NOTES

Introduction

1. Jeane Bliss, “Connecting with Customers,” Chief Executive, July–August 2006, http://www.chiefexecutive.net/ME2/Segments/Publications/Print.asp?Module=Publications::Article&id=BB98F27ABCF04699A83BB7A6BFA2D671 (accessed December 28, 2007).

2. Customer Experience Impact Report, RightNow Technologies, August 2007, http://www.rightnow.com/pdf/whitepapers/CEI-2007.pdf (accessed December 28, 2007).

3. “BBB Reports Nearly One in Five Adult Americans’ Trust in Business Decreased in Past Year,” Better Business Bureau, 2007; detailed survey results are available at http://www.bbb.org/trustindex (accessed January 11, 2008).

4. For a complete discussion, see Stephen L. Vargo et al., “Satisfiers, Dissatisfiers, Criticals, and Neutrals: A Review of Their Relative Effects on Customer (Dis) Satisfaction,” Academy of Marketing Science Review 11, no. 2 (2007), http://www.amsreview.org/articles/vargo2-2007.pdf (accessed January 8, 2008).

5. For example, see one such study covering different complaining behaviors of hotel customers from Turkey, the Netherlands, Britain, and Israel: Atila Yuksel, Ugur Kilinc, and Fisun Yuksel, “Cross-National Analysis of Hotel Customers’ Attitudes Toward Complaining and Their Complaining Behaviors,” Tourism Management 27, no. 1 (February 2006): 11–24. For a comparison between Danes and Spaniards, see P. Shaw, “The Intercultural Validity of Customer-Complaint Handling Routines,” Document Design 2, no. 2 (2001): 180–193; for a comparison between Canadian customers and customers from the People’s Republic of China, see Michael K. Hui and Kevin Aul, “Justice Perceptions of Complaint-Handling: A Cross-Cultural Comparison between PRC and Canadian Customers,” Journal of Business Research 52, no. 2 (May 2001): 161–173; and for a comparison between UK and U.S. customers, see Christopher A. Voss et al., “A Tale of Two Countries’ Conservatism, Service Quality, and Feedback on Customer Satisfaction,” Journal of Service Research 6, no. 3 (2004): 212–230.

6. One such example is research conducted at the Norwegian School of Management, which concludes that when looking at the initial service failure, satisfaction with complaint resolution had the strongest impact on customer loyalty. Tor Wallin Andreassen, “What Drives Customer Loyalty with Complaint Resolution,” Journal of Service Research 1, no. 4 (1999).

7. Janelle Barlow and Paul Stewart, Branded Customer Service (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2004).

8. This topic is discussed and available in downloadable documents at http://www.tmius.com.

9. Janelle Barlow and Dianna Maul, Emotional Value (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2000).

10. Patrick Barwise and Sean Meehan, Simply Better: Winning and Keeping Customers by Delivering What Matters Most (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2004).

11. The data were accessed by entering “customer complaints” in quotation marks and then looking at each year for this period.

12. K. Sheram and T. P. Soubbotina, Beyond Economic Growth: Meeting the Challenges of Global Development (Washington DC: The World Bank, 2000).

13. Gordon Bethune, as quoted in J. P. Donlon, “Learning from the Customer,” Chief Executive (March 1, 1996), http://www.chiefexecutive.net/ME2/Segments/Publications/Print.asp?Module-Publications::Article&id=057CA5453F10402A91F047535D4205DC (accessed January 12, 2008).

14. E. de Coverly et al., “Service Recovery in the Airline Industry: Is It as Simple as Failed, Recovered, Satisfied?” Marketing Review 3, no. 1 (September 1, 2002): 21–37.

15. Wally Bock, “Getting Ideas Is the Easy Part: Here’s What You Need for Innovation,” Three Star Leadership Blog, June 8 2007, http://blog.threestarleadership.com/2007/06/08/getting-ideas-is-the-easy-part-heres-what-you-need-for-innovation.aspx (accessed December 28, 2007).

Chapter 1

1. These last three questions were asked of Janelle Barlow by Apple (plus, “What is your Apple customer number?”) when she called to ask a question about an e-mail that said the company was cancelling her order. Then she was asked to verify her name and billing address. Finally, the Apple representative told her to ignore the e-mail. It was incorrect. All this took three and a half hours on the phone and being transferred to three offices staffed by very nice people, but people, nonetheless, suffering under some type of out-of-control system. And this is Apple, the company that is trying to make it possible for Janelle to be creative. Janelle was offered $100 off her order for her “inconvenience.” The following week the scenario was repeated, though this service representative told Janelle she should never ignore any e-mail from Apple and asked her to send in all her information again. It ultimately took one month for Janelle to get the software she wanted.

2. A. Banu Elmadag and Mert Tokman, “Understanding the Effects of Self-Service Technologies on Service Performance: An Exploratory Study of Service Employees,” The University of Alabama, Culverhouse College of Commerce and Business Administration, June 22, 2004, www.cba.ua.edu/–sbeatty/Readings/SST_employee_final.doc (accessed December 28, 2007).

3. European Branch Manager Survey (conducted September 2006 to November 2006) of eighteen European countries, as reported in “Learn About the Role of Complaints Management in Improving Customer Service in European Retail Banks,” Business Wire, March 21, 2007.

4. Andre Andersson and Fredrik Karlsson, “Kundtillfredsstallelse bland smaforetagare,” (bachelor’s thesis, Lulea University of Technology, 2007).

5. Chad Autry, Donna J. Hill, and Matthew O’Brien, “Attitude Toward the Customer: A Study of Product Returns Episodes,” Journal of Managerial Issues (Fall 2007).

6. To read more about customer attribution, see Bernard Weiner, “’Spontaneous’ Causal Thinking,” Psychological Bulletin 97 (1985): 74–84; Valerie S. Folkes, “Consumer Reactions to Product Failure: An Attributional Approach,” Journal of Consumer Research 10 (March 1984): 398–409; Valerie S. Folkes, “Recent Attribution Research in Consumer Behavior: A Review and New Directions,” Journal of Consumer Research 14 (March 1988): 548–565; S. Krishnan and Valerie A. Valle, “Dissatisfaction Attributions and Consumer Complaint Behavior,” in Advances in Consumer Research, ed. William L. Wilkie (Miami: Association for Consumer Research, 1979), 445–449.

7. Emerson Center for Business Ethics, “Customer Complaints: Closing the Gap,” St. Louis University (April 1999): 1–6.

8. “And the Winner Is Wegmans,” press release, Wegmans, April 16, 2007, http://www.wegmans.com/about/pressRoom/pressReleases/foodNetwork.asp (accessed December 28, 2007).

9. “100 Best Companies to Work For 2007,” Fortune, January 22, 2007, http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/bestcompanies/2007/full_list/ (accessed December 28, 2007).

10. “Record Low Temperatures, High Energy Costs Putting the Big Chill on Home and Business Owners,” press release, Dryvit, January 19, 2004, http://www.dryvit.com/fileshare/doc/in_the_news/pr_ornl_rvalue.htm (accessed December 28, 2007).

11. The Marvin Windows, Dryvit, and Louisiana-Pacific examples are all cited in Daniel Walker Guido, “Above and Beyond: If All Manufacturers Handled Product Defects the Way These Three Companies Did, Builders Would Find Protecting Their Reputations a Whole Lot Easier,” Builder Magazine, January 22, 2002. Details about the three companies were captured from their Web sites. This article is also available at http://www.builderonline.com/Industrynews.asp?channelID=59&sectionID=62&articletype=1&articleID=1000020157 (accessed December 28, 2007).

12. Ted Garrison, “The New Equation: Customer Loyalty Equals Profitability,” G.I.A.: The Official Newsletter of the Georgia Irrigation Association, Inc. (Summer 2005): 4, http://www.tedgarrison.com/articles2.cfm?itemid=2 (accessed December 28, 2007).

