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.

Response format

7-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree)

Scale 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 are relatively simple.
• In our company/business unit, guidelines for employees' behavior toward complaining customers include instructions to be polite and helpful.
• 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.
• In our company/business unit, guidelines for employees' behavior toward complaining customers include instructions to behave in a customer-oriented way.

Full scale items shown. Always cite the original source when using this scale in research.

Usage notes & scoring

Composite reliability = .92; AVE = .65. In the structural model, behavioural guidelines positively predict perceived interactional justice (γ = .29, p < .01). The effect is negatively moderated by supportiveness of the internal environment (interaction β = –.26, p < .01), indicating a compensatory relationship: when the internal environment strongly supports customer-oriented values, explicit behavioural guidelines become less necessary. Effects are stronger in B2C than B2B contexts and stronger for service firms than manufacturing firms.

Recommended companion scales

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.

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