consumer satisfaction, dissatisfaction, and complaining behavior

Journal of Social Issues. Vol. 47, No. I, 1991, p p . 107-117

Consumer Satisfaction, Dissatisfaction, and Complaining Behavior

H. Keith Hunt Brigham Young University

Research on consumer satisfaction, dissatisfaction, and complaining behavior, as a consumer-protection social issue, began in response to government public policy needs. How it developed into a valuable approach for public policy and private business decision making is the focus of this article. Topics discussed include alternative definitions of satisfaction and dissatisfaction, special groups of vulnerable consumers, situations where satisfaction is legally constrained, and how dissatisfaction can lead to social change. The error of treating dissatisfaction as cognitive rather than emotional is emphasized. Three dissatisfaction outcomes (voice, exit, and retaliation) are described, along with a discussion of longer run consumer grudge holding.

The goal of this article is to summarize the public policy issue of consumer satisfaction and dissatisfaction. The article combines a discussion of history, literature review, research and conceptual problems, and the author’s observa- tions. For many psychologists, this topic area will have a familiar ring due both to their own experiences as consumers and to the theory and methodology that psychologists use. The existence of the Journal of Consumer Satisfaction, Dis- satisfaction and Complaining Behavior and the earlier conference proceedings covering the same field provide a compact literature base.

Background

The field of consumer satisfaction and dissatisfaction started as a consumer protection issue at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). An issue facing every society is the extent to which government should protect buyers from sellers.

Correspondence regarding this article should be addressed to H. Keith Hunt, Marriott School of Management, 632 TNRB, Brigham Young University, h v o , UT 84602.

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0022-4537/91/03000107506.50/1 8 1991 The Society for the Rychological Study of Social Issues

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During the mid-1970s the FTC had substantially more consumer protection programs than it had funds to administer them, and thus it needed some rational basis for deciding the amount of funding for each program. Every program had some combination of internal and external support groups demanding action. The F K ’ s Ofice of Policy Planning and Evaluation decided that those programs addressing problems having the greatest consumer dissatisfaction should receive the most funding. However, at that time no dissatisfaction measure existed. As a surrogate for dissatisfaction, the staff turned to the Better Business Bureau (BBB) complaint data showing numbers of complaints across a wide variety of product/service categories. It appears that the use of the BBB complaint data in preparing the 1974-1975 FTC budget was the first effort to use objective measures of dissatisfaction as indicators of which consumer protection problems most needed attention.

It quickly became obvious to the FTC staff that the BBB complaint data were inadequate as a surrogate for dissatisfaction and that a more rigorously obtained data set was needed. The FTC was part way through the request-for- proposal process when it realized its funding limit of $30,000 for a national study of consumer dissatisfaction was totally inadequate, and the project was put on hold.

At about this same time, the federal Office of Consumer Affairs (OCA) became interested in obtaining measures of consumer dissatisfaction and made contact with the FTC. Of the three FTC staff members most interested in the national study, Ralph Day and Laird Landon moved from FTC to OCA and helped develop the methodology for the OCA study, while Keith Hunt stayed at the FTC. All three were university professors with visiting appointments at the FTC and later at OCA. At the end of the academic year all three returned to their universities. This set the stage for the development of the field of inquiry known as consumer satisfaction, dissatisfaction, and complaining behavior.

The work set in motion by Day and Landon at OCA eventually became the OCA-funded study performed by Technical Assistance Research Programs, and it was followed years later by a second study. Day, upon returning to Indiana University, continued his work on the conceptualization and measurement of consumer satisfaction and dissatisfaction, and eventually undertook his own research project in the Bloomington, Indiana, area. In addition to Day’s own writing, numerous Ph.D. dissertations came out of this and follow-up research in Bloomington. One of the Ph.D.s, Stephen Ash, joined the faculty at the Univer- sity of Western Ontario and proposed a Canadian national study of consumer satisfaction and dissatisfaction that was eventually funded and became the massive data base so important to consumer policy in Canada.

Hunt proposed to the National Science Foundation through the Marketing Science Institute that a conference be convened featuring invited papers from leading scholars on the conceptualization and measurement of consumer satisfac-

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tion and dissatisfaction. The proposal was funded, the conference was held in April 1976, and these seminal papers began the literature base for the developing area. Day organized a second conference held in 1977, and since then Day and Hunt have combined to offer nine more conferences, with volumes of the proceedings adding to the literature base. Since 1988, Hunt and Day have edited the Journal of Consumer Satisfaction, Dissatisfaction and Complaining Behavior to provide an ongoing outlet for research.

