Customer Satisfaction: Analysis of Research and Findings

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of customer satisfaction, drawing upon various research articles to explore its multifaceted nature. The report begins with an assessment declaration and a list of reviewed articles, followed by a structured abstract summarizing the key findings. It t...Read More

Running head: CUSTOMER SATISFACTION
Customer Satisfaction
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

1
CUSTOMER SATISFACTION
Table of Contents
Signed declaration:..........................................................................................................................2
List of reviewed articles:.................................................................................................................4
Reviewed articles:............................................................................................................................6
Structured abstract:..........................................................................................................................7
Brief summary of the customer satisfaction theory and progression:.............................................7
The disconfirmation model:.........................................................................................................7
Common themes across the four articles:........................................................................................8
Different themes across the four articles:........................................................................................9
Study limitations and their differences across various study designs (quantitative and
qualitative):......................................................................................................................................9
Future research direction proposed in the articles:........................................................................10
References:....................................................................................................................................11

2
CUSTOMER SATISFACTION
Signed declaration:
ASSESSMENT DECLARATION
THIS FORM MUST BE COMPLETED, SIGNED, DATED AND ATTACHED TO EACH
ASSESSMENT TASK THAT YOU SUBMIT FOR MARKING.
1. ADMINISTRATIVE DETAILS:
2. COMPULSORY STUDENT DECLARATION
Plagiarism means using another person’s intellectual output and presenting it (without
appropriate acknowledgement of the author or source) as one’s own.
Plagiarism constitutes academic misconduct. Where there are reasonable grounds for believing
that this has occurred, disciplinary procedures as outlined in the Policy for Academic Honesty
and Preventing Plagiarism will be instituted.
PLEASE TICK TO INDICATE THAT YOU HAVE SATISFIED THESE REQUIREMENTS
 I have read the policy on Academic Honesty and Preventing Plagiarism and the relevant
referencing guides (or have had this explained to me by my teachers) and understand the
consequences of committing academic misconduct as outlined in the policy.
 This assignment is my own work, I have not participated in collusion, nor have I
previously submitted this or a version of it for assessment in any other Unit of Study at
the University or any other institution without having obtained the approval of the
teacher.

ASSESSMENT CRITERIA
3
CUSTOMER SATISFACTION
 I have taken proper and reasonable care to prevent this work from being copied by
another student.
 So that the assessor can properly assess my work, I give this person permission to act
according to University policy and practice to reproduce this work and provide a copy to
another member of staff for the purpose of cross checking and moderation and to take
steps to authenticate the assessment, including submitting a copy to a checking/detection
system that in turn may retain a copy of this work on a database for future checking.
 I have carefully read the assessment criteria that will be used to evaluate my work as
given below –
I certify that the statements I have attested to above have been made in good faith and are true
and correct. I also certify that this is my work and that I have not plagiarized the work of others
and not participated in collusion.
Student signature Date / /

4
CUSTOMER SATISFACTION
List of reviewed articles:
Agnihotri, R., Dingus, R., Hu, M.Y. and Krush, M.T., 2016. Social media: Influencing customer
satisfaction in B2B sales. Industrial Marketing Management, 53, pp.172-180.
Belás, J. and Gabcova, L., 2016. The relationship among customer satisfaction, loyalty and
financial performance of commercial banks. E+ M Ekonomie a Management, (1), p.132.
Chen, H. and Qi, Y., 2016. The Evaluation of Customer Satisfaction with the Third Party
Logistics Service Quality for Online Shopping.
Churchill Jr, G.A. and Surprenant, C., 1982. An investigation into the determinants of customer
satisfaction. Journal of marketing research, pp.491-504.
Jahanshani, A.A., Hajizadeh, G.M.A., Mirdhamadi, S.A., Nawaser, K. and Khaksar, S.M.S.,
2014. Study the effects of customer service and product quality on customer satisfaction and
loyalty.
Philip, K. and Nancy, L., 2016. Marketing in the Public Sector-A Roadmap for Improved
Performance.
Ranaweera, C. and Prabhu, J., 2003. On the relative importance of customer satisfaction and trust
as determinants of customer retention and positive word of mouth. Journal of Targeting,
Measurement and Analysis for marketing, 12(1), pp.82-90.

5
CUSTOMER SATISFACTION
Simon, V.T., Senaji, T.A. and Eng, R., 2016. Effect of electronic banking on customer
satisfaction in selected commercial banks, Kenya. International Academic Journal of Human
Resource and Business Administration, 2(2), pp.41-63.

6
CUSTOMER SATISFACTION
Reviewed articles:
Agnihotri, R., Dingus, R., Hu, M.Y. and Krush, M.T., 2016. Social media: Influencing customer
satisfaction in B2B sales. Industrial Marketing Management, 53, pp.172-180.
Churchill Jr, G.A. and Surprenant, C., 1982. An investigation into the determinants of customer
satisfaction. Journal of marketing research, pp.491-504.
Jahanshani, A.A., Hajizadeh, G.M.A., Mirdhamadi, S.A., Nawaser, K. and Khaksar, S.M.S.,
2014. Study the effects of customer service and product quality on customer satisfaction and
loyalty.
Philip, K. and Nancy, L., 2016. Marketing in the Public Sector-A Roadmap for Improved
Performance.

