Shyness in consumer behavior

Abstract

Shyness is widespread among the population and affects a large group of consumers. Companies, however, have barely knowledge about this kind of consumers and their behavior. Particularly in the field of complaint management the barriers which prevent consumers of voicing a complaint are largely unknown and quite often companies are not aware of the dissatisfaction among their customers. Thus, this paper aims to analyze the impact of shyness on consumer complaint behavior. A survey-based approach was performed and it was detected that shy consumers have a slight preference for online over offline channels when complaining directly to the company. Further, shy consumers call less likely the customer service than non-shy consumers to voice their dissatisfaction.