Silent voices - Why some dissatisfied consumers fail to complain

Although noncomplaining dissatisfied consumers represent a vast majority of the dissatisfied consumers, they have not yet received adequate attention from marketing researchers. To understand the paradoxical combination of dissatisfaction and absence of complaint, the authors use the Lazarus cognitive-emotive model of coping with situational challenge. They added a moderator the Seeking Redress Propensity (SRP) to this model and then developed a theoretical model and a set of hypotheses. A sample of consumers who had experienced a negative incident with the bank were administered a questionnaire by telephone. The sample was designed in such a way that half of them had complained and half had not. It was found that SRP is a significant moderator In addition, SRP is shown to be strongly related to the likelihood of complaining. Lazarus's model is basically supported, mostly for the customers scoring higher on SRP. Theoretical and managerial implications are proposed.