The Role of Public and Private Complaining in Satisfaction with Problem Resolution

The results of a two‐phase panel study were used to investigate the relationships among satisfaction with complaint resolution, reports of public and private complaining, and hypothesized antecedents of complaint behavior. Path analysis of a theoretical model of complaint behavior suggested that the degree of public complaining was positively related to satisfaction with the eventual outcome of the problem while the extent of private complaining had a significant negative relationship. Analysis of the antecedents showed that only monetary cost associated with the problem was positively related to both public and private complaints, underscoring the difficulty of predicting complaining from personal characteristics.