Politeness matters: The antecedents and consequences of politeness in a complaint handling setting

Pierre-Nicolas Schwab, Laurence Rosier and Sandra Rothenberger

No 15-011, Working Papers CEB from ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles

Abstract: Marketing scholars have used justice theory to investigate how consumers’ perceptions affect post-complaint satisfaction. Less attention has been given to how those perceptions are formed and what organizations should do to enhance them. This paper explores the concept of politeness, a component of interactional justice, in a complaint handling setting, with two complementary studies: a quantitative discourse analysis, and a survey. In study 1, the effects of 16 antecedents of politeness in a dataset of naturally occurring firms’ responses to customers’ complaints are investigated. Results show that Face-Threatening-Acts (FTAs) are better predictors of perceived politeness than antecedents previously used in marketing research. Study 2 explores the consequences of politeness with a survey demonstrating that politeness is positively correlated with repurchase intention and perceived firm professionalism.

Keywords: Complaints; politeness; professionalism; theory of face; Grice’s maxims (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: M31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 42 p.
Date: 2015-04-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mkt
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