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Received: January, 2017
1st Revision: April, 2017
Accepted: August, 2017
DOI: 10.14254/2071-789X.2017/10-3/7
ABSTRACT. Consumer behaviour concerning warranty is significant for both consumers and business entities. This article presents the behaviour of consumers on warranty claims for purchased products or services. The present study attempts to investigate the influence of demographic variables on consumer satisfaction in the course of the warranty claim procedure. To study the behaviour of consumers, a quantitative approach was adopted with the sample of 453 respondents in Czech Republic. A self-administered, structured questionnaire was used to collect primary data during the survey and analysis was performed using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS). This study contributes to the body of knowledge in the field of consumer behaviour concerning warranty claims.
JEL Classification: M31 Keywords, consumer behaviour, warranty claim, products, services
Introduction
Customer-oriented business strategies are increasingly gaining importance in today's highly competitive marketplace. Therefore, deep understanding of consumers' needs and expectations is becoming crucial for the development of effective business strategies. Consumer behaviour concerning warranty claim captures consumer's attitudes, preferences, intentions and decisions regarding his/her claim for repair, replacement or refund from a product or service provider, in the case of non-performance or underperformance of a product or a service. Effective handling of consumers' warranty claims can be beneficial to the firm due to several reasons, such as preventing loss of consumers; revealing actual problems related to the product or service; providing opportunities for product or service improvement as well as marketing programmes improvement; providing information to improve consumer satisfaction; giving ideas about new product or service concepts; protecting the trade or service mark; preventing negative word of mouth (WOM) communication about the product or service to other, potential customers. Consumer satisfaction is the consumers' perceived relation of expectation and the performance of products and services. If consumer experiences with a product are higher than or equal to the expected, then the customer is satisfied, otherwise dissatisfaction emerges (Schiffman & Kanuk, 2000). Consumer satisfaction is reliant on the level to which a product perceived performance equals consumer expectations. If the product performance surpasses or equals expectations, the consumer is satisfied. On the other hand, level of dissatisfaction can be expressed as the result of the discrepancy between expected and realised performance...