A Study of Customer Complaint Behaviour and its Impact on Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty : The case of supermarkets in Kampala, Uganda

• When customer expectations are not met, some customers may complain about bottlenecks in the service delivery system, others may walk away without saying anything, and still others may complain but regret the time spent complaining. This study aims to explore the concept of customer complaint behaviour with a view to establishing the relationship between handling customer complaints and customer satisfaction and loyalty. The empirical study investigated the state of customer complaint behaviour among retailers in four supermarkets located in Kampala, Uganda. The study adopted a cross-sectional survey design and used a quantitative approach. The findings show that 47% of customers were satisfied with the services of the supermarkets; According to the respondents, 34% of staff willing to handle complaints but 52% of staff not willing to handle complaints. It is further revealed that there is a need for customer complaints to be handled by competent staff with good knowledge about the products. Moreover, service managers should handle service failure as a critical task. Furthermore, issues such as lack of courtesy, incompetent staff and a lack of authority and professionalism characterize the retail sector in Uganda. It is concluded that complaints should be handled quickly by all supermarket staff, and feedback on the complaint handling process should be encouraged by supermarket management in order to use the feedback as a starting point for improving future complaint management. A major managerial implication is that organizations should pay particular attention to failure attribution, and that providing customers a detailed explanation may be the most effective organizational response that will have an impact on the behavioural aspects of customers.

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