13. Bill Clinton (speech delivered in Las Vegas, Nevada, January 21, 2008).

14. Guy Kawasaki is the author of Selling the Dream, Rules for Revolutionaries, The Art of the Start, Word of Mouth Marketing and How to Drive Your Competition Crazy. Kawasaki, “How to Change the World,” December 27, 2007, http://blog.guykawasaki.com/ (accessed December 28, 2007).

15. See Neil Ross, “Marina Profits: Use Your ‘Head,’” Boating Industry 57, no. 7 (June 1994): 30–32; Ralph L. Day et al., “The Hidden Agenda of Consumer Complaining,” Journal of Retailing 57, no. 3 (Fall 1981): 86–106; John Goodman at TARP says that he thinks the number is around 2 percent and that most of his business clients would support this number.

16. The Fish Market, http://www.birminghammenus.com/thefishmarket (accessed December 28, 2007).

17. Gwen Moran, “Green Eggs and Scam,” Entrepreneur, January 1, 2002.

18. Tom Weir, “In-Store Counterattack,” Grocery Headquarters, September 1, 2005.

Chapter 2

1. Fred Wiersema, as quoted in “Are You Ready for a Relationship?” Chief Executive Magazine, November 1999, http://www.chiefexecutive.net/ME2/Segments/Publications/Print.asp?Module=Publications::Article&id=2C77123B33984A84A6C1FDD8719A4C11 (accessed December 28, 2007).

2. Jeffrey Pfeffer, What Were They Thinking? Unconventional Wisdom About Management (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2007).

3. As cited in Stacey L. Bell, “Launching Profits with Customer Loyalty,” CRM Magazine, April 2000, http://www.destinationcrm.com/articles/default.asp?articleid=582 (accessed December 28, 2007).

4. Justin Martin, “6 Companies Where Customers Come First,” Fortune Small Business, http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2007/fsb/0709/gallery.where_customers_come_first.fsb/index.html.

5. Claes Fornell and Birger Wernerfelt, “Defensive Marketing Strategy by Customer Complaint Management: A Theoretical Analysis,” Journal of Marketing Research 24, No. 4 (November 1987): 337–346.

6. Janelle Barlow, e-mail to author, April 2001.

7. Diva, “I Heart Zappos,” http://www.zazlamarr.com/blog/?p=240 (accessed on December 28, 2007).

8. Connie Koenenn, “Pleasing the Customer Should Be Job One,” Los Angeles Times, March 6, 1997, E-5, Orange County edition.

9. John Davis, as quoted in “Get the Dope from the Customer,” American Salesman (August 1990): 22.

10. Eileen McDargh, e-mail to Janelle Barlow.

11. Fred Wiersema, as quoted in “Are You Ready for a Relationship?”

12. Rod Wilkerson, “Comment,” May 4, 2007, Matt Woodward’s blog, http://www.mattwoodward.com/blog/index.cfm?event=showEntry&entryId=583895D2-B6D1-7932-1ECA2FA194068CA4 (accessed December 28, 2007).

13. Jim Norton, “Customer Complaints Are Golden,” Small Business Boomers, December 1, 2006, http://www.smallbusinessboomers.com/customer-complaints-are-golden/ (accessed December 28, 2007).

14. As reported in Tibbett L. Speer, “They Complain Because They Care,” American Demographics, May, 1, 1996. This magazine ceased publication in November 2004 and is now part of Advertising Age magazine.

15. Richard Branson, as quoted in Rebecca Fannin, “Brand Leaders 2005,” Chief Executive, October 2005, http://www.chiefexecutive.net/ME2/Segments/Publications/Print.asp?Module=Publications::Article&id=D9E488C3C6BF4D5FBACC56B88901B31A (accessed December 28, 2007).

16. Tom Krazit, “Dell Shifts Support Calls After Customer Complaints,” IDG News Service, November 25, 2003, http://www.microscope.co.uk/articles/article.asp?liArticleID=126822&liArticleTypeID=1&liCategoryID=2&liChannelID=16&liFlavourID=1&sSearch=&nPage=1 (accessed December 28, 2007).

17. Gabriela Rico, “Will Customer Complaints Bring Call Centers Back to the US?” Arizona Daily Star, November 27, 2007.

18. Andrew Lockwood and Ni Deng, “Can Service Recovery Help When Service Failures Occur?” Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management 11, no. 2 (August 1, 2004): 149–157.

19. Ibid.

20. Priscilla A. LaBarbera and David Mazursky, “A Longitudinal Assessment of Consumer Satisfaction/Dissatisfaction: The Dynamic Aspect of the Cognitive Process,” Journal of Marketing Research 20 (November 1983): 393-404.

21. Steve Coomes, “Turning Newcomers into Lifetime Customers,” Pizza Marketplace, June 15, 2006, http://www.pizzamarketplace.com/article.php?id=5228 (accessed December 28, 2007).

22. According to an American Institute of Economic Research study and cited in “Average Lifetime Spending on Cars,” PF Blog, January 29, 2005, http://www.pfblog.com/archives/1513_average_lifetime_spending_on_cars_240000_or_more.shtml (accessed on December 28, 2007).

23. Corbett L. Ourso, “Keep Customers Coming Back,” Drug Topics 138, no. 21 (November 7, 1994): 14–16.

24. John Tschohl, “Do Yourself a Favor: Gripe About Bad Service!” American Salesman 39, no. 6 (June 1994): 4.

25. Glenn Rifkin, “New Economy: The Staples Merger of Its Web site and Catalog Business,” New York Times, June 25, 2001.

26. In fact, the National Retail Federation has found that multichannel shoppers buy more and buy more frequently than single-channel shoppers. This all makes sense when you consider that a single retail store such as Staples may carry eight thousand items, but Staples.com is able to offer two hundred thousand items. Ibid.

27. IBM reports 95 percent will give the company another chance if problems have been satisfactorily resolved. As reported in Christopher W. L. Hart, Extraordinary Guarantees (New York: Amacom, 1993), 21.

28. Joseph P. Cavaness and G. H. Manoochehri, “Building Quality into Services,” SAM Advanced Management Journal 58, no. 1 (Winter 1993): 4-10.

29. Jaclyn Fierman, “The Death and Rebirth of the Salesman,” Fortune, July 25, 1994: 82. The figure “5 times as much to sell to new customers” is cited in Frank Uller, “Follow-Up Surveys Assess Customer Satisfaction,” Marketing News 23, no. 14 (January 1, 1989): 16.

30. Eric Frenchman, “What the Vonage,” Pardon My French, May 18, 2006, http://pardonmyfrench.typepad.com/pardonmyfrench/2006/05/what_the_vonage.html (accessed December 28, 2007).

31. LaBarbera and Mazursky, “A Longitudinal Assessment,” 393–404.

32. David Powley, “We Have Not Had Any Customer Complaints,” SaferPak, 2006, http://www.saferpak.com/csm_art9.htm (accessed December 28, 2007).

33. Bernice Kanner, “Seams Like Old Times; A Clothier Brings Back Quality,” New Yorker 27, no. 1 (January 3, 1994): 14.

34. Mavis Scanlon, “Meet the System—Southern California: Adelphia Runs Up the Numbers Before the Deal Goes Down,” Cable World, June 6, 2005, http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0DIZ/is_2005_June_6/ai_n13823647.

35. Linda Deckard, “IAAPA Panel: The Pros and Cons of Franchises at Amusement Parks,” Amusement Business 105, no. 50 (December 13, 1993): 15.

36. Sometimes these attributes change based on how the research is conducted, but basically, people who complain feel more entitled and think there’s a good chance that their needs will be met. See Jagdip Singh, “A Typology of Consumer Dissatisfaction Response Styles,” Journal of Retailing 66 (1990): 57–99; J. Dart and K. Freeman, “Dissatisfaction: Response Styles Among Clients of Professional Accounting Firms,” Journal of Business Research 29 (1994): 75–81; and Tom Hayes, “Using Customer Satisfaction Research to Get Closer to the Customers,” Marketing News 27, no. 1 (January 4, 1993): 22–24.