That consumer satisfaction is an important consumer protection issue is obvious. Whether we have learned enough and understand enough to use the research findings of the past 17 years to help make better consumer protection decisions is not so obvious. Public policy attention in the late 1970s spurred the field, giving it a sense of value. In the 1980s, public policy attention turned elsewhere, so the field was confined to the individual efforts of university professors doing what interested them. A topic area initially driven by consumer protection interests changed to one individually pursued for its intrinsic interest. On the assumption that the consumer protection pendulum would continue to swing, the Journal was started to provide a known outlet for relevant research, which will be the base for the next spurt of interest. The field may again show substantial growth and development if consumer protection efforts are revitalized in the U.S., but a substantial spurt in knowledge and/or understanding is unlikely until consumer protection again becomes a major public concern.

Alternative Definitions

The dominant definition of consumer satisfactionldissatisfaction involves comparison of what one expected with what one actually received (Oliver, 1989). If one gets what one expected, then one is satisfied. If one does not get what one expected, the expectation is said to be disconfirmed. A negative disconfirmation, that is, when actual is not as good as expected, results in dissatisfaction. A positive disconfirmation, when actual is better than expected, has received almost no treatment in the literature and does not have a special name. Preliminary thinking leads to the supposition that positive disconfirmation has effects opposite to those of negative disconfirmation. One begets negative word-of-mouth publicity; the other begets positive word-of-mouth comments. One results in store or brand switching; the other results in store or brand loyalty. However, this opposite relationship is suppositional only. From a consumer protection perspec- tive, only negative disconfirmations are of interest. While we applaud positive disconfirmations, they do not require consumer protection.

Numerous alternative definitions of satisfaction and dissatisfaction have been developed in the literature. (1) The normative deficit definition (Morris, 1977) compares actual outcomes to what is culturally acceptable-e.g., in the context of the home, having older children of opposite sexes sharing a bedroom

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is dissatisfying because it violates a cultural norm. (2) The equity definition (Evans, 1982; Swan & Mercer, 1981) deals with the comparison of gains in a social exchange-if the gains are unequal, the loser is dissatisfied. (3) The normative standard definition (Cadotte, Woodruff, & Jenkins, 1982) assumes that consumers develop expectations from their experiences regarding the level of performance they should receive from a brand-dissatisfaction occurs when the actual outcome is different from the standard expectation. (4) The procedural fairness definition (Goodwin & Ross, 1989) derives from conflict resolution research, and holds that satisfaction is a function of the consumer perceiving that he or she has been treated fairly. ( 5 ) Also loosely discussed is an attributional definition, which emphasizes whose fault a disconfirmation is, not just the existence of a disconfirmation.

The alternative definitions have some advantages over the dominant definition in that each has specific conditions under which it applies as well or even better than the dominant definition. However, only the dominant definition applies at least moderately well to all conditions, allowing it to be used across a wide variety of circumstances. The alternative definitions often combine with the dominant definition to provide rich insight into specific situations and conditions.

Many readers will be aware of a wide and diverse literature dealing with ideal points in the study of preferences. The consumer satisfaction field, while acknowledging ideal points, focuses on what was actually expected, not what would be ideal. In most consumer purchases, we realistically expect something less than the ideal because, for example, we have not given enough search attention to find the ideal or we have not paid a price high enough to purchase the ideal. The “expected” outcome is what the consumer realistically expects from the purchase, not what the outcome ideally might have been. To date, no one has tried to merge these two approaches to obtain some measure of the difference between expected and ideal outcomes.

Special Issues

Much of the developmental work and early applications in the field of consumer satisfaction have been with standard cross sections of consumers, assessing a wide variety of commonly used products and services. Also interest- ing, however, are some of the special problem groups of consumers and their relation to public policy. These special groups illustrate typical research applications and have the added benefit of illuminating some of the unsolved problems of the field.

Vulnerable Groups of Consumers

Andreasen and Manning (1990) define vulnerable consumers as


those who are at a disadvantage in exchange relationships where that disadvantage is attributable to characteristics that are largely not controllable by them at the time of the transaction. This definition would include: children, the elderly, the uneducated, the structurally poor, the physically handicapped, ethnic and racial minorities, and those with language problems . . . . [Rlesearch and writing on consumer satisfactionldissatisfaction and complaining behavior on the part of vulnerable consumers appears to be limited to four groups, the elderly, blacks, those with low incomes, and those with limited educa- tion. (p. 12)

Most Americans are less likely to get offended when one party takes advantage of another if the parties are somewhat equal regarding the particular exchange. However, many people, if not most, are offended when a vulnerable party is taken advantage of by a less vulnerable party. Thus, in a marketing exchange when a seller takes advantage of a consumer’s vulnerability, the public reaction is likely to be severe, leading government to penalize the violator and to legislate against future violations.

Children. The article in this journal issue by Kunkel and Roberts discusses children’s vulnerability to commercial pressures, so no further discussion of this critical topic is given here.

The elderly. The elderly have long been a special interest group for consumer satisfaction researchers. Here is a brief summary of findings regarding the elderly from a concentrated research effort in 1977-1978 (Hunt, 1980): (a) Dissatisfaction decreases with age. (b) Elderly consumers are highly satisfied. (c) Older consumers tend to perceive fewer marketing practices as unfair, es- pecially those practices that could lead to consumer problems. (d) In consumer decisions, the elderly are more oriented to internal knowledge and experience than to external knowledge and experience. This fact has a greater impact when the internal knowledge of the elderly is out of date, less complete, and even sometimes in error, compared to the internal knowledge of middle-aged and younger consumers. (e) The elderly are less assertive in seeking redress for dissatisfaction or grievances. (f) The elderly are considerably less aware of their rights than are younger consumers. (g) The major problems experienced by the elderly are service and maintenance problems, a class of problems that is less likely to be satisfactorily resolved than other types of problems. (h) The elderly are less likely to take any kind of protest action outside the store. (i) Elderly consumers are less likely to sustain their complaining behavior when an unsatisfactory outcome is experienced.

Many of these findings apply to other vulnerable groups as well. Andreasen and Manning (1990) ask,

Why are vulnerable consumers more satisfied with their purchases than other consumers? Is it that they truly do obtain more satisfactory products and services than other consumers? . . . Is it that, as Hunt (1988) suggests, they have lowered their aspirations? Is it that they begon with lowered aspirations? . . . Is it that they are less sophisticated or

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observant than other consumers? . . . Is it that their difficult circumstances distract them from careful evaluation of their purchases? . . .

Why [do] vulnerable consumers less often complain than other consumers? Is it that the items they purchase are sufficiently low cost that they “estimate” the cost of complaining objectively to be not worth it? . . . Is it that they have a negative self-image that leads them to believe that they are less competent or are inferior and thus to attribute blame for purchase problems more often to themselves or their families rather than to sellers or other actors? . . . Is it that they are unsophisticated about the responsibilities and legal obliga- tions that sellers have? . . . Does vulnerable consumers’ self-image cause them to estimate that the likelihood that they will succeed in complaining to a big, expensive business is low? Is it that the vulnerable have already had a number of negative experiences with the responsiveness of institutions . . . to their needs which they generalize to their likely experiences with sellers? . . . Is it that they are less knowledgeable about the methods one uses to make a complaint? Is it that they simply have fewer options for complaining? . . . Is it that complaint handling organizations act in ways that discourage their complaining . . . ? (pp. 16-17)

While these questions are dramatically stated regarding vulnerable consumers, they are equally relevant to the consumer concerns of less vulnerable groups in society.

Lack of technological sophistication. Even more fascinating questions of vulnerability are arising as our world becomes increasingly sophisticated technologically in so many dimensions that no person can maintain competency in all of them. This has long been the case with medical services, so that case can be used as a familiar example. One goes to the doctor because one does not know what is wrong, or knowing what is wrong, one needs help to cure it. In this situation one openly admits that one knows almost nothing, and one presumes the doctor knows almost everything. But this is also the case now with our automobiles, our appliances, even some of the food we eat. We are not technologically sophisticated enough either to make a correct choice in the first place or to know whether a seller is doing right or wrong by us. We are increasingly vulnerable and at the mercy of the seller.

Continuing with a health care example, let us say that one’s doctor pre- scribes that quadruple bypass surgery is necessary. One’s only protection from error is to get a second opinion from an unbiased expert, but in any community the bypass surgeons are a tightly knit interdependent professional group. Should one be satisfied with the diagnosis and prognosis even though they are not at all what one wanted or expected? Say that one has the surgery, all seems to go well, and within a few days one is out of bed and getting about. Should one be satisfied or not? A week later, however, it turns out that during surgery one picked up an infection of the sort that is rampant in many hospitals, so the doctors give one massive infusions of antibiotics to kill the infection; in so doing, they also wipe out several key organs, so one is now permanently on life-support systems. Should one be satisfied or not? The points in this example are that (a) at each stage the experts did what was technologically/medically correct, (b) one had no


basis for understanding or judging its correctness, but (c) if one were technologically competent, one would have been satisfied. However, the end result was highly unsatisfactory. And at no stage in the series of decisions was one competent to decide what should be done to him or her.

While health care examples are familiar and perhaps the most fear arousing, similar examples are common, even with regard to such mundane matters as automobile repair, tire selection, purchase of prepared foods, and even of “natu- ral” foods. We live in a world where increasingly we are incompetent to judge which is the correct path of action; as a result we are increasingly dependent on the service provider, not only to tell us what to do but also whether the outcome was satisfactory. The consumer still makes the judgment of satisfactioddissatis- faction, but it is often based on wishes, not on the technological realities of the situation.

Product quality considerations. Just as in the case of technological sophistication, judgments of product quality have become much more difficult. There has not yet been any linking of the consumer satisfaction literature with the product quality literature, although that link will surely come.

Third-party assistance. Consumers who are vulnerable for any reason usu- ally require third-party assistance, first to recognize they are being taken advantage of, and then to be assisted, protected, or in some way made less vulnerable. These third parties, such as the Peggy Charrens, the Ralph Naders, the Robert Choates, often become the driving forces on behalf of their vulnerable constitu- encies, demanding changes that result in their constituents’ increased well-being and satisfaction.

Legally Constrained Satisfaction

Still other situations exist that legally prohibit consumers from obtaining full satisfaction. Pinney, Strate, & Goodall (1989, p. 38) note that

Given that the more one consumes of alcoholic beverages, beyond a given number of units consumed, the less rational one’s behavior, laws are emerging in various states . . . indicating that bar and tavern personnel are being held steadily more responsible for denying customers quantities of alcoholic beverages beyond certain levels of consumption as defined by law . . . . The time has arrived, at least in U.S. society, where the law is permitted to dictate when a consumer has maximized his or her satisfaction although consumers might argue their satisfaction has been constrained and their constitutional rights infringed upon.

Since Pinney ’s initial presentation of these ideas, using alcohol consumption as the illustration, researchers from around the world have been sending him similar examples of legally constrained consumption that inhibits consumer satisfaction. Other examples include limits on hunting and fishing seasons and

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catches, and city zoning restrictions on the size and types of homes and other buildings that can be constructed.

Dissatisfaction and Social Change

In a particularly insightful article, Olander (1977) pointed out that satisfaction is not always the desired goal. If one wants social change, then a goal may be consumer dissatisfaction, not consumer satisfaction. Olander’s observation gives credence to the comments that have attributed change in eastern Europe to the continual barrage of West German television showing a consumer opulence unknown to many of the viewers. For most product categories, West German television established the expected level, to which the actual products in eastern markets could not compare, resulting in dissatisfaction. While consumer dissatisfaction was probably only a minor contributor to the political upheavals, still it was there, being reinforced daily in the comparison of actual outcomes to expected ones.

Consumer Satisfaction Is Emotion, Not Cognition

Various authors recognized in the late 1970s that consumer satisfaction and dissatisfaction are primarily emotion, not cognition (Hunt, 1977; Westbrook, 1982). Yet a decade later, researchers are still trying to use paper and pencil tests of cognitive measures to study them. Why? Because they are familiar with paper and pencil tests and cognitive measures, whereas most active consumer satisfaction researchers do not know much about emotion, and measurement of emotions is a very complex and expensive process. There is a substantial opportunity for competent emotion researchers to apply their knowledge to the study of consumer satisfaction.

Dissatisfaction Outcomes

If consumers are dissatisfied, what happens? There are three response pos- sibilities. The first two are Hirschman’s (1970) categories of voice and exit. The third is retaliation.

