What drives the intention to complain?

The purpose of this paper is to provide insight into the decision process behind whether customers complain, and to identify the effects of the situational factor credence quality in this decision process.

A quasi-experimental design is used in which scenarios are applied in combination with a survey to test and to compare the model and its boundary conditions with existing consumer behavior models.

The mental-accounting process (theory of trying to complain (TTC)) seems to be a stronger predictor than mere attitude models (theory of planned behavior) when trying to explain intention to complain. Second, anticipated justice from complaint handling is a strong driver of intention to complain. Third, in both models, subjective norms are a strong predictor of intention to complain.

This study contributes to both theory and practice by extending existing theory and offering the TTC, and by providing practical insight for service managers.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the current study is the first to compare systematically two complaint approaches explaining complaint intention: the attitude model and the mental-accounting model.