37. Ron Zemke and Chip Bell, “Information Access,” Training: The Magazine of Human Resources Development, July 1990, 42.

38. Justin Martin, “6 Companies Where Customers Come First,” Fortune Small Business, http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2007/fsb/0709/gallery.where_customers_come_first.fsb/index.html (accessed January 7, 2008).

39. Gerald D. Stephens, “Please, No More Complaints,” Best’s Review, Property-Casualty Insurance Edition, January 1991, 61.

40. Robert Hunter, as quoted in Becky Yerak, “Insurers Say 95% of Katrina Claims Met: Critics Contend ‘A Lot Still Unhappy,’” Chicago Tribune, August 23, 2006.

41. Go to http://www.sixapart.com/vox/tour/?s=house&loc=tour340 (accessed December 29, 2007).

42. Saska, “About Me,” http://fiendishgleeclub.vox.com/profile/ (accessed December 29, 2007).

43. Saska, “Customer Service Gone Shockingly Right,” http://fiendishgleeclub.vox.com/library/post/customer-service-gone-shockingly-right.html (accessed December 29, 2007).

44. For a specific study of this type, see Marsha L. Richins, “Negative Word-of-Mouth by Dissatisfied Customers: A Pilot Study,” Journal of Marketing 47 (Winter 1983): 68–78.

45. See Jerry R. Wilson, Word-of-Mouth Marketing (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1994), section 1.

46. Michael A. Lapre and Gary D. Scudder, “Performance Improvement Paths in the U.S. Airline Industry: Linking Trade-offs to Asset Frontiers,” Production and Operations Management 13, no. 2 (Summer 2004): 123–134.

47. “Survival Rates of Companies with Dissatisfied Customers,” A Study by the Better Business Bureau serving Eastern Missouri & Southern Illinois, August 2007, http://209.85.173.104search?q=cache:Ufq5inqtygkJ:www.stlouis.bbb.org/InternalStudy.pdf+BBB,+Eastern+Missouri,+Southern+Illinois,+August+2007&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us (accessed January 11, 2008).

Chapter 3

1. David Thurston, “Moan Sharks,” Sunday Morning Post Magazine, May 15, 1994, 30.

2. Bonnie J. Knutson, “Validating a Typology of the Customer from Hell,” Journal of Hospitality and Leisure Marketing 6, no. 3 (September 1, 1999): 5–22.

3. Allan Wysocki, Karl W. Kepner, and Michelle W. Glasser, “Customer Complaints and Types of Customers,” University of Florida, 2001, http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/HR005 (accessed January 8, 2008).

4. Alan R. Andressen and Arthur Best, “Consumers Complain, Does Business Respond?” Harvard Business Review, July–August 1977, 98.

5. Argued by Donald Hughes, manager of the Consumer Research Division of Sears, Roebuck & Company in 1977, in Andreasen and Best, “Consumers Complain,” 96.

6. Reuters, “Lonely Guy Shocked to Get $83,000 Phone Bill,” December 14, 2007, http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN1322682220071214 (accessed March 13, 2008).

7. Jagdip Singh and P. E. Wilkes, “When Consumers Complain: A Path Analysis of the Key Antecedents of Consumer Complaint Response Estimates,” Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 24 (1996): 360–365.

8. Martha Rogers, as quoted in Stacey L. Bell, “Launching Profits with Customer Loyalty.”

9. John W. Huppertz, “Firms’ Complaint Handling Policies and Consumer Complaint Voicing,” Journal of Consumer Marketing 24, no. 7 (2007): 428–437.

10. Daryl Travis, as quoted in “Are You Ready for a Relationship?”

11. Gary Kelly, as quoted in Fannin, “Brand Leaders 2005.”

12. Edward F. McQuarrie, “Taking a Road Trip: Customer Visits Help Companies Recharge Relationships and Pass Competitors,” Marketing Management, April 1995. This paper is available at http://lsb.scu.edu/–emcquarrie/research.htm (accessed December 29, 2007).

13. Roberta Maynard, “Warming to the Idea of Customer Feedback,” Nation’s Business 86 (February 1, 1998): 11.

14. SST technology is blooming, and since typically no personnel are around to get feedback from customers, alternative ways to get feedback will have to be implemented. People are beginning to look at this issue. See Nichola Robertson and Robin N. Shaw, “Conceptualizing the Influence of the Self-Service Technology Context on Consumer Voice,” Services Marketing Quarterly 27, no. 2 (January 2006): 33–50.

15. Theresa D. Williams, Mary Drake, and James Moran, “Complaint Behavior, Price Paid and the Store Patronized,” Internal Journal of Retail and Distribution Management 21, no. 5 (September–October 1993): 9.

16. These statements are a summary of research by Stephanie Kendall, a survey research specialist with Questar Data Systems, who surveyed ten thousand managers and customer-contact employees in seventy-five organizations. Quoted in Zemke and Bell, “Information Access.”

17. Murray Raphael, “Bring Them Back Alive,” Direct Marketing 53, no. 1 (May 1990): 50.

18. “Retailing Today,” Shopping Centers Today, International Council of Shopping Centers, June 2006, http://www.icsc.org/srch/sct/sct0606/retail_in_brief.php (accessed December 28, 2007).

19. “Return to Spender,” Snopes.com, http://www.snopes.com/business/consumer/nordstrom.asp (accessed December 28, 2007).

20. Susan Greco, “Real World Customer Service,” Inc. 16, no. 10 (October 1994): 36–43.

21. “Toll Free Business Statistics,” TollfreeNumber.org, 2007, http://www.tollfreenumber.org/toll-free-services/ (accessed January 8, 2008).

22. Daniel M. Rosen, “Expanding Your Sales Operation? Just Dial 1-800 . . . ,” Sales and Marketing Management 142 (July 1990): 82.

23. Jeanne Luckas, as quoted in Carl Quintanilla and Richard Gibson, “‘Do Call Us’: More Companies Install 1-800 Phone Lines,” Wall Street Journal, April 20, 1994, B1.

24. TARP, as quoted in Daniel S. Levine, “Companies Getting Message About Voice Mail Complaints,” Telecommunications, January 20–26, 1995, 3–4A.

25. John Goodman, as quoted in Levine, “Companies Getting Message About Voice Mail Complaints.”

26. Rosen, “Expanding Your Sales Operation?” 84.

27. Quintanilla and Gibson, “Do Call Us.”

28. Bob Filipczak, “Customer Education,” Training 28, no. 12 (December 1991): 31–36.

29. William H. LaMaire, “A New Trend: On Pack 800 Numbers,” Food Engineering 62, no. 4 (April 1990): 60.

30. For a complete discussion, see M. Davidow and P.A. Dacin, “Understanding and Influencing Consumer Complaint Behavior: Improving Organizational Complaint Management,” in Advances in Consumer Research, ed. M. Brucks and D. MacInnis (Provo, UT: Association for Consumer Research, 1997), 2:450–456.

31. Glenn F. Ross, “Tourist Dissatisfaction with Foodservice,” Foodservice Research International 8, no. 4 (1995): 291–309.

32. You can visit Darty’s Web site. It’s very interesting, but you’ll need to know some French, Italian, German, or Turkish to get through it. Isabelle Prim and Bernard Pras, “ ‘Friendly’ Complaining Behaviors: Towards a Relational Approach,” Centre de Recherche DMSP, June 1998.

33. Frederick Reichheld, “Transforming the Value Proposition: The Life Insurance Industry,” eCustomerServiceWorld.com, http://www.ecustomerserviceworld.com/earticlesstore_articlesasp?type=article&id=1083 (accessed December 28, 2007).

34. See Alan J. Resnik and Robert R. Harmon, “Consumer Complaints and Managerial Response: A Holistic Approach,” Journal of Marketing 47 (Winter 1983): 86–97.

