Eugene Sivadas and Rupinder Paul Jindal
Scholars have conceptualized and measured customer satisfaction in several different ways such as overall satisfaction and relative satisfaction. This paper aims to study if how…
Abstract
Purpose
Scholars have conceptualized and measured customer satisfaction in several different ways such as overall satisfaction and relative satisfaction. This paper aims to study if how one conceptualizes customer satisfaction matters. The authors study if key attributes of customer satisfaction differ in their impact based on how satisfaction is conceptualized. Furthermore, they examine the effects of these alternative measures of satisfaction on word of mouth (WOM).
Design/methodology/approach
The authors conduct three survey studies: at a single independently owned restaurant (n = 248); across restaurants using a national sample of respondents (n = 208); and across apparel retailers using a local sample of respondents (n = 214). The authors analyzed data using iterative seemingly unrelated regression and recursive system of equations with correlated errors.
Findings
The core offering (food quality or merchandise quality) and service influence overall satisfaction about equally; however, influence of the core offering on relative satisfaction is more than that of service. Furthermore, while overall satisfaction influences WOM, relative satisfaction does not. Thus, focusing solely on the core offering to improve relative satisfaction may not be enough. Positive WOM is generated when customers are overall satisfied with the brand which demands both a superior core offering as well as high service. Firms should aim for overall best performance rather than merely better relative performance.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper to simultaneously study these two alternative measures of customer satisfaction along with their antecedents and influence on WOM.
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Eugene Sivadas and Jamie L. Baker‐Prewitt
Using a national random telephone survey of 542 shoppers, examines the relationship between service quality, customer satisfaction, and store loyalty within the retail department…
Abstract
Using a national random telephone survey of 542 shoppers, examines the relationship between service quality, customer satisfaction, and store loyalty within the retail department store context. Tests two complementary models that examine this interrelationship. Empirically examines the relative attitude construct put forth by Dick and Basu. The results indicate that service quality influences relative attitude and satisfaction with department stores. Satisfaction influences relative attitude, repurchase, and recommendation but has no direct effect on store loyalty. Fostering favorable relative attitude and getting customers to recommend the product or service holds key to fostering store loyalty. Results also indicate support for Oliver’s four‐stage cognitive‐affective‐conative‐action model of loyalty.
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Mark S. Johnson, Eugene Sivadas and Ellen Garbarino
This paper aims to examine competing models of the directionality of influences between customer satisfaction, affective commitment, and the customer's perceptions of risk…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine competing models of the directionality of influences between customer satisfaction, affective commitment, and the customer's perceptions of risk associated with a service organization. It also aims to include the effects of a customer's prior experience with the organization and experience with other organizations in the service category in the models.
Design/methodology/approach
Structural equation models of data from a survey to customers of a performing arts organization (sample size=401) are used to test the hypotheses.
Findings
The study suggests that commitment has a positive influence on customer satisfaction and diminishes risk perceptions. There is less support for a model in which satisfaction increases commitment and reduces perceived risk.
Originality/value
There has been recent controversy as to whether customer satisfaction leads to customer loyalty. This study provides a different perspective by suggesting that customers with high commitment to an organization use satisfaction surveys to express their loyalty.
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The past decade has witnessed increased commercial use of data obtained unobtrusively from large‐scale geodemographic (GD) systems. However, consumer researchers have paid little…
Abstract
The past decade has witnessed increased commercial use of data obtained unobtrusively from large‐scale geodemographic (GD) systems. However, consumer researchers have paid little attention to the potential of geodemography. Capitalizes on the fact that geodemography and Warnerian social class are underpinned by the same idea, i.e. that individuals resemble their neighbors, sharing many demographic and social‐status characteristics. Uses data from 675,615 households in 34 leisure and recreation categories to replicate, update, and extend findings in the social class literature. Results indicate that social class shapes lifestyle and recreational choices, and media habits; they also support Coleman’s (1983) income use hypotheses, and Levy’s (1966; 1978) media habit conjectures. Results suggest that a threefold classification of social classes (upper, middle and lower) may be more appropriate for predicting recreational choices than the traditional fivefold classification. Supplementing substantive findings, the study exemplifies how large‐scale, secondary databases can be applied in consumer research and offers suggestions to further refine social class measurement techniques.
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Mohamed E. Ibrahim and Ahmed Al Amiri
This paper examined engineers’ satisfaction with services of a building permission unit at a local municipality using a focus group, a questionnaire and follow‐up interviews…
Abstract
This paper examined engineers’ satisfaction with services of a building permission unit at a local municipality using a focus group, a questionnaire and follow‐up interviews. Obtained satisfaction indexes are reported. Differences in satisfaction levels were tested using parametric t‐tests and Kruskal‐Wallis non‐parametric tests according to engineer’s specialization, size of office and number of building projects submitted to the building permission unit. The results indicate no significant statistical differences in satisfaction levels based on specialization (civil engineers versus architectural engineers), size of the consulting office, or the number of projects submitted. However, satisfaction indexes were not high. They were about 60 per cent.