Quality of Behavioral Guidelines for Complaint Handling

What it measures

Measures the quality of an organisation's formal behavioural guidelines directing how employees are to interact with complaining customers, operationalising the mechanistic approach to complaint management. Items assess whether guidelines are clearly defined and simple, and whether they include instructions to be polite and helpful, to show concern and understanding, to take responsibility for problems, and to behave in a customer-oriented way. Higher scores indicate more comprehensive and customer-aligned behavioural directives. Administered to the manager with primary responsibility for complaint management.

Representative items

• In our company/business unit, guidelines for employees' behavior toward complaining customers are clearly defined.
• In our company/business unit, guidelines for employees' behavior toward complaining customers include instructions to show concern and understanding.
• In our company/business unit, guidelines for employees' behavior toward complaining customers include instructions to take responsibility for the problem.

Citation

Homburg, C., & Fürst, A. (2005). How organizational complaint handling drives customer loyalty: An analysis of the mechanistic and the organic approach. Journal of Marketing, 69(3), 95–114.