35. Valerie S. Folkes and Barbara Kotsos, “Buyers’ and Sellers’ Explanations for Product Failure: Who Done lt?” Journal of Marketing 50 (April 1986): 74–80.

36. “Haier Rises Through Reform and Opening Up,” People’s Daily Online, http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200108/06/eng20010806_76638.html (accessed December 28, 2007).

37. “China’s Power Brands,” BusinessWeek, November 8, 2004, http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_45/b3907003.htm (accessed December 28, 2007).

38. “Six Chinese Brands Make Global Top 500 List,” China Economic Net, May 19, 2006, http://en.ce.cn/Industries/Consumen-Industries/200605/19/t20060519_7026724.shtml (accessed December 28, 2007).

39. Customer loyalty is probably easier to generate in professional relationships when expectations are exceeded than in any other kind of business relationship. It is also easier to destroy. For a complete discussion, see Stephen W. Brown and Teresa A. Swartz, “A Gap Analysis of Professional Service Quality,” Journal of Marketing 53 (April 1989): 92–98.

40. E-mail to Janelle Barlow, March 2003.

41. Sleep Country USA, “About Us,” http://www.sleepcountry.com/Page.aspx?nid=7 (accessed March 14, 2008).

42. Mary Jo Bitner, Bernard H. Booms, and Mary Tetreault, “The Service Encounter: Diagnosing Favorable and Unfavorable Incidents,” Journal of Marketing 54, no. 1 (January 1990): 71.

43. W. Edwards Deming, as quoted in Mary Walton, The Deming Management Method (London: Mercury Books, 1989), 66.

44. Philip B. Crosby, Let’s Talk Quality: 96 Questions You Always Wanted to Ask Phil Crosby (New York: Penguin Books, 1990), 104; and Philip B. Crosby, Quality Is Free (London: Penguin Books, 1980).

Chapter 4

1. John Goodman and Cindy Grimm, “Beware of Trained Hopelessness,” ICCM Weekly, May 2007.

2. Customer Experience Impact Report, RightNow Technologies.

3. Charles I. Underhill, “Dispute Resolution at the Earliest Stages: Internal Complaint Handling and Customer Refunds” OECD, HCOPIL, ICC Conference on ADR, The Hague, December 11–12, 2000.

4. Mitchell can be reached at http://www.customermfg.com.

5. Summarized in Alan R. Andreasen, “Consumer Complaints and Redress: What We Know and What We Don’t Know,” in The Frontier of Research in the Consumer Interest, ed. E. Scot Maynes et al. (Columbia, MO: American Council on Consumer Interests, 1988), 708.

6. Ibid.

7. Andreasen and Best, “Consumers Complain,” 98–100.

8. E. Schuman, “The War Against Retail Return Abuses,” eWeek, December 17, 2004.

9. Lisa McQuilken and Robin N. Shaw, “Service Failure and Recovery in the Presence of Service Guarantees,” ANZMAC 2005 Conference: Services Marketing, http://smib.vuw.ac.nz:8081/www/anzmac2005/cd-site/pdfs/16-Services/16-McQuilken.pdf (accessed December 28, 2007).

10. See research by Jochen Wirtz, Doreen Kum, and Khai Sheang Lee, “Should a Firm with a Reputation for Outstanding Service Quality Offer a Service Guarantee?” Journal of Services Marketing 14, no. 1 (2000): 502–512.

11. Jochen Wirtz and Doreen Kum, “Designing Service Guarantees: Is Full Satisfaction the Best You Can Guarantee?” Journal of Services Marketing 15, no. 4 (2001): 282–299.

12. It’s interesting to read customer feedback on the Web about Sewell Cadillac. It’s not all positive. In fact, some of it is harsh, and there’s no way to know the truth about a dissatisfied customer. But it would appear that Sewell Cadillac is very good at taking care of high-end customers who buy new automobiles and ones who have been with the company for some time. Customers who buy Sewell’s used cars or bring in their cars purchased elsewhere for service don’t always have the most positive experience.

13. Carl Sewell and Paul B. Brown, Customers for Life (New York: Pocket Books, 1990), 59.

14. Grace Wagner, “Satisfaction Guaranteed,” Lodging Hospitality 50, no. 6 (June 1994): 46–48.

15. Jeff Wenstein, “Delivering What You Promise,” Restaurants and Institutions 103, no. 2 (January 15, 1993): 113–115.

16. Ibid.

17. Christopher W. Hart, “Guarantees Deliver Customers,” Chief Executive, March 20, 2007, http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m4070/is_224/ai_n21067756 (accessed December 28, 2007).

18. Christopher Hart, Extraordinary Guarantees (New York: Amacom, 1993), 3–4.

19. Ibid.

20. Tom Jones, as quoted in Hart, “Guarantees Deliver Customers.”

21. Rajiv Kashyap, “The Effects of Service Guarantees on External and Internal Markets,” Academy of Marketing Science Review, no. 10 (2002), http://www.amsreview.org/articles/kashyap10-2001.pdf (accessed January 8, 2008).

22. Hart, Extraordinary Guarantees.

23. Statistics reported at http://nyjobsource.com/dominos.html, updated as of August 7, 2007 (accessed December 28, 2007).

24. Hart, Extraordinary Guarantees, 22.

25. Jochen Wirtz and Doreen Kum, “Consumer Cheating on Service Guarantees,” Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 32, no. 2 (2004): 159–175.

26. Ibid., 170.

27. These include Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, the UK, and signatories to the African Union Convention on Preventing Corruption, which includes Libya.

28. Some argue that this legislation is pretty useless. “Not only are whistleblower laws flawed through exemptions and inbuilt weaknesses, but in their implementation they are rarely helpful. Indeed, it might be said that whistleblower laws give only the appearance of protection, creating an illusion that is dangerous for whistleblowers who put their trust in law rather than develop skills to achieve their goals more directly.” Brian Martin, “Illusions of Whistleblower Protections,” UTS Law Review, no. 5 (2003): 119–130.

29. See Carl W. Nelson and Jane Niederberger, “Patient Satisfaction Surveys: An Opportunity for Total Quality lmprovement,” Hospital and Health Services Administration, Fall 1990: 409; Kjell Gronhaug and Johan Arndt, “Consumer Dissatisfaction and Complaint Behavior as Feedback: A Comparative Analysis of Public and Private Delivery Systems,” in Advances in Consumer Research, ed. Jerry C. Olson (Ann Arbor, MI: Association for Consumer Research, 1980), 7:324–328; and John A. Quelch and Stephen B. Ash, “Consumer Satisfaction with Professional Services,” in Marketing of Services, ed. James H. Donnelly and William George (Chicago: American Marketing Association, 1981), 82–85.

30. Laura Landro, “Some Hospitals Offer New Service: Helping Patients Complain,” Wall Street Journal, June 19, 2003, D1.

31. Philip Greeland, “What if the Patient Were Your Mother?” Archives of Internal Medicine 165 (2005): 607–608.

32. A. J. Kellett, “Healing Angry Wounds: The Role of Apology and Mediation in Disputes Between Physicians and Patients,” Journal of Dispute Resolution 111 (1987): 122.

Chapter 5

1. John Goodman, “The Truth According to TARP,” Competitive Advantage, June 1999, revised September 2006.

2. Ibid.

3. Summarized in Andreasen, “Consumer Complaints and Redress,” 708.

4. Ibid.

5. Andreasen and Best, “Consumers Complain,” 98–100.

6. See http://www.dps.state.ny.us/ocs_stats.html (accessed January 2, 2008).

7. Chris Lee, “1-800 Training,” Training, August 1990, 39.

8. Goodman and Grimm, “Beware of Trained Hopelessness.”

9. Alex Taylor III, “It’s Time for Ford to Give Up and Sell Jaguar,” Fortune, August 21, 2006, http://money.cnn.com/2006/08/18/news/companies/pluggedin_taylor.fortune/ (accessed January 2, 2008).

