In this study guests of casual-dining restaurants were asked to report how they preferred to complain about service failures they experienced while dining.

Guests who reported higher levels of frustration, a higher propensity to complain, and greater information inadequacy generally preferred to complain face-to face to a manager or via a letter written to management.

This finding diverges from the expectations created by communication theory, which suggests that face- to-face communication is "richer" than written approaches.

Moreover, this study found that complaints lodged face-to-face to nonmanagerial service employees were viewed similarly to complaining via a comment card-a less-rich mode of communication.

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