Consumer Complaint Behavior Anno 2014. What determines consumers’ complaint behavior after purchasing an inappropriate or defective financial retail product?

the past decades the number of claims with respect to defective orinappropriate financial retail products increased. The main objective of this study is to examine what determines consumers’ complaint behavior in a financial situation. To achieve this goal, Ajzen’s theory of planned behavior (TPB, Ajzen 1988) is applied. Intention is used as a proxy for complaint behavior and is captured by the three main constructs of TPB: attitude toward behavior (ATT), subjective norm (SNO) and perceived behavioral control (PBC). Furthermore,two factors are included. The first factor is the presence of an institute that could influence the consumer’s behavior: a claim organization or an active government. And the second factor is knowledge, which is divided into financial and legal knowledge.Studies on consumers’ complaint behavior show that different kind ofbehavioral and non-behavioral responses can be distinguished. Therefore, various types of complaint intentions are measured. Six complaint “channels” are proposed to cover these intentions, namely: (1) complaining at the financial institution; (2) switch to another financial institution; (3) file a case at an arbitrator (Kifid); (4) file a case at court; (5) take action; and (6) take no action.The sample contains train travellers who are requested to fill out a survey (N = 112). The age of the respondents varies from 21 to 75 and the selfadministered survey consists of a scenario and a questionnaire.Multiple regression analysis is used to analyze the data. Both ATT and PBC explain the intention for filing a lawsuit. While ATT and SN contribute in explaining the intention to complain at an arbitrator (Kifid). Overall, however, TPB failed to explain complaint intentions in the various complaint “channels”.The expected influence of an active claim organization was not found and an active government had a positive effect on the intention to complain. Lastly, financial knowledge is found to moderate the relationship between the scenarios and the attitude toward complaining.