10. Joe Sherlock, “Jaguar Woes,” The View Through the Windshield, 2005–2006, http://www.joesherlock.com/Jaguar.html (accessed January 2, 2008).

11. Chris Lee, “1-800 Training,” Training, August 1990, 39.

12. It’s important to note that the great deal of research conducted on this question is mixed, and this is why we say, “actually has a chance.” The best way to look at this is to understand that creating a stronger relationship after service failure is a good goal, but it’s not going to happen all the time. It’s possible that the degree of loyalty customers feel when the service failure occurs influences how likely you are to get them back. Highly loyal customers may passionately want to come back to you, so positive handling of a complaint may make them more loyal. We do know it’s a numbers game, and increased loyalty is not going to happen 100 percent of the time because a complaint has been handled well. To read further on this subject, see Tor Wallin Andreassen, “From Disgust to Delight: Do Customers Hold a Grudge?” Journal of Service Research 4, no. 1 (2001): 39–49; and Amy Smith and Ruth Bolton, “An Experimental Investigation of Customer Reactions to Service Failure and Recovery Encounters,” Journal of Service Research 1, no. 1 (1998): 65–81.

13. Survey conducted by Forrester and reported by Don Peppers and Martha Rogers, “How Can Customer Service and Sales Departments Work Together to Create Trust?” Ask the CRM Expert, June 29, 2007, http://searchcrm.techtarget.com/expert/KnowledgebaseAnswer/0,289625,sid11_gci1262759,00.html (accessed January 2, 2008).

14. John W. O’Neill and Anna S. Mattila, “Towards the Develoment of a Lodging Service Recovery Strategy,” Journal of Hospitality and Leisure Marketing 11, no. 1 (2004): 51–64.

15. Singh, “A Typology of Consumer Dissatisfaction Response Styles.”

16. Beth Kobliner, “How to Complain on the Road,” Money 21, no. 12 (December 1992): 169–170.

17. Michael A Jones, David L. Mothersbaugh, and Sharon E. Beatty, “Switching Barriers and Repurchase Intentions in Services,” Journal of Retailing 76, no. 2 (Summer 2000).

18. Ana B. Casado, Ricardo Sellers, and Francisco J. Mas, “Third-Party Complaints and Firm Performance: An Application in Spanish Banking,” Departamento de Economia Financiera, Contabilidady Marketing, University of Alicanta, 2004, http://econpapers.repec.org/paper/iviwpasec/2004-01.htm (accessed January 8, 2008).

19. For example, see Andreason and Best, “Consumers Complain,” 96.

20. Suzanne Hamlin, “In the End, the Customer Is Always Right, Right?” New York Times, June 14, 1995, B1, B2; and John Filnn, “Customer Steams at Starbucks Chain,” San Francisco Examiner, May 31, 1995, Bl–B2.

21. Seth Godin, All Marketers Are Liars (London: Penguin, 2005).

22. As reported on Marketplace, American Public Media, October 30, 2007, http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2007/10/30/java_jitter/ (accessed January 2, 2008).

23. “Death of Some Salesmen: British Financial Regulation,” Economist 326, no. 7800 (February 17, 1993): 82.

24. R. L. Day et al., “The Hidden Agenda of Consumer Complaining,” Journal of Retailing 57 (1981): 86–104.

25. Singh, “A Typology of Consumer Dissatisfaction,” 93.

26. Mary C. Gilly, “Postcomplaint Processes: From Organizational Response to Repurchase Behavior,” Journal of Consumer Affairs 21, no. 2 (Winter 1987): 293–313.

27. Steven Austin Stovall, “Customer Service Doesn’t Necessitate a Free Lunch,” Nation’s Restaurant News 28, no. 21 (May 23, 1994): 22.

28. While this study was conducted in the Netherlands, it seems on par with research conducted in the United States. Roland D. Friele and Emmy M Sluijs, “Patient Expectations of Fair Complaint Handling in Hospitals: Empirical Data,” BMC Health Services Research (2006): 106, http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/6/106 (accessed January 8, 2008).

29. See Mary Jo Bitner, “Evaluating Service Encounters: The Effects of Physical Surroundings and Employee Responses” Journal of Marketing 54 (April 1990): 69–82.

30. Nancy Friedman, Customer Service Nightmares (Menlo Park, CA: Crisp Publications, 1998).

31. Christopher W. Hart, “Beating the Market with Customer Satisfaction,” Harvard Business Review (March 2007), 30–31.

32. Mary C. Gilly, William B. Stevenson, and Laura J. Yale, “Dynamics of Complaint Management in the Service Organization,” Journal of Consumer Affairs 25, no. 2 (Winter 1991): 295–323.

33. As a side note, these same researchers discovered that quality-of-care complaints were generally resolved (handled) quickly by the primary caregivers. In these cases, however, no recommendations for changes in policies or systems were made because the complaint never got to the “complaint managers.” Whether managed or handled, complaints were not fully utilized to the hospital’s benefit. Richard E. Walton and John M. Dutton, “The Management of Interdepartmental Conflict: A Model and Review,” Administrative Science Quarterly 14 (1969): 73–84.

34. Jinkook Lee, “An Empirical Analysis of Elderly Consumers’ Complaining Behavior,” Family and Consumer Sciences Research Journal 27, no. 3 (1999): 341–371.

Chapter 6

1. http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Regifting (accessed January 2, 2008).

2. Blanchard recommends that whatever you give them as a small compensation, make sure it has value so they can associate that gift with the repair of their situation. Olivier Blanchard, “Customer Complaints Are Great,” The Brandbuilder Blog, 2005, http://thebrandbuilder.blogspot.com/2005/10/customer-complaints-are-great.html (accessed January 8, 2008).

3. Steve Trollinger, “Offer Development and Marketing Strategies: Training Customers Not to Expect Promotions,” Target Marketing, January 1, 2001.

4. Among others, Ron Zemke and Chip Bell found that on average, companies apologize for only 48 percent of their errors. See Ron Zemke and Chip Bell, “Service Recovery: Doing Right the Second Time,” Training, June 1990, 42–48.

5. For example, Motorola has a five-step program to recover from bad situations. The first step is the apology. “Recovery absolutely demands some acknowledgment of error immediately following a breakdown in service,” is how Motorola expresses it. Joan Koob Cannie advises readers to apologize as soon as possible. Apologies are her first step in a five-step approach to service recovery. Joan Koob Cannie, Turning Lost Customers into Gold (New York: Amacom, 1994), 100.

6. Employment relations experts also counsel that keeping open communication between opposing parties and apologizing to the offended party, without admitting guilt, can work wonders to prevent litigation. Lee Minkel, “How to Avoid Employment Litigation,” Employment Relations Today 19, no. 4 (Winter 1992): 405–411.

7. Mahesh Bhandari and Michael Polonsky, “An Empirical Investigation of the Effect of Interaction Justice Perception on Consumer Intentions After Complaining,” Journal of Business Systems, Governance and Ethics 2, no. 1 (2007): 11–20.

8. Stephen W. Clopton, James E. Stoddard, and Jennifer W. Clay, “Salesperson Characteristics Affecting Consumer Complaint Responses,” Journal of Consumer Behavior 1, no. 2 (2001): 124–139.

9. Carol Hymowitz, “Everyone Likes to Laud Serving the Customer; Doing It Is the Problem,” Wall Street Journal (February 27, 2006), B1.

10. Oren Harari, “The Lab Test: AT&T of Quality,” Management Review 82, no. 3 (February 1993): 55–59.

11. This expression, “Punish your processes, not your people,” is from Kent V. Rondeau, “Getting a Second Chance to Make a First Impression,” Medical Laboratory Observer 26, no. 1 (January 1994): 22–26.

12. Norma Gutierrez, as quoted in Charlotte Klopp and John Sterlicchi, “Customer Satisfaction Just Catching on in Europe,” Marketing News 24, no. 11 (May 28, 1990): 5.

