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Introduction – In today’s intense competitive environment, businesses that want to have a sustainable competitive advantage must put the customer at the centre of all their activities and create customer loyalty by offering products and services that will provide customer satisfaction. One of the key elements of ensuring customer satisfaction is the effective handling of customer complaints, which is defined as the customers expressing their dissatisfaction with unmet expectations and unsatisfied needs verbally or in writing. The concept of a complaint as a response of customers’ dissatisfaction with the products and services they experience is an invaluable feedback mechanism for businesses to resolve issues relating to their products and services.

Aim – The aim of this chapter is to emphasise the importance of the concept of complaint as an important part of customer relations management and an effective marketing tool for the tourism sector. As a service sub-sector, the simultaneous production and consumption of services in the tourism sector ensures customer satisfaction more than concrete products, due to their inseparable nature. For this reason, handling, evaluating and finalising customer complaints has an important function and value in providing the necessary information for tourism enterprises to become aware of their deficiencies and mistakes. Complaint management has started to play an even more critical role for the tourism industry in preventing customer losses due to dissatisfaction, especially considering the shrinkage in demand in the sector due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Method – Firstly the concept of complaint and the importance of complaints for businesses were explained, customer complaint behaviour and the factors affecting this behaviour were examined in detail, the concept of online complaint was mentioned and the subject was evaluated in terms of tourism businesses.

Results – While the effective management and resolution of complaints should be seen as a goal by every tourism business, it is vital that they understand customer complaint behaviours, the factors affecting this behaviour and how complaints should be managed in a way that will result in favour of the business.

Conclusion – A complaint management process that enables customers to easily report their complaints to businesses and produces solutions as soon as possible will positively affect customer satisfaction. In this context, in order to reduce the negative effects on tourism enterprises, especially through the pandemic, business need to have clear and easy-to-access procedures, provide a quick response, show reliability and consistency in providing a solution, keeping the complainant informed of progress, have employees who can communicate with empathy and courtesy, have enough employees to deal with the situation, and adopt proactive approaches to prevent complaints rather than reducing the volume of complaints.

Originality/Value – This research contributes to the literature in terms of complaining behaviour, examining the factors affecting this behaviour and emphasising the importance of the concept of complaints in the tourism sector. In addition, the research is important in terms of examining the contributions of an effective complaint management system in reducing the negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the tourism sector, which is one of the sectors mostly affected on a global scale.

Crises threaten the operations of small businesses and endanger their survival; however, when the crisis is not attributable to the firm, consumers may rally around the business. This study aims to examine how attitudes toward helping others can create support for small businesses, which in turn can direct consumers to help businesses with increased financial support. It is hoped that this paper will inform how consumers will help firms pivot during crises.

A conceptual model was proposed which linked support for helping others to increased willingness to tip/amount tipped. The model was tested using structural equation modeling from two surveys given to customers of two small businesses, a coffee shop and an independent movie theater, respectively.

During a crisis, support for helping others has a positive impact on feelings of support for small businesses. Consumers direct their support to small businesses that they are interested in seeing survive and continue operations. They either tip more or tip when they otherwise would not have tipped.

Firms that pivot their operations because of a crisis imposed on them can still generate revenues. Consumers who have a self-interest in the continuing operations of the firm want to support it, and by pivoting their business model, the firm gives consumers the opportunity to give the firm and its employees more than they would have in the form of tips.

Prior work in crisis management has focused primarily on how firms recover and respond to a crisis of their doing. Overwhelmingly, consumers have been shown to punish firms during times of crisis. However, for a crisis that is imposed on the firm, consumers may rally behind the firm and respond by supporting it more than they are required to.

Develops an original 12‐step management of technology protocol and applies it to 51 applications which range from Du Pont’s failure in Nylon to the Single Online Trade Exchange for Auto Parts procurement by GM, Ford, Daimler‐Chrysler and Renault‐Nissan. Provides many case studies with regards to the adoption of technology and describes seven chief technology officer characteristics. Discusses common errors when companies invest in technology and considers the probabilities of success. Provides 175 questions and answers to reinforce the concepts introduced. States that this substantial journal is aimed primarily at the present and potential chief technology officer to assist their survival and success in national and international markets.

Today's sharing economy covers a variety of business models. This research aims to (1) identify dimensions along which sharing businesses may vary and (2) investigate how these dimensions influence consumer engagement while considering consumers' sustainability orientation.

This research relies upon a systematic literature review (n = 67 articles) to identify five sharing business dimensions: (1) ownership transfer, (2) professional involvement, (3) compensation, (4) digitalization and (5) community scope. A discrete choice conjoint experiment in the fashion industry is employed to investigate how these dimensions affect consumer engagement with sharing businesses (n = 383 participants).

