Have You Heard the Word? The Effect of Word of Mouth on Perceived Justice, Satisfaction and Repurchase Intentions Following Complaint Handling

Abstract

Complaint management has focused on justice or fairness theory to explain satisfaction with the complaint handling process and with post complaint customer behavior such as word of mouth or repurchase intentions. This research shows that, far from being just an outcome variable, word of mouth plays an important role in the complaint process affecting perceived fairness, satisfaction and repurchase intentions. Distributive fairness is the most influential fairness dimension, but word of mouth valance has the largest impact on satisfaction, and is also more influential than satisfaction in impacting repurchase intentions. Limitations and future research directions are noted.