Consumers’ perception of the functional and symbolic performance failure of major electrical household appliances

摘要

The purpose of this study was to explore and describe consumers’ perception of the performance failure of selected major electrical household appliances. The expectancy disconfirmation paradigm (Bearden & Teel, 1983) served as theoretical background to this study. A convenience sampling technique was employed. A total of 216 self-administered questionnaires were collected. Respondents had to select an appliance item from a list of appliances provided, that had caused them the most dissatisfaction within the last four years. Respondents had to indicate the type of product failure they had experienced. The results of the exploratory factor analysis show that respondents did not differentiate between the functional and symbolic performance failures of appliances. Therefore, from a theoretical point of view, consumers’ dissatisfaction with their appliances is determined by a combination of functional as well as symbolic performance results. Marketing analysts, manufacturers and retailers should keep in mind the fact that consumers do not differentiate between the functional and the symbolic performance dimensions of product performance when evaluating the actual performance of appliances. This has implications for the effective handling of complaints. Complaint handling personnel should see complaints through the eyes of customers (i.e. as a combination of functional and symbolic performance failures) to improve their understanding of the customers' dissatisfaction. Significantly more respondents were very dissatisfied to extremely dissatisfied (76%) with the performance of their major electrical household appliances, compared to the respondents who were slightly to moderately dissatisfied (24%). Future research on the disparities between the different gender groups and the different cultural groupings concerning consumers’ interpretation of product failures (i.e. cognition) and their dissatisfaction (i.e. emotion), can improve manufacturers’, retailers’ and consumer organisations’ comprehension of consumers’ complaint behaviour. Hence, it is recommended that conceptions of attribution theory be integrated (aligned) with the expectancy disconfirmation paradigm to develop a theoretical basis for studying consumers’ complaint behaviour concerning appliance performance failures.