Customer complaint behaviour towards hotel restaurant services

Abstract

The area of customer complaint behaviour has received considerable attention from hotel managers as dissatisfied customers engage in a variety of complaint actions that could ruin the reputation of a hotel. This study examined Chinese customer complaint behaviour towards Hong Kong hotel restaurant services. The main objectives were to identify complaint patterns and the relationships between customers’ demographic backgrounds such as age, gender and education levels; and their complaint behaviours. Based on a survey of 220 hotel restaurant diners, complainers and non‐complainers were identified. The research findings suggested that at most customers are likely to engage in private complaint behaviours such as word‐of‐mouth communication and ceasing to patronize the restaurant. It highlights that the complaint intentions of Chinese diners were quite low and they were passive about communicating dissatisfaction to restaurateurs. Restaurateurs can make use of these findings to improve their existing customer feedback systems and complaint handling strategies.