13. Marcia MacLeod, “Never Say Sorry,” Airline Business, April 1994, 50.

Chapter 7

1. Smith and Bolton, “An Experimental Investigation of Customer Reactions.”

2. Amy K. Smith, Ruth N. Bolton, and Janet Wagner, “A Model of Customer Satisfaction with Service Encounters Involving Failure and Recovery,” Journal of Marketing Research 36, no. 3 (August 1999): 356–372.

3. R. Folger and R. Cropanzano, Organizational Justice and Human Resources Management (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1998).

4. N. Roese, “Counterfactual Thinking, Psychological Bulletin 121, no. 1 (1997): 133–148.

5. Four strong articles include J. G. Blodgett, D. J. Hill, and Stephen S. Tax, “The Effects of Distributive, Procedural, and International Justice on Postcomplaint Behavior,” Journal of Retailing 2 (1997): 185–210; Stephen Tax et al., “Customer Evaluations of Service Complaint Experiences,” Journal of Marketing 62 (April 1998): 60–76; D. Nel et al., “Customer Evaluations of Service Complaint Experiences in the Public Sector,” Journal of Public Policy and Marketing 3 (2000): 67–84; James G. Maxham and Richard G. Netemeyer, “Firms Reap What They Sow: The Effects of Shared Values and Perceived Organizational Justice on Customers’ Evaluations of Complaint Handling,” Journal of Marketing 67, no. 1 (January 2003): 46–62.

6. Lisa McQuilken, Andrea Vocino, and David Bednall, “The Influence of Procedural and Interactional Justice, and Disconfirmation on Customers’ Postrecovery Satisfaction Evaluations,” Proceedings, ANZMAC Conference, 2007, 2759–2766.

7. Tax et al., “Customer Evaluations of Service Complaint Experiences,” 62.

8. See R. M. Morgan and S. D. Hunt, “The Commitment-Trust Theory of Relationship Marketing,” Journal of Marketing 58 (1994): 20–38.

9. For one of the better articles on consumer reactions to fairness, see R. L. Oliver and J. E. Swan, “Consumer Perception of Interpersonal Equity and Satisfaction in Transactions: A Field Survey Approach,” Journal of Marketing 53 (1989): 21–35.

10. “United Lost His Baggage but Will Only Pay Half,” Untied, http://www.untied.com/refundproblems/archive.html#half (accessed January 6, 2008).

11. C. Boshoff, “An Experimental Study of Service Recovery Options,” International Journal of Service Industry Management 8, no. 3 (1997): 110–130.

12. The following examples are taken from Janelle Barlow, Loyalty: Creating Emotional Partnerships with Customers, The Emotional Value Series (Las Vegas: TMI US, 2000), 31.

13. Reprinted from Barlow and Maul, Emotional Value, 241.

14. Syed Saad Andaleeb and Amiya K. Basu, “Technical Complexity and Consumer Knowledge as Moderators of Service Quality Evaluation in the Automobile Service Industry,” Journal of Retailing 70, no. 4 (Winter 1994): 367–382. Andaleeb and Basu considered automobile service and repair exclusively in their research.

15. Eric Hofer, Working and Thinking on the Waterfront (New York: Harper and Row, 1969).

16. Beverley Sparks, “Providing an Explanation for Service Failure: Context, Content, and Customer Responses,” Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Research 31, no. 2 (2007): 241–260.

17. Beverley Sparks and Janet R. McColl-Kennedy, “Justice Strategy Options for Increased Customer Satisfaction in a Services Recovery Setting,” Journal of Business Research 54, no. 3 (December 2001): 209–218.

18. Explored in Barlow and Maul, Emotional Value, 203–205.

19. Stephen Tax, Stephen Brown, and Murali Chandrashekaran, “Customer Evaluations of Service Complaint Experiences: Implications for Relationship Marketing,” Journal of Marketing 62, no. 2 (April 1998). This article examines how prior positive experiences mitigate the effects of poor complaint handling.

20. Rick Garlick, “The Myth of Service Recovery,” Lodging Hospitality, July 15, 2006.

21. Tom DeWitt and Michael Brady conducted four tests to find that when customers and service providers are in rapport, customers walk away feeling more satisfaction, a stronger desire to return, and less of an urge to make negative comments about their experience. DeWitt and Brady, “Rethinking Service Recovery Strategies: The Effect of Rapport on Consumer Responses to Service Failure,” Journal of Service Research 6, no. 2 (2003): 193–207.

22. Bruce Nussbaum, “Delta’s CEO Sends Me a Personal Letter Apologizing for Bad Service—That’s Actually Pretty Good Service,” Naussbaum on Design, May 30, 2007, http://blogs.businessweek.com/innovate/NussbaumOnDesign/archives/2007/05/deltas_ceo_apol.html (accessed January 10, 2008).

23. P. U. Nyer, “An Investigation into Whether Complaining Can Cause Increased Consumer Satisfaction,” Journal of Consumer Marketing 17, no. 2 (2000): 9–19.

24. Amy Ostrom and Dawn Iacobucci, “Customer Trade-Offs and the Evaluations of Services,” Journal of Marketing 59, no. 1 (January 1995): 17–28.

25. In a study of the optical industry, researchers found that the difference between customers who were “delighted” and those who were not had to do with reliability, timeliness, courtesy, friendliness, and perceived fairness. The researchers concluded, “It is interesting to note that dimensions differentiating customer delight are related to how the client or customer is treated, and these are just as important as those related to expertise.” Delight was inferred when customers selected “very satisfied” on a five-point survey scale. Paula Saunders, Robert Scherer, and Herbert Brown, “Delighting Customers by Managing Expectations for Service Quality,” Journal of Applied Business Research 11, no. 2 (Spring 1995): 101–109.

26. Passenger quoted in Scott McCartney, “To a United Pilot, The Friendly Skies are a Point of Pride,” Wall Street Journal Online, August 28, 2007.

27. Ronald Zebeck, as quoted in “Are You Ready for a Relationship?”

Chapter 8

1. As reported by Jane Spencer, “Cases of Customer Rage Mount as Bad Service Prompts Venting,” Wall Street Journal, September 17, 2003, D4.

2. Marcel Zeelenberg and Rik Pieters, “Beyond Valence in Customer Dissatisfaction,” Journal of Business Research 57, no. 4 (April 2004): 445–455.

3. B. Stauss and W. Seidel, Complaint Management: The Heart of CRM (Mason, Ohio: Thomson Business and Professional Publishing, 2004): 107.

4. Misuigi Saotome, The Principles of Aikido (Boston: Shambhala, 1989), 222.

5. Morihei Ueshiba, The Art of Peace. trans. John Stevens (Boston: Shambhala, 1992).

6. The 2003 report concludes that U.S. companies are driving their customers crazy. Jane Spencer, “Cases of Customer Rage Mount.”

7. Simon Kemp and K. T. Strongman, “Anger Theory and Management: A Historical Analysis,” American Journal of Psychology 108, no. 3 (Autumn 1995): 397–417.

8. Anna S. Mattila and Heejung Ro, “Discrete Negative Emotions and Customer Dissatisfaction Responses in a Casual Restaurant Setting, Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Research 32, no. 1 (2007), 89–107, http://jht.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/1096348007309570v1 (accessed December 31, 2007).

9. Edward T. Hall, Beyond Culture (New York: Anchor Books, 1977), 141.

10. For a complete discussion of how questions appeal to the adult side of our personalities, consult one of the classic transactional analysis books, such as Muriel James and Dorothy Jongeward, Born to Win (New York: Addison-Wesley, 1971): 243–244. Also consider articles that discuss the use of questions in interviews, such as Janet Treasure and Anne Ward, “A Practical Guide to the Use of Motivational Interviewing in Anorexia Nervosa,” European Eating Disorders Review 5, no. 2 (December 4, 1998): 102–114.

