The Antecedents and Consequences of Customer Satisfaction for Firms
Eugene W. Anderson and
Mary W. Sullivan
Additional contact information
Eugene W. Anderson: University of Michigan
Mary W. Sullivan: University of Chicago
Marketing Science, 1993, vol. 12, issue 2, 125-143
Abstract:
This research investigates the antecedents and consequences of customer satisfaction. We develop a model to link explicitly the antecedents and consequences of satisfaction in a utility-oriented framework. We estimate and test the model against alternative hypotheses from the satisfaction literature. In the process, a unique database is analyzed: a nationally representative survey of 22,300 customers of a variety of major products and services in Sweden in 1989–1990. Several well-known experimental findings of satisfaction research are tested in a field setting of national scope. For example, we find that satisfaction is best specified as a function of perceived quality and “disconfirmation”—the extent to which perceived quality fails to match prepurchase expectations. Surprisingly, expectations do not directly affect satisfaction, as is often suggested in the satisfaction literature. In addition, we find quality which falls short of expectations has a greater impact on satisfaction and repurchase intentions than quality which exceeds expectations. Moreover, we find that disconfirmation is more likely to occur when quality is easy to evaluate. Finally, in terms of systematic variation across firms, we find the elasticity of repurchase intentions with respect to satisfaction to be lower for firms that provide high satisfaction. This implies a long-run reputation effect insulating firms which consistently provide high satisfaction.
Keywords: choice models; defensive strategy; customer satisfaction; perceived quality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1993
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (487)
Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mksc.12.2.125 (application/pdf)
Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:ormksc:v:12:y:1993:i:2:p:125-143
Access Statistics for this article
More articles in Marketing Science from INFORMS Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Asher (casher@informs.org).