Investigating online complaint intention and service recovery expectations of clothing retail customers
iii respondents pertaining to their attitude towards complaining, online complaint intention, service failure severity perception and strength of service recovery expectation. Finally with respect to an empirically tested theoretical model respondents" attitude towards complaining in general and their perceptions of the severity of the service failure experienced, significantly and positively influence their strength of service recovery expectations, while no significant positive influences were uncovered for paths linking the aforementioned constructs with online complaint intention. As a result, online complaint intention was omitted from the measurement model seeing that respondents who participated in this study did not indicate a high tendency to complain online. It is recommended that clothing retailers recognise the importance of in store complaint management programmes and ensure that in store complaint channels are easily accessible, efficient and pleasant to use. Clothing retailers should actively educate customers regarding alternative mechanisms and channels available for complaining. In order to increase customers" online complaint intention, clothing retailers should provide a visible complaint portal on their website and communicate the benefits of online complaining during in store advertising. Clothing retailers should furthermore provide the appropriate strength of service recovery for particular levels of service failure severity when managing customer complaints. Consequently, it is recommended that clothing retailers provide their employees with sufficient training that will educate them regarding their interaction with customers and the best practice thereof, the difference between minor and major service failures, and the selection of an appropriate service recovery strategy during different service failure severity encounters. It is recommended that this study is extended to other service settings in order to uncover online complaint intention and strength of service recovery expectations of customers in other industries. Finally, seeing that respondents" strength of service recovery expectations vary according to the severity of the service failure, scenarios representing different levels of service failure severity can be used as basis to measure the key constructs measured in this study.