Voice means that the dissatisfied consumer in some way verbally communi- cates the dissatisfaction to the seller. Unless the dissatisfied consumer voices dissatisfaction, the seller does not know of the dissatisfaction or how to correct it. Voice may be high, medium, or low. High voice means the consumer tells the store manager and may also go farther to write or call the manufacturer or the store division manager. Medium voice means the consumer tells the sales clerk or the checkout person. Low voice means the consumer says nothing to anyone associated with the store or product.


Exit means the dissatisfied consumer stops using the brand or store. Unless the dissatisfied consumer in some way lets the seller know why the exit occurred, the seller does not know of the dissatisfaction or how to correct it. High exit means the consumer makes a conscious decision, often in anger, never to go in that store again or never to buy that brand again. Medium exit means the consumer makes a conscious decision to try not to use that store or brand in the future. Low exit means the consumer will continue using the store or brand as usual.

Retaliation means the dissatisfied consumer intentionally does something to hurt the store or business. If the consumer’s dissatisfaction is of such intensity that there is an undeniable need to strike out and hurt the store, the dissatisfied consumer can do so by vowing never to shop there again, by making extensive efforts to tell many people how bad the store is, or by doing something to damage the store. High retaliation means physically damaging the store or its merchandise, causing loss to the store, or deliberately going out of one’s way to tell negative things about the store or brand. Medium retaliation means causing some minor inconvenience to the store or telling a limited number of people a correct account of what made one mad. Low retaliation means doing nothing to hurt the store.

Considering these three dimensions as a 3 X 3 cube, we can conceptualize any variations in intensity from low to medium to high in any combination of dimensions. For example, the low-low-low condition is what commonly occurs when we experience consumer dissatisfaction. Although what we got was not what we expected, we do not tell the store, and we will continue shopping at the store or buying that brand with no felt need to retaliate against the producer or the store. In the extreme opposite comer of the cube, the high-high-high condition, the dissatisfied consumer tells the store manager, decides never to enter that store (or buy that brand) again, and does something to damage the store or brand, such as extensive bad-mouthing or physical damage to the store or its merchandise. In one high-high-high example, the customer shouted his dissatisfaction at the clerk and the store manager, vowed never to buy at that store again, went out of the store, got in his car, and drove it in the front doors of the store through the checkout counter and between two lines of shelving, destroying everything in its path. An example of the high-voice, low-low is the person whom sellers describe as the perpetual complainer, always trying to get coupons or other compensation by claiming dissatisfaction with a product. Frustrating to the seller is the high- exit, low-low dissatisfied consumer, who never tells the store about the dissatisfaction, does not retaliate in any way, but never comes back to the store to shop, leaving the store no way to try to make things right. The consumer who makes the store most angry is the high-retaliation, low-low, who does not tell the store anything is wrong, continues shopping at the store because of convenience or low prices or whatever, but does things to hurt the store, such as leaving frozen

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items around the food store to thaw out or deliberately misplacing items on shelves or clothing in displays. The high retaliation condition is coming to be recognized as a consumer vigilante action, in which the consumer steps outside the cultural norms to correct whatever he or she considers to be a wrong by the store or manufacturer.

Perseverance

How long can consumer dissatisfaction continue? The Hunts (1988) inter- viewed a variety of consumers ranging from high school students to senior citizens, asking the question “Have you ever gotten so upset at a store (or manufacturer) that you said ‘I’ll never go in that store (or buy that brand) again,’ and you haven’t?” The older the respondent, the more examples they had to give, and older respondents had to be limited to only three examples to keep interview- ing time under control. The oldest example was an event that had happened over 25 years before, and 86% of the examples had happened over 5 years earlier. Almost all of the respondents (87%) were somewhat or very emotionally upset, and they were more upset at their treatment than at the store or product performance. About 78% spread negative word-of-mouth, and 46% said they told lots of people. Only 53% voiced the complaint even though 100% exited. This study did not ask about retaliation, but the respondents’ phrasings regarding their negative word-of-mouth were definitely retaliatory.