11. Oren Harari, “To Hell and Back: Learn to Discriminate Between Customers from Hell and Customers Who Have Gone through Hell,” Management Review 85, no. 7 (July 1996): 55–58.

12. Chip Bell and Ron Zemke, as cited ibid.

Chapter 9

1. Mike Eskew, as quoted in Fannin, “Brand Leaders 2005.”

2. See the Susskind paper cited for an interesting discussion of why fast-casual diners choose to complain to a manager or write a letter. In either case, the customer chooses these channels to complain because the complaint has risen beyond what customer-facing staff can handle. For this reason, Susskind recommmends that managers pay particular attention to escalated complaints and/or written complaints. Alex M. Susskind, “An Examination of Guest Complaints and Complaint Communication Channels: The Medium Does Matter!” Cornell Hospitality Report 6, no. 14 (November 2006): 1–12.

3. This is an enormous range of response rates and is based on data gathered in the 1970s. As far as the authors could discover, no wide-ranging systematic studies of response rates have been conducted since these early U.S. studies. In the 1970s, researchers tended to send out actual letters of complaint (real or made up) to see what kinds of response their letters received. Today, researchers are more concerned about ethical considerations; that is, they are reluctant to make companies think they have a problem when a research study is being conducted. To get around this, they either survey people who have written actual letters of complaint or they role-play situations. For a summary of this research, see Mary C. Gilly, “Postcomplaint Processes: From Organizational Response to Repurchase Behavior,” Journal of Consumer Affairs 21, no. 2 (Winter 1987): 295.

4. William E. Fulmer and Jack S. Goodwin, “So You Want to Be a Superior Service Provider? Start by Answering Your Mail,” Business Horizons 37, no. 6 (November–December 1994): 23–27.

5. In a similar study of complaint letters sent to manufacturers of consumer products, researchers found an 82 percent response rate to praise letters, and an 86 percent response rate to complaints. The average response time was seventeen days. About 7 percent of the letter writers reported that they felt the manufacturers valued getting their complaint letters, though they did feel the praise letters were more appreciated by the manufacturers. See Denise T. Smart and Charles Martin, “Manufacturer Responsiveness to Consumer Correspondence: An Empirical Investigation of Consumer Perceptions,” Journal of Consumer Affairs 26, no. 1 (Summer 1992): 104–129.

6. Tax, Brown, and Chandrashekaran, “Customer Evaluations of Service Complaint Experiences,” 60–76.

7. Emerson Center for Business Ethics, “Customer Complaints,” 1–6.

8. Timothy C. Johnston, “Customer Satisfaction with Provider Response to Service Failure,” Advances in Marketing: Proceedings of the Association of Collegiate Marketing Educators Annual Conference 2004, http://www.utm.edu/–johnston/papers/AAIC04Johnston-T.pdf (accessed January 3, 2008).

9. Ibid.

10. We must note that this is not the case in all cultures. A study conducted in Chile stands out for us. Researchers at the University of Talca found that promptness has no effect on repurchase behavior and even less effect on service recovery evaluation. Compensation came out as the strongest variable to affect repurchase behavior. Perhaps the Chilean focus on the present in contrast to the U.S. focus on the future accounts for this difference. Let us emphasize once more that consumer expectations are not universal and that probably even within Chile, customers demand a quick response in some circumstances. Fredy Valenzuela et al., “Assessing the Antecedents of Service Recovery Evaluation and Their Impact on Repurchase Behavior,” Working Paper Series 3, no. 6 (2005), http://dspace.utalca.cl/retrieve/8245/SWP_3_6_2005.pdf (accessed January 8, 2008). Sometimes the similarities among cultures is striking. As more and more research is completed, we should be able to begin to more effectively determine how universal these findings are. Dong-Geun Oh, concerned with the complaining behaviors of academic library users in South Korea, found that the basic complaining behavior model applies within South Korea as well as other parts of the world and that the for-profit sector model applies equally well to the nonprofit sector, such as libraries. Dong-Geun Oh, “Complaining Behavior of Academic Library Users in South Korea,” Journal of Academic Librarianship 30, no. 2 (March 2004): 136–144; and Dong-Geun Oh, “Complaining Intentions and Their Relationships to Complaining Behavior of Academic Library Users in South Korea,” Library Management 27, no. 3 (2006): 168–189.

11. Goodman, e-mail to Janelle Barlow, December 21, 2007.

12. Statistics are from http://www.e-maillabs.com/tools/e-mail-marketing-statistics.html (accessed January 3, 2008).

13. As referenced in Judy Strauss and Donna J. Hill (1998), “Consumer Complaints by Exploratory Investigation of Corporate Responses and Customer Reactions” Journal of Interactive Marketing 15, no. 1 (February 13, 2001): 63–73.

14. Ibid.

15. Yooncheong Cho et al., “An Analysis of Online Customer Complaints: Implications for Web Complaint Management,” Proceedings of the 35th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, 2002.

16. Lynn Goetzinger, Jungkun Park, and Rick Widdows, “Understanding Online Service Failure: A Critical Incident Analysis from Consumer Complaints,” SERVSIG Research Conference, 2005, http://www.servsig2005.org/downloads/ServsigTechnicalProg.pdf.

17. For anyone interested in online customer satisfaction and its impact on the desire to continue shopping, see Pingjun Jiang and Bert Rosenbloom, “Customer Intention to Return Online: Price Percpetion, Attribute-Level Performance, and Satisfaction Unfolding over Time,” European Journal of Marketing 39, no. 1/2 (2005): 150–174.

18. To consult a major benchmarking study of electronic customer service, see International Customer Service Association, http://www.supplyht.com/CDA/Archives/0259acc0eb278010VgnVCM100000f932a8c0 (accessed January 7, 2008).

19. Anna S. Mattila and Daniel J. Jount, “The Impact of Selected Customer Characteristics and Response Time on E-Complaint Satisfaction and Return Intent,” International Journal of Hospitality Management 22, no. 2 (June 2003): 135–145.

20. Thomas Weber, “Simplest Email Queries Confound Companies,” Wall Street Journal, October 21, 1996, B1.

21. Strauss and Hill, “Consumer Complaints by Exploratory Investigation of Corporate Responses and Customer Reactions”, 63–73.

22. Alanah May Eriksen, “Angry E-mail Exchange Goes Viral,” New Zealand Herald, December 19, 2007.

23. Posted on the Consumerist, http://consumerist.com/consumer/good/amazon-sends-best-customer-service-e+mail-ive-ever-received-332639.php (accessed January 3, 2008).

24. Denise T. Smart and Charles Martin, “Manufacturer Responsiveness to Consumer Correspondence: An Empirical Investigation of Consumer Perceptions,” Journal of Consumer Affairs 26, no. 1 (Summer 1992): 104–129.

25. Ibid.

26. Ibid.

27. Ibid., 120. Smart and Martin report that only 2 percent of their study cohort said that the manufacturer should have included refunds or discount coupons.

28. The first three phrases are based on comments in Julie M. Hays and Arthur V. Hill, “The Market Share Impact of Service Failures,” Production and Operations Management 8, no. 3 (1999): 208–220; article available at Curtis Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota, http://www.csom.umn.edu/assets/2746.pdf (accessed January 3, 2008).

29. Jan Mattson, Jos Lemmink, and Rod McColl, “The Effect of Verbalized Emotions on Loyalty in Written Complaints,” Total Quality Management 15, no. 7 (September 2004): 941–958.

30. Ibid.

Chapter 10

1. John Ellis, as quoted in John Butler, ed., E-Commerce and Entrepreneurship, Research in Entrepreneurship and Management (Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing, 2001), 106.

2. Betsy Spethmann, “Brand Marketers Eavesdrop on the Internet to Track Consumer Trends,” What’s the Buzz? Promo, February 1, 2001, http://promomagazine.com/mag/marketing_whats_buzz/ (accessed January 5, 2008).

