Companies often view customer complaints as a nuisance, but such complaints can be of high value to firms. Building on signaling theory and the attention-based view of the firm, this study examines organizational response behavior to customer complaint messages that differ in their value signaled to the firm. In a field experiment, we manipulate whether a complaint message contains ideas for product improvement (versus does not), and whether a long-term customer-firm relationship is indicated (versus first-time relationship). Our results show that companies are less likely to respond to complaints that convey improvement ideas and that are voiced by long-term customers. Companies also exhibit longer response times to complaints that signal improvement ideas. Further, the findings reveal that lower response rates to customer complaints are associated with lower levels of customer satisfaction. This research contributes to the literature on customer complaint management and customer integration by providing implications for managers seeking to utilize complaints as a valuable source of ideas for new product development.

公司通常将客户投诉视为令人讨厌的事情，但此类投诉对公司来说可能具有很高的价值。本研究建立在信号理论和基于注意力的公司观点的基础上，研究了组织对客户投诉信息的反应行为，这些信息向公司发出的信号具有不同的价值。在现场实验中，我们操纵投诉消息是否包含产品改进的想法（与不包含），以及是否表明长期的客户-公司关系（与第一次关系）。我们的结果表明，公司不太可能对传达改进想法和由长期客户提出的投诉做出回应。公司对表明改进想法的投诉也表现出更长的响应时间。更远，调查结果显示，对客户投诉的较低响应率与较低的客户满意度相关。本研究为寻求将投诉作为新产品开发的宝贵创意来源的管理者提供启示，从而为有关客户投诉管理和客户整合的文献做出贡献。