This initial work was exploratory, but the numbers were so extreme that there is no question about grudge holding existing, due to consumer dissatisfaction some time in the past. If you ask yourself the same research question, you may find examples coming at an increasing rate the longer you think about it. How old are they? How much has your negative word-of-mouth cost the store or brand? How much ought the store or brand to have given you at the time to remove your dissatisfaction? These considerations make the Sears, Penneys, K- Marts, Nordstroms, etc., appear very wise in their policies of going even beyond reason to keep the customer happy.

Conclusion

In an era concerned with issues such as world peace, world hunger, and world ecology, the degree to which consumers in advanced nations are getting what they expect out of products and services may not seem an important social issue. However, in the domain of consumer protection problems in advanced nations, consumer satisfaction continues to be of great interest. The past 15 years have seen the development of an appropriate methodology and a substantial research literature. In the advanced nations, consumer satisfaction and dissatisfaction are likely to remain a consumer-protection social issue challenging the best skills and insights of social science researchers for the foreseeable future.


References

Andreasen, A. R., & Manning, J. (1990). The dissatisfaction and complaining behavior of vulnerable consumers. Journal of Consumer Satisfaction, Dissatisfaction and Complaining Behavior, 3, 12-20.

Cadotte, E. R., Woodruff, R. B., &Jenkins, R. L. (1982). Norms and expectation predictions: How different are the measures? In R. L. Day & H. K. Hunt (Eds.), International fare in consumer satisfaction and complaining behavior ( pp. 644-668). Bloomington: Division of Research, College of Business, Indiana University.

Evans, R. H. (1982). Diagnosing customer satisfaction/dissatisfaction and behavioral intention: Expectancy value theory versus equity theory. In R. L. Day & H. K. Hunt (Eds.), Internu- tional fare in consumer satisfaction and complaining behavior ( pp. 644-668). Bloomington: Division of Research, College of Business, Indiana University.

Goodwin, C., & Ross, I. (1989). Salient dimensions of perceived fairness in resolution of service complaints. Journal of Consumer Satisfaction, Dissatisfaction and Complaining Behavior, 2 ,

Hirschman, A. 0. (1970). Exit, voice and loyalty: Responses to decline infirms, organizations. and states. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

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Hunt, H. K. (1980). Consumer satisfaction/dissatisfaction and complaining behavior of the elderly: An inventory of findings. In H. K. Hunt & F. M. Magrabi (Eds.), /nterdisciplinary consumer research (pp. 79-80). Ann Arbor, MI: Association for Consumer Research.

Hunt, H. K., Hunt, H. D., & Hunt, T. C. (1988). Consumer grudgeholding. Journal of Consumer Satisfaction, Dissatisfaction and Complaining Behavior, I , 116-1 18.

Olander, F. (1977). Consumer satisfaction-A skeptic's view. In H. K. Hunt (Ed.), Conceptualiza- tion and measurement of consumer satisfaction and dissatisfaction ( pp. 409-452). Cam- bridge, MA: Marketing Science Institute.

Oliver, R. L. (1989). Processing of the satisfaction response in consumption: A suggested framework and research propositions. Journal of Consumer Satisfaction. Dissatisfaction and Complnin- ing Behavior, 2 , 1-16.

Pinney, J. K., Strate, 'L., & Goodall, L. E. (1989). Constrained satisfaction: Legal constraints upon consumer behavior in the consumption of alcoholic beverages and implications for public policy. Journul of Consumer Satisfaction. Dissatisfaction and Complaining Behavior. 2 , 36- 42.

Swan, J. E., & Mercer, A. A. (1981). Consumer satisfaction as a function of equity and disconfma- tion. In H. K. Hunt & R. L. Day (Eds.), Conceptual and empirical contributions to consumer satisfaction and complaining behavior ( pp. 2-8). Bloomington: Division of Research, School of Business, Indiana University.

Westbrook, R. A. (1982). Consumer satisfaction and the phenomenology of emotions during automobile ownership experiences. In R. L. Day & H. K. Hunt (Eds.) , Internutional fare in consumer satisfaction and complaining behavior ( pp. 2-9). Bloomington: Division of Re- search, College of Business, Indiana University.

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H. KEITH HUNT is a professor in the Marriott School of Management at Brigham Young University. He is also coeditor and publisher of the Journal of Consumer Satisfaction, Dissatisfaction and Complaining Behavior, and pre- viously was conference cohost and editor of the conference proceedings series since 1976.

consumer satisfaction, dissatisfaction, and complaining behavior

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