Discovering the “customer annoyance iceberg” through evidence controlling

There is no doubt about the relevance of complaint management for customer retention. But complaint management-objectives can only be achieved if complaints registered by the firm give a comprehensive view of the annoyances perceived by customers. In fact, a considerable share of annoyed customers do not complain and many complaint articulations are not registered. Because of these “unvoiced” and “hidden” complaints, registered complaints show only the tip of the “annoyance iceberg” leading to misinterpretations and wrong allocation decisions. As a countermeasure, the concept of evidence-controlling is developed in this paper. Relevant key figures are identified, effective information gathering is demonstrated and managerial implications and open research questions are discussed.

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