Complainant Identity: Things to Consider in Obtaining Customers’ Feedback in Public Transportation

This article investigates the factors that act as barriers in obtaining customer complaints in public transportation services in the city of Kaliningrad, Russia. It seeks to understand what external and internal factors discourage dissatisfied customers from filing a complaint to the service company, and allocate regularities with regard to personal attributes of the individual groups of respondents. Data were collected from a survey held in May and June 2014 using a judgmental sampling method. Research results suggest that complainant’s gender, age, and income level predetermine individual perceptions over the influence of factors that might stop a customer from filing a complaint. On average, depending on the type of problem, up to 90% of dissatisfied customers do not voice their complaints to the service provider.