7
CUSTOMER SATISFACTION
Structured abstract:
Brief summary of the customer satisfaction theory and progression:
Churchill Jr and Surprenant (1982) were among the first scholars to use the term
customer satisfaction. They stated in their theory that customer satisfaction as emerged as an
important aspect of marketing activities carried out by the companies. They in fact stressed on
the fact that customer satisfaction is the very aim of the marketing activities. Customer
satisfaction became important criteria for the companies to retain customers and gain business
growth. Customer satisfaction impacts customer loyalty and helps the companies to gain
continuous inflow of customers and profits. Jahanshani eta al. (2014) pointed out a very
important aspect towards development of the previous theories and pointed out that customer
satisfaction is impacted by product quality. Agnihotri et al. (2016) in their study pointed out the
the customer satisfaction is not dependent on product alone but is dependent on technology and
social media to a great extent. Philip and Nancy (2016) in their work addressed the importance of
customer satisfaction to improve performances in every sector including the public sector. The
theories of customer satisfaction have evolved over time and have come to be regarded a bench
for high performance of every industry.
The disconfirmation model:
Churchill Jr and Surprenant (1982) made the disconfirmation model by comparing te
expectation of the customers and their perceived expectations about the performances of
products. They stated that when the products perform high the expectations of the customers
increase. They also pointed out that this relationship between expectations of customers and

8
CUSTOMER SATISFACTION
performances of the products are not constant. In fact, some products perform which are
perceived to be high performing products, perform below customer expectation and some
products which are believed to be low performing, exceed customer expectations.
Thus, it can be inferred from the discussion that customer satisfaction concept which was
proposed as early as 1982 have evolved today into a fully fledged discipline. Today it is the aim
of all companies to ensure customer satisfaction to ensure their consistent growth and market
stability.
Common themes across the four articles:
The first common themes across the four articles stated above are that their authors
delve into the importance of customer satisfaction and its impact on the organisations.
Jahanshani et al (2014) stated that high quality of products have been known to enhance
customer satisfaction. They also stated that customer satisfaction is important to achieve
customer loyalty though the former does not ensure the latter in all cases. Customers may be
benefitted by a product but may not be loyal due to their own preferences. Philip and Nancy
(2016) stated that customer satisfaction is empirical to all sectors for their profitability and
success in the market. They added to the work of Jahanshani et al (2014) by stating that the
government agencies should also emphasise on providing customers high quality services. They
further pointed out that since the government agencies provide crucial services to the public, they
should improve their infrastructure in order to ensure easier access of the consumers to them.
This would help them to earn more profit which would allow them to distribute their cost and
reduce cost pressure. Agnihotri et al. (2016) supported these authors and added that social media

9
CUSTOMER SATISFACTION
has great impact on customer satisfaction and helps the firms to promote their products. They
should as a result strive to increase customer satisfaction.
Different themes across the four articles:
The four articles considered above study customer satisfaction but their themes and
approach of study are different. Philip and Nancy (2016) point to the necessity of customer
satisfaction to increase the profitability in the government agencies. The theme of Jahanshani
et al (2014) is different from the previous theme which was the need of customer satisfaction in
the government agencies. They state that high quality products are significant to achieve
customer satisfaction which ensures repeated business for the organisations. The topic of
Agnihotri et al. (2016) is the impact of social media on customer purchase decision and
customer satisfaction. The findings of this article are different because the previous articles did
not deal with social media which undoubtedly have great impacts on the customers and their
level of satisfaction. The crux of the work of Churchill Jr and Surprenant (1982) is the concept of
customer satisfaction and marketing activities. Their work unlike the previous three articles point
out that customer satisfaction is the very aim of all marketing activities.
Study limitations and their differences across various study designs (quantitative and
qualitative):
The first limitation of conducting study on customer satisfaction is that it is almost
impossible to get sufficient quantitative data. Quantitative method helps in studying the
relationship between customer satisfaction and loyalty using regression method. They considered
independent variables like the needs of the customers to study the dependent variables. However
it can be pointed that the scholars while conducting quantitative investigation are never able to

10
CUSTOMER SATISFACTION
conduct accurate research because the sample size (customer population) is huge cannot be
studied totally in reality. The use of mixed method helps in completing the study on customer
satisfaction factors and measures them, which results in conducting the study in an effective
manner. It can be observed that they had to rest their findings on assumptions because large
sample size of population of customers limits the accuracy of study. The third limitation
researchers faced is the dearth of time because conduction of surveys of huge customer
populations is extremely time consuming. The study will create an impact on global development
of customer demands and satisfaction in a qualitative way. It can be pointed out that they chose
electronic banking and its effect on bank customers. Thus it can be pointed that customer
satisfaction is so vast as an area of study that no author can cover all the aspects. Study
limitations between qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods differ due to their approach.
Quantitative studies require interviews and surveys of a large number of respondents to get a
considerable sample size for the study. The researchers face limitations of time and cooperation
from the respondents. Again in case of quantitative methods dearth of quality articles proves to
be limitations for the research.
Future research direction proposed in the articles:
The articles discussed above propose a vast range of future research due to their detailed
matter. The article on social media can be the substratum to conduct a research on impact of
ecommerce. The researcher can use the articles to conduct study on services standards in the
government agencies. Thus, it can be inferred that the articles discussed above can direct
research in various new directions.

11
CUSTOMER SATISFACTION
References:
Agnihotri, R., Dingus, R., Hu, M.Y. and Krush, M.T., 2016. Social media: Influencing customer
satisfaction in B2B sales. Industrial Marketing Management, 53, pp.172-180.
Churchill Jr, G.A. and Surprenant, C., 1982. An investigation into the determinants of customer
satisfaction. Journal of marketing research, pp.491-504.
Jahanshani, A.A., Hajizadeh, G.M.A., Mirdhamadi, S.A., Nawaser, K. and Khaksar, S.M.S.,
2014. Study the effects of customer service and product quality on customer satisfaction and
loyalty.
Philip, K. and Nancy, L., 2016. Marketing in the Public Sector-A Roadmap for Improved
Performance.