Abstract:

Purpose – The purpose of our paper is to examine the mediating role of service quality in customer complaint behaviour and customer loyalty, a case study of mobile phone subscribers in Uganda. The major aim of the study was to study the role played by service quality as it relates to customer complaint behaviour and customer loyalty. Design/methodology/approach – The paper adopts a quantitative cross-sectional research design and uses the MedGraph program (Version 3.0), Sobel tests and the Baron and Kenny method to test for mediation effect of service quality on the relationship between customer complaint behaviour and customer loyalty.  Findings – Our findings reveal that service quality is a significant mediator in the relationship between customer complaint behaviour and customer loyalty of Ugandan mobile phone subscribers. Customer complaint behaviour had a direct effect on customer loyalty, but through partial mediation of service quality this increased. Adding service quality to the relationship boosts the relationship between customer complaint behaviour and customer loyalty by 45 percent among the mobile phone subscribers studied. The findings therefore suggest that when service quality is low, a high level of customer loyalty may not be attained among mobile phone subscribers in Uganda. Research limitations/implications – Our study used only a quantitative approach. However, future research can include both a quantitative and a qualitative approach (triangulation). Moreover, our study was limited by the fact that it was cross-sectional. In future, a longitudinal study may therefore be useful in future to investigate the mediating impact of service quality over a longer period of time.