Complainant Identity: Things to Consider in Obtaining Customers’ Feedback in Public Transportation

Abstract

This article investigates the factors that act as barriers in obtaining customer complaints in public transportation services in the city of Kaliningrad, Russia. It seeks to understand what external and internal factors discourage dissatisfied customers from filing a complaint to the service company, and allocate regularities with regard to personal attributes of the individual groups of respondents. Data were collected from a survey held in May and June 2014 using a judgmental sampling method. Research results suggest that complainant's gender, age, and income level predetermine individual perceptions over the influence of factors that might stop a customer from filing a complaint. On average, depending on the type of problem, up to 90% of dissatisfied customers do not voice their complaints to the service provider.

Russian public transport system: the customers’ feedback on the service provision

“…overall evaluation of the service), state their possible reaction to this disturbance and the most probable barriers to engage in CCB. The list of CCB catalyst factors within the questionnaire were formulated in accordance with research methodology on perceived quality of PPT services (see: Cascetta and Cartenı `2014; Cirillo et al 2011;dell'Olio et al 2010dell'Olio et al , 2011de On ˜a et al 2013;Eboli and Mazzulla 2011;Hensher 2014;Mikhaylov et al 2015;Roma ´n et al 2014;Too and Earl 2010): trip quality (e.g. reliability, frequency, punctuality, incl.…”

“…Additional questions asked relate to personal data of respondents, such as gender, age, education, profession, availability of a car or a bicycle, frequency of bus usage and the main reason for using public bus transport, prior experience and their income level. These questions are considered as important demographic factors and other personality traits, which are influential concerning service quality evaluation (dell'Olio et al 2010;de On ˜a et al 2013;Mikhaylov and Mikhaylova 2015;Tronvoll 2008).…”

“…Researchers on PPT highlight a number of specific service aspects (i.e. service attributes), often structured under SERVQUAL dimensions, which might trigger a service failure (Cascetta and Cartenı `2014;Cirillo et al 2011;de On ˜a et al 2013;dell'Olio et al 2010dell'Olio et al , 2011Eboli and Mazzulla 2011;Hensher 2014;Lai and Chen 2011;Mikhaylov et al 2015;Roma ´n et al 2014;Too and Earl 2010): frequency, punctuality, cleanliness, ride comfort (e.g. temperature, noise, vibrations, safety, modernity, vehicle occupancy, seating and personal space, etc.…”