3. Ted Morris, “Listening to the Blogosphere: How Blogging Can Impact Your Brand,” ESOMAR, Brandmatters Conference, New York, February 2006.

4. Search on Google or Yahoo for “wine and dine.” MassLive.com is at http://www.masslive.com/forums/wineanddine/ (accessed January 4, 2008).

5. This review was found buried within the Web site http://www.webtourist.net/england/london/ (accessed January 5, 2008).

6. An interesting Web site is CarTalk, set up by National Public Radio’s most-listened-to program, Car Talk, hosted by Tom and Ray Magliozzi. This Web site encourages people to send in evaluations of auto repair shops. With some of the positive statements written about certain repair shops, those shops must be doing extraordinary business. All the news put up on the Internet is definitely not bad. Check out Autoworks, Ithaca, New York, http://www.cartalk.com/ct/mechx/shop.jsp?id=23780 (accessed January 5, 2008).

7. Pew Internet and American Life Project, April 26, 2006, http://www.pewinternet.org/trends.asp (accessed January 5, 2008).

8. “Customers Read Reviews (Companies Should, Too),” Word of Mouth Marketing Association, November 1, 2007, http://www.womma.org/blog/2007/08/customers-read-reviews-companies-should-too/ (accessed January 5, 2008).

9. Tom Hespos, “Negative Feedback Is an Opportunity,” iMedia Connection, http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/12351.asp (accessed January 5, 2008).

10. See http://www.vault.com.

11. See http://www.hyperorg.com/misc/DoubleTreeShow_files/frame.html.

12. Linda Shea, “Internet Diffusion of an E-Complaint: A Content Analysis of Unsolicited Responses,” Journal of Travel and Tourism Marketing 17, no. 2/3 (February 15, 2005): 144–165.

13. Laura Bly, “Online Complaint about Hotel Service Scores,” USA Today, January 4, 2002, Tech.

14. See http://www.slideshare.net/modadimagno/yours-is-a-very-bad-airline/.

15. “BBB Service Demand Reaches All Time High,” January 27, 2006, http://www.sitemason.com/newspub/hWgqiY?id=27189 (accessed January 5, 2008).

16. Dennis Rockstroh, “Kodak Ignoring Customer Complaints Through BBB,” March 28, 2007, http://blogs.mercurynews.com/consumeractionline/2007/03/kodak_ignoring_customer_complaints_through_bbb.html (accessed January 5, 2008). Also see “Kodak Quits Better Business Council,” MSNBC News, March 26, 2007, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17803883/ (accessed January 5, 2008).

17. Eric Lundquist, “Take a Lesson from Intel: Listen to Internet Gripes,” PC Week 11, no. 50 (December 19, 1994): 55.

18. “The Complaints You Never Hear,” CFO: The Magazine for Senior Financial Executives, March 2004, http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/summary_0198-3131_ITM (accessed January 5, 2008).

19. Ibid.

20. “How to Track and Disarm Corporate Assassins,” 1to1 Magazine (January–February 2006).

21. Louise Lee, “Dell: In the Bloghouse,” BusinessWeek, August 25, 2005.

22. Jeff Jarvis, “Dell Learns to Listen,” BusinessWeek, October 17, 2007, http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/oct2007/db20071017_277576.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index_top+story (accessed January 5, 2008).

23. Yuri Radzievsky, “Technology’s Impact on Branding,” Chief Executive, September 1, 2006, http://www.chiefexecutive.net/ME2/Segments/Publications/Print.asp?Module=Publications::Article&id=4B21A524F1BB48BD83B21B39F378AFFS (accessed January 6, 2008).

24. Christoper Elliott, “Airlines Ignore Web Whines,” July 5, 1999, http://www.elliott.org/the-travel-critic/airlines-ignore-web-whines/ (accessed January 5, 2008).

25. See V. P. Goby, “Personality and Online/Offline Choices: MBTI Profiles and Favored Communication Modes in a Singapore Study,” Cyber Psychology & Behavior 9 (2006): 1–13.

26. David Kesmodel, “Whole Foods Bars Executives from Web Forums,” Wall Street Journal, November 7, 2007.

27. Josh Fineman and Danny King, “Whole Foods Chief John Mackey Says He Bashed Rival on Web,” Bloomberg News, July 12, 2007, Mindfully.org, http://www.mindfully.org/Industry/2007/Whole-Foods-Mackey12jul07.htm (accessed April 9, 2008).

28. Commenter to article by Stephen Grocer, “The Losers in the Biggest M&A Year,” Wall Street Journal, December 31, 2007.

29. Alec Saunders, as quoted in Jeff Jarvis, “It’s Not the Blog,” BuzzMachine, October 18, 2007, http://www.buzzmachine.com/2007/12/09/its-not-the-blog/ (accessed January 4, 2008).

30. Rick Levine et al., The Cluetrain Manifesto (New York: Perseus Books, 2000).

31. “Blogs Make Tech Impact: 78% of Tech Journalists Read Them,” Word of Mouth Marketing Association, November 1, 2007, http://www.womma.org/research/010223.php (accessed January 5, 2008).

32. Lionel Menchaca, as quoted in Jeff Jarvis, “Happy Birthday–to Dell,” BuzzMachine, July 15, 2007, http://www.buzzmachine.com/?tag=dell (accessed January 5, 2008).

33. “Dell Still No. 1, But Blogger, Battery Recall Dent Image,” Advertising Age, August 21, 2006.

34. Hila Etzion and Neveen Award, “Pump Up the Volume? Examining the Relationship Between Number of Online Reviews and Sales: Is More Necessarily Better?” International Conference on Information Systems, Montreal, Quebec, December 9–12, 2007.

35. Singh and Wilkes, “When Consumers Complain.”

Chapter 11

1. Joan Baez, as quoted in Polly Drew, “Apology Comes with Risk, Reward,” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, February 6, 2005.

2. See Muriel James and Dorothy Jongeward, Born to Win (New York: Addison-Wesley, 1971), 189–195.

3. For a summary of Tomatis’s work, see http://www.vanderbilt.edu/AnS/psychology/health_psychology/TOMATIS.html (accessed January 15, 2008).

4. Aaron Lazare, “Go Ahead, Say You’re Sorry,” Psychology Today, January–February 1995, 43.

5. Aaron Lazare, “You Call That an Apology?” Washington Post, July 3, 2005.

6. Stephanos Bibas and Richard Bierschbach, “Integrating Remorse and Apology into Criminal Procedure,” Yale Law Journal (October 1, 2004).

7. Alfred Allan, “Apology in Civil Law: A Psycho-legal Perspective,” Psychiatry, Psychology and Law 14, no. 1 (April 1, 2007).

8. Randall Poe, “Can We Talk?” Across the Board 31, no. 5 (May 1994): 16–23.

9. Ibid.

Chapter 12

1. Melissa George, “Retailers Hit by Complaints of Poor Customer Relations,” Weekly Wall Street, January 17, 1994.

2. Bernard Hale, as quoted in Helen L. Richardson, “I Don’t Hear Your Complaining . . .” Transportation and Distribution 33, no. 10 (October 1992): 47.

3. Janet Rubel, 101+ Complaint Letters That Get Results, 2nd ed. (Naperville, IL: Sphinx Publishing, 2006).

Looking to the Future

1. Smith, Bolton and Wagner, “A Model of Customer Satisfaction,” 360, 370. Regarding financial institutions, see Ana B. Casado-Diaz, Francisco J. Mas Ruiz, and Hans Kasper, “Explaining Satisfaction in Double Deviation Scenarios: The Effects of Anger and Distributive Justice,” Working Papers, Serie EC, Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Economics, S.A., September 2006, http://ideas.repec.org/p/ivi/wpasec/2006-09.html#provider (accessed December 31, 2007).

2. See Clay M. Voorhees, “A Service Perspective on the Drivers of Complaint Intentions,” Journal of Service Research 8, no. 2 (2005): 192–204.