A Study on Consumer Complaint Behavior Caused by Dissatisfaction with the Service of Smartphone Applications: The Moderating Effect of a Complaint Handling Process and Consumer’s Attribution

Abstract

The use of smartphones has grown rapidly over a short period of time, particularly for commuting news search, smart banking, and social networking services, and has had a significant impact on the pattern of contemporary life. Further, a wide range of applications are downloaded on to smartphones. This has also led a considerable number of complaints regarding these applications. In this study, we focus on the levels of dissatisfaction that users experience with smartphone applications and their effects on consumer complaint behavior along with the moderating effects of the complaint handling process and attribution. The aim of this study is to verify whether the following hypothesis-2 (low/high dissatisfaction level of smartphone applications)×2 (poor/excellent complaint handling process)×2 (internal/external consumer attribution)-is in accordance with the betweengroup design to build a factorial design experiment. The results of this study are as follows. First, the consumer's tendency to complain significantly influenced their dissatisfaction level. Second, consumer complaint behavior is modulated by the complaint handling process. Third, the external-attribution tendency of consumers was found to lead to more dissatisfaction than the tendency for internal attribution.