Journal Critique Review: “Satisfaction Power and Customer Loyalty”, Murali Chadrashekaran, Kristin Roett, Stephen S. Tax, Rajdeep Grwal, Journal of Marketing 1 February 2007, Vol.44(1). 153-163.
This article, “Satisfaction strength and customer loyalty” is part of a Marketing Journal. It studies the importance of satisfaction strength in translating stated customer satisfaction to loyalty. Customer satisfaction is crucial to the success of a company’s relationship with its customers and the generation of long-term performance. In competitive markets, managers are aware that customer service is critical. However they don’t realize how important it is to have a high level of satisfaction. This can affect customer loyalty. The research shows that many satisfied customers still defect. The authors are of the opinion that customer loyalty is not directly related to service satisfaction. Service failures and variability are critical events that can have a negative impact on a customer’s relationship with a provider. They also examine the strength and consistency of customer satisfaction in relation to ongoing relationships. Even when customers express satisfaction, other variables such as their prior relationship history and how favorable they found the experience can be a factor in customer defection. The research suggests that the two dimensions of the satisfaction level and the strength that the judgment is made are closely related. Most likely, customers will differ in their level of satisfaction. Customers are likely to be uncertain about their expectations, which will affect the strength of their satisfaction. Customers can have uncertain expectations.
The authors assert that another method to assess customer satisfaction is by comparing what customers expect to receive and what they actually experience from service providers. The authors link the relationship between customer loyalty and satisfaction by using the satisfaction strength and previous relational experiences. They expect prior relationship experiences to have an impact on the translation of loyalty into satisfaction, because they may cause dissatisfaction. This journal article examines two studies using data collected from a US based large service organization’s ongoing customer tracking study. Study 1 examines how satisfaction strength influences the link between loyalty and satisfaction in business-tobusiness settings. Study 2 examines hypothesized relationship between a failure of service with recovery.
Study 1: Satisfaction & Loyalty of Business-to-Business Relationships.
A representative from each company interacts with a number of customers every week. Because of this, the representative develops positive bonds with his customers. A survey is carried out with a key contact who deals with all the customers. It includes questions about customer perceptions, company responsiveness, satisfaction of customers with their firm representative, overall company satisfaction, and willingness to recommend. This study shows that customer loyalty and satisfaction are closely linked. Customers who have weakly held customer satisfaction are more likely to defect than customers with strong satisfaction. Customers will remain loyal even if they have a weakly held satisfaction judgement.
Study 2: Satisfaction after service failures in business-to-consumer relationships.
In the second, authors used data to validate theories based on the Tