A Conceptual Complaint Model for Value Co-creation Process

Abstract

It is important for service providers to get feedback from their customers. This is particularly important when a customer gets an unfavorable service experience. One way to receive feedback from customers is to encourage and facilitate the complaint process. Then, customers who have an unfavorable service experience should be invited to join in the process of value co-creation, because if they do not, the provider risks losing the customers and revenues in the future. Inviting customers to the process of value co-creation is easier if the initiation comes first from provider. In contrast, if there is an unfavorable service experience, the process of value co-creation comes first from customers. Sometimes providers are not ready yet to face this condition. The main objective of this paper is to increase the knowledge of value co-creation. The paper will contribute to conceptualise different aspects of customer complaint behaviour from service science paradigm. It can help to recognize the complexity of the complaint behavior by joining value co-creation process. The contribution of this paper is an overview from previous model of value co-creation and adding some principles of handling customer complaints. The limitation of this paper is customer complaint behavior is viewed as action and reaction, that is, as the dynamic processes that occur during and/or after the interaction of services, not as a post-purchase activity.