM. However, their study was not intended to specifically test these links in a B2B context. In fact, their sample consists of B2C and B2B customers and it is not possible to derive the effect sizes for the B2B sample. Contrary to Homburg and Fürst (2005), the study from Yanamandram and White (2010) gives a first impression about the importance of justice perceptions in industrial markets. The authors specifically assess the relationship of justice dimensions on SATCOM as part of a larger conceptual model. However, their study is different from ours in at least two aspects: First, while Yanamandram and White's (2010) data come from business customers of a wide range of sellers, our study purposefully samples customers of one selling firm only. The advantage of that procedure is that our study is not biased by external factors such as systematic difference in customers based on industry affiliation that might influence the impact of justice dimensions on SATCOM. Second, Yanamandram and White's (2010) sample largely comes from service firms. It could be expected that (business) service customers interact more intensely with their seller, possibly making interactional justice a more important driver of SATCOM. The third study assessing the impact of justice dimensions in a B2B context is Ellyawati et al. (2012). Their study's cross-sectional sample consists of 102 (Indonesian) retailers, of which over 90% have less than 20 employees, and about 75% have annual sales of under 50 Mio Rupiah (about 5,100 US-Dollar). Therefore, a potential bias towards specific complaint issues pertinent to micro businesses might be expected. Further, while the study indicates that each justice dimension is positively linked to SATCOM, the authors provide only unstandardized estimates and no standard error, making it difficult to compare their findings with our findings. Apparently, there is still urgent need to extend our knowledge on the drivers of SATCOM to B2B market. As an outcome of their meta-analysis, Orsingher et al. (2010) propose a research agenda for complaint management research. They suggest paying particular attention to the following two related questions, which we address in this replication study: 1. “How do justice dimensions behave in a B2B context?” 2. “What explains satisfaction with complaint handling in a B2B context?”

Findings of our replication study have several important implications for research and complaint management practice in industrial markets. First, we found distributive justice to always matter independent of the setting. Hence, researcher and managers need to assess what shapes customer expectations in terms of compensation. Second, procedural justice is of greater relevance in B2B than in B2C, making the availability of sufficient complaint opportunities for the customer (call center, e-mail, face-to-face), process integration (installing follow-up calls by the provider), complaint responsibilities (key-account system), and effective complaint processes more important in B2B markets. Third, interactional justice seems to be less important in the B2B context. This finding is surprising, since it is often argued that the personal relationship to the sales personnel is of utmost importance in industrial markets. It seems that the treatment by the employees during the complaint management is less important compared to the handling of the complaint process and the compensation. It seems that industrial clients act more rational than consumers even in evaluating complaint handling. As a consequence, even customer-oriented and empathic employees could not make up for poor compensation or ineffective recovery processes. Since our model explains 87% of the variance of complaint satisfaction, we conclude that distributive justice and procedural justice are the major determinants of SATCOM in industrial markets while interactional justice only plays a minor role. This replication study sheds new light on the relationship between justice dimensions and SATCOM in B2B markets. However, there are still some limitations and unanswered questions that offer avenues for further research. As our data come from customers of one seller, we would call for extending the scope to include purposeful samples of other business customers in future studies. This would account for the fact that not all business customers are similar, for instance, in terms of relationship depth or duration. Adding to that, further research should analyze B2B customer specific moderating effect such as transactional volume, purchase behavior, size of industrial customers, and relationship between the buyer and seller. Further, the impact of the specific study context on the links between justice dimensions and SATCOM has yet to be determined. Comparing our findings with those obtained by Yanamandram and White (2010), which largely draw data from a service setting, both studies find similar results for procedural and distributive justice, yet not for interactional justice. Quite possibly, a setting characterized by more intense customer–seller interaction makes interactional justice more important as determinant of SATCOM. Future research should more closely assess the moderating role of the specific context. Despite the limitations, our replication study is an important first step to determine the generalizability of important complaint management constructs and outcomes across different setting. Once more primary research in B2B settings is available, an updated meta-analysis comparing B2B and B2C markets is strongly suggested.