Politeness matters: The antecedents and consequences of politeness in a complaint handling setting

Marketing scholars have used justice theory to investigate how consumers’ perceptions affect post-complaint satisfaction. Less attention has been given to how those perceptions are formed and what organizations should do to enhance them. This paper explores the concept of politeness, a component of interactional justice, in a complaint handling setting, with two complementary studies: a quantitative discourse analysis, and a survey. In study 1, the effects of 16 antecedents of politeness in a dataset of naturally occurring firms’ responses to customers’ complaints are investigated. Results show that Face-Threatening-Acts (FTAs) are better predictors of perceived politeness than antecedents previously used in marketing research. Study 2 explores the consequences of politeness with a survey demonstrating that politeness is positively correlated with repurchase intention and perceived firm professionalism.