Franchise auto dealers, however, did best among the various industries with respect to quality. Quality issues are a problem for industries that involve maintenance and installation, or otherwise have market offerings that resist standardization. Thus the industries where quality concerns are especially pressing include dry cleaning, used auto dealers and floor covering. Thus, we find disputes erupting over liability, expense and adequacy of repairs in several industries such as auto repair and roofing. Although focus group discussions indicated that customer satisfaction is often hampered by complex relationships among manufacturers, unions, installers, and subcontractors, such subtleties are largely lost on the customer.
Consumers assign blame to one specific firm and even one specific individual.
New forms of communication such as fax and email may figure importantly as complaint methods in the future, but did not appear to be used much by the complainants we sampled. Past research suggests that most dissatisfied consumers exit without ever complaining directly to the business itself. Indeed, one significant finding of this survey is that consumers with such complaints are persistent with their complaints over an extended period of time. One in five claimed to have had over 10 contacts with the company in regards to their dispute. Complainants' experience with company representatives is a decidedly mixed bag.