The results suggest that ownership of tangible resources elicits more engagement than access to tangible resources for both consumers with a low sustainability orientation and consumers with a high sustainability orientation. Community scope also affects consumer engagement as reflected in more engagement towards sharing businesses with a local rather than a global scope. The presence of professional service providers, monetary compensation and a digital platform only induces engagement among consumers with a low sustainability orientation.

This research generates a better understanding of how sharing businesses can draw on business dimensions to engage consumers with different levels of sustainability orientation and, in turn, how sharing businesses can realize their economic and/or circular potential.

Most recent work in the area of new product development has been of a theoretically prescriptive basis, ignoring, to a large degree, the current state of affairs in US corporations. The study examines, on a comparative basis, consumer and business products organizations, practices being utilized to guide the development process and key factors influencing the success/failure of the process. Results from an empirical study reveal that: (1) there is no one best means to structure the process; (2) top management commitment to and support of the process is a critical factor; (3) knowledge of markets and customers remains elusive; and (4) more similarities than differences exist between the practices undertaken by and the factors influencing success/failure in consumer versus business products organizations.

The paper aims to answer the central question: to what extent does the Better Business Bureau (BBB)’s policy of providing a third-party seal inculcate consumer trust from consumers to BBB-accredited business members?

For this mixed-methods study, the qualitative section used a phenomenological approach with three focus groups of consumers and business owners. The quantitative section utilized binary logistic regression from consumer survey data conducted in Colorado. Additionally, document analysis was conducted to understand BBB history and policy details.

Consumers who notice the BBB logo are 4.7 times more likely to trust a real estate sales business than if they do not notice the BBB logo. Furthermore, consumers who notice the BBB logo are 17 times more likely to trust an auto and boat sales business when they notice the BBB logo.

A main limitation of the study was the inconclusive data that appeared between the qualitative and quantitative data regarding the impact of the BBB seal and trusting home service industries. Researchers are encouraged to further explore how the BBB logo affects trust with home service businesses.

The BBB logo retains potency as a proof source of trust in the marketplace. However, the BBB is less relevant to the millennial generation. The BBB should explore ways to incorporate technology through social media and Internet applications.

This work has value as the only mixed-method study on this topic, and these findings add to the body of marketing literature by Kimery and McCord, Cook and Luo and Garrett.

This paper reviews recent developments in marketing-related sustainable business practices (SBP) that macromarketing scholars have researched and debated for four decades. Such SBPs should be regarded as positive steps toward a future where business does more good than harm in society.

Using the approach of a literature review, this paper highlights the actions of entrepreneurs and firms to implement SBPs resulting from analysis of the interplay between markets, marketing and society. Such analysis is in the tradition of macromarketing scholarship.

The study identifies important developments about an important shift toward adopting SBPs among many firms, as well as among consumers − especially, in developed countries of the world.

The study suggests that taking a macromarketing view offers scholars a broad lens on current complex marketplace phenomena that will prove effective in better understanding sustainability issues.

The results of the study underline the value of macromarketing scholarship through the last four decades. By being daring enough to consider other stakeholders other than marketers and owners of firms, macromarketers have provided scholars a more holistic understanding of business’ role in society.

Today, enlightened practitioners who utilize knowledge from macromarketing scholarship can gain a competitive advantage as they navigate markets increasingly influenced by a wider set of stakeholders. Such influential stakeholders include partner firms, employees, society and local communities, NGOs, media, government, as well as the environment and future generations. Scholars can gain perspective on the phenomena they investigate with such a macromarketing lens.

The concept and practice of e-services has become essential in business transactions. Yet there are still many organizations that have not developed e-services optimally. This is especially relevant in the context of Indonesian Airline companies. Therefore, many airline customers in Indonesia are still in doubt about it, or even do not use it. To fill this gap, this study attempts to develop a model for e-services adoption and empirically examines the factors influencing the airlines customers in Indonesia in using e-services offered by the Indonesian airline companies. Taking six Indonesian airline companies as a case example, the study investigated the antecedents of e-services usage of Indonesian airlines. This study further examined the impacts of motivation on customers in using e-services in the Indonesian context. Another important aim of this study was to investigate how ages, experiences and geographical areas moderate effects of e-services usage.

