Abstract
In the current retail environment, companies must maintain competitiveness by satisfying their customers and creating loyalty. Companies now need to have a process for handling complaints in order to optimally respond to consumers. In this study, the authors examine the refund policy employed by the firm as well as the complaint response time to study how these factors impact satisfaction and repurchase intent. Findings offer several insights for marketing practice. First, offering either an immediate refund or future discount has a positive impact on satisfaction and repurchase intent as compared to offering no refund. Second, the impact of a future discount is stronger than an immediate refund with respect to satisfaction suggesting this is a superior policy decision. Finally, consumers want quick responses as this study finds excessive complaint response times are negatively associated with repurchase intent.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
DOI
10.20429/jamt.2010.010102
Publication Date
9-2010
Recommended Citation
Guskey, A., Luchs, R., and Min, X. (2010). The role of refund policy and complaint response time in determining customer satisfaction and repurchase intent. Journal of Applied Marketing Theory, 1(1), 1-15. ISSN: 2151-3236. https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/jamt/vol1/iss1/2