What Instigates a Consumer to Complain? A Study of Consumer Complaint Behaviour

Most of the companies do not encourage complaints or grievances; therefore, customers are hesitant to address their concerns directly to the company. This research article is an attempt to investigate and understand the various factors affecting consumer complaint behaviour. After thorough literature review, the eight factors (consumer dissatisfaction, cognitive dissonance, psychological factors, sociocultural factors, consumer’s personality and consumer’s Trust over a company, complaint intention and complaint behaviour) were incorporated in the formation of a research model. Data was collected from consumers of household electronics (like washing machines, microwaves, televisions and refrigerators) through a structured questionnaire. All the tested relationships were found to be significant and research model passed the predictive relevance test. The findings show that cognitive dissonance, customer dissatisfaction, attitude towards complaining and socioculture factors have greater impact over intention to complaint as compared to other independent factors.