The study adopts a positivist research paradigm with a two-phase sequential mixed method design involving qualitative and quantitative approaches. An initial research model was first developed based on an extensive literature review, by combining acceptance and use of information technology theories, expectancy theory and the inter-organizational system motivation models. A qualitative field study via semi-structured interviews was then conducted to explore the present state among 15 respondents. The results of the interviews were analysed using content analysis yielding the final model of e-services usage. Eighteen antecedent factors hypotheses and three moderating factors hypotheses and 52-item questionnaire were developed. A focus group discussion of five respondents and a pilot study of 59 respondents resulted in final version of the questionnaire.

In the second phase, the main survey was conducted nationally to collect the research data among Indonesian airline customers who had already used Indonesian airline e-services. A total of 819 valid questionnaires were obtained. The data was then analysed using a partial least square (PLS) based structural equation modelling (SEM) technique to produce the contributions of links in the e-services model (22% of all the variances in e-services usage, 37.8% in intention to use, 46.6% in motivation, 39.2% in outcome expectancy, and 37.7% in effort expectancy). Meanwhile, path coefficients and t-values demonstrated various different influences of antecedent factors towards e-services usage. Additionally, a multi-group analysis based on PLS is employed with mixed results. In the final findings, 14 hypotheses were supported and 7 hypotheses were not supported.

The major findings of this study have confirmed that motivation has the strongest contribution in e-services usage. In addition, motivation affects e-services usage both directly and indirectly through intention-to-use. This study provides contributions to the existing knowledge of e-services models, and practical applications of IT usage. Most importantly, an understanding of antecedents of e-services adoption will provide guidelines for stakeholders in developing better e-services and strategies in order to promote and encourage more customers to use e-services. Finally, the accomplishment of this study can be expanded through possible adaptations in other industries and other geographical contexts.

The aim of the current study is to investigate the effect of consumers' brand trust in family businesses and the impact of crisis management practices on customer purchase intention during the period of Covid-19.

This is a primary quantitative research on a sample of 817 consumers who bought products from 20 food and beverage family companies. Simple random sampling was used to collect the primary data. Data collection was made with the use of questionnaires. The questionnaires were developed based on previous studies and were tested in terms of reliability and validity.

The research findings indicate, among others, that there is a positive significant relationship between brand trust and purchase intention. As a result, the higher the trust of the consumers in a family business brand name, the higher their intention to make purchases. Additionally, it was found that the higher the performance of family businesses on crisis management practices, the more the consumers intent to make purchases.

Nonetheless, there are some limitations in the current research. First, the research sample consists of companies and consumers from a specific location, which can create issues regarding the generalization of the findings. Thus, to ensure improved research implications, a future research should include sample units from different locations and countries in order to reinforce the research findings and enable comparisons and more easily generalized outcomes. Moreover, a future research could assess additional factors that potentially affect purchase intention within a family business environment. Factors such as human resources and the relationship between customers and companies as well as communication and promotional efforts will allow the creation of a more stable and holistic framework and the prediction of consumer behavior. This potential follow-up research will further contribute to the theoretical argumentation of the findings and highlight the connection among purchase intention, trust and crisis managements practices within the family business environment.

Regarding the managerial and practical implications, the research outcomes can lead to specific strategies related to brand trust and crisis management practices. Specifically, family companies should invest on their brand name and their relationship with the consumers by reinforcing any action which can potentially affect the trust of the consumers. This could be realized by providing a safe purchase environment according to health and safety standards and through their response strategy and adaptability to the current pandemic conditions through the use of crisis management practices. Finally, a practical response to social and physical distancing measures would increase brand trust, and the performance on crisis management practices could also lead to sufficient financial outcomes since all these factors positively affect consumers' purchase intention.

The outbreak of the pandemic directly affected the profitability but also the viability of companies, regardless of industry. In particular, the impact that the pandemic had on family businesses, financially, organizationally and operationally, was massive and in many cases, catastrophic. Several studies have focused on family businesses, analyzing their structure, advantages and disadvantages. However, in these studies, there is little focus on the brand's influence on consumer behavior and market intention, especially compared to nonfamily businesses and under unique circumstances such as those of a pandemic.

Service quality has been widely examined in the area of consumer research. The SERVQUAL scale, in particular, has been used to examine consumer perceptions of service quality as well as the communication of service quality cues in advertising. The literature suggests that service quality is an important purchasing criterion among business customers; however, no studies have examined how service quality is communicated through advertisements targeting business customers, as opposed to general consumers. SERVQUAL consists of five dimensions of service quality ‐ assurance, empathy, reliability, responsiveness, and tangibles. Using these dimensions as a basis for the study, a content analysis revealed that advertisements targeting business customers communicate service quality differently than ads targeting general consumers.