La qualité de la relation permet-elle de diminuer les compensations financières dans le cadre du management des réclamations

The purpose of this research is to investigate about the effectiveness of complaint management according to the quality of the relationship between the company and the client. We test how interactional and distributive compensations influence perceived justice of loyal clients with good quality of the relationship and new customers with weak quality of the relationship. The results show that the interactional compensations allow to a) decrease the level of the fi-nancial compensations to customers and b) grant vouchers instead of reimbursement for high relational quality customers.L'objet de cette recherche est d'étudier l'efficacité de la gestion des réclamations selon la qualité de la relation entre l'entreprise et le client. Nous testons comment les efforts interactionnels et les compensations distributives influencent la justice perçue des clients fidèles et nouveaux. Les résultats montrent que les efforts interactionnels permettent de diminuer le niveau des compensations financières adressées aux clients et de privilégier le bon d'achat au remboursement concernant les clients à forte qualité relationnelle

Complaint Management and the Role of Relationship Quality

Facing dissatisfaction, customers have several alternatives: exit, loyalty and voice. The verbal answer (Voice) can be word-of-mouth communication or a complaint which is a constructive way to express dissatisfaction to obtain a correction or compensation. The management of complaints thus perfectly integrates within scope of customer relationship management to increase loyalty since it gives an organization a last chance to retain dissatisfied clients (Smith et al, 1999). In addition, complaints are a very rich source of valuable information to improve quality continuously. The investigations on complaint management show that the theory of justice (Adams, 1965) explains the satisfaction of complaining customers (Orsingher et al, 2010). However, the questions about the nature and the valence of the compensations as well as which consumer targets to privilege remain unanswered. The principal contribution of this article is thus to determine the most effective dimensions of the theory of justice in the context of customer complaint management to satisfy and retain customers. We differentiate the effectiveness of the complaint management process according to the relationship quality or strength between the firm and the customer. We first describe the key factors for complaint management and then we explain our conceptual model as well as our hypotheses and methodology. Finally, the article shows the results and finishes with a discussion, managerial implications and research directions

The Long-Term Impact of Sales Promotions on Customer Equity

Sales promotion is an instrument whose effectiveness for shortterm sales is proven (Blattberg and Neslin, 1990). But for the long term, researchers have identified adverse effects without managing to actually determine its impact (Van Heerde et al, 2004). While most investigations analyze the effects of promotions on sales, it is important to consider the global impact, i.e. on the customer portfolio. Although several authors have taken up this issue (Fader and Hardie, 2010; Abe, 2009b), no contribution has integrated the entire portfolio development: customer acquisition, activity of existing customers and churn. This research, therefore, contributes by establishing a long-term vision of the impact of sales promotions on the value of the customer portfolio (customer equity), not just on sales. We combine explanatory and stochastic approaches via the integration of explanatory variables. The second contribution is the application of these models to fast moving consumer goods, a sector that has thus far been over-looked by existing research