The Importance Of Customer Satisfaction

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Customer satisfaction has been a mainstream theme in showcasing marketing practice and scholarly research since Cardozo's (1965) initial investigation of customer effort, expectations and satisfaction. In spite of many endeavors to gauge and clarify customer satisfaction, there still does not appear to be a consensus regarding its definition (Giese and Cote, 2000). Customer satisfaction is typically defined as a post consumption evaluative judgment concerning a specific product or service (Gundersen, Heide and Olsson, 1996). It is the result of an evaluative process that contrasts prepurchase expectations with perceptions of performance during and after the consumption experience (Oliver, 1980). The most widely accepted conceptualization of…show more content…
On the other hand, a performance worse than expected results is dissatisfaction (negative disconfirmation). Studies show that customer satisfaction may have direct and indirect impact on business results. Luo and Homburg (2007) concluded that customer satisfaction positively affects business profitability. The majority of studies have investigated the relationship with customer behavior patterns (Dimitriades, 2006; Olorunniwo et al., 2006; Chi and Qu, 2008; Faullant et al., 2008). According to these findings, customer satisfaction increases customer loyalty, influences repurchase intentions and leads to positive word-of-mouth. Given the vital role of customer satisfaction, it is not surprising that a variety of research has been devoted to investigating the determinants of satisfaction. Satisfaction can be determined by subjective (e. g. customer needs, emotions) and objective factors (e. g. product and service features). Atkinson (1988) found out that cleanliness, security, value for money and courtesy of staff determine customer…show more content…
In other words, it is an evaluation of products or services‟ quality level that meets or exceeds the customer expectations. The term customer satisfaction has been on the markets for a long time. In fact, many researchers and academicians emphasized that it is a key element for a company’s success in the market as well as a crucial factor for company’s survival as it has a positive effect on company’s profitability. (Novikova, 2009; Angelova and Zekiri, 2011) It cannot be denied that a satisfied consumer has a tendency to buy more than a less satisfied one. In a highly competitive market, customer satisfaction is, indeed, a crucial key that builds strong and long-term relationships between the customers and the firm. The measure of customer satisfaction, therefore, has become a vital concern for many companies and services providers to achieve such success. (Mohammad, 2012) Customer satisfaction is thought to be a precursor to behavioral intentions. Scholars have produced impressive evidence of the favorable effects of customer satisfaction on various behavioral intention indicators, such as repeat purchase (Szymanski and Henard, 2001), retention (Bolton, 1998), willingness to recommend to others (Homburg et al., 2005), loyalty (Anderson and Sullivan, 1993), and profitability (Anderson et al., 1994; Bernhardt

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