The Influence of Innovative Customer Complaints on Organizational Response Behavior

摘要

Customer complaints(CCs)are a widespread phenomenon,especially in business-to-consumer industries(Homburg and Furst,2005).Nowadays,digital channels allow customers to express their dissatisfaction to companies in a time-efficient way.While some firms engage in defense mechanisms when faced with CCs(Homburg and Furst,2007),others leverage the opportunity to learn from CCs(Yilmaz,Varnali,and Kasnakoglu,2016),for example,for innovation.Although prior research has contributed to our understanding of successful customer complaint management(CCM)and the importance of customer integration in new product development(NPD),several research gaps remain at the intersection of these literature streams.First,there is a lack of current research on company response behavior to CCs via digital channels.Second,our analysis of the CCM literature reveals a lack of understanding of how characteristics of complaint messages influence company response behavior.Third,research in the CCM domain on the opportunities of CCs for organizational learning,and particularly NPD,is scarce.Addressing these gaps,we answer the following research questions: How does organizational response behavior to CCs differ depending on indicators of complainant value? Specifically,do companies react to CCs offering innovative potential? If so,to what extent do companies leverage these complaints for NPD?