What Drives the Intention of Students to Make Public Complaints?

The importance of studying how dissatisfied customers complain has become increasingly important, not only for businesses but also for Higher Education Institutions. This article explores the factors influencing students' intention to make public complaints about service failures at Vietnamese higher education. Qualitative research, including In-depth Interviews, Social Media, and Critical Incident Techniques, were conducted to collect data related to the complaint behavior of students and analyze the main factor affecting students' intention to make complaints in this research. After that, 213 surveys were sent to studentsin six economic universities in Hanoi, Vietnam. Data from 194 usable survey were analyzed by SPSS software and a series of statistical techniques to identify factorsaffecting students' intention to make complaints in tertiary schools. The research results show that four variables, including self-confidence, perceived difficulty of complaint, perceived likelihood of successful complaint, and the provider's responsiveness, significantly affect students' intention to make public complaints. Additionally, students' self-confidence has the strongest positive impact on the intention of students to make public complaints. The findings of this study could assist school managers to early detect service failure and improve the complaint process used by Higher Education Institutions to address student dissatisfaction because of their negative impact on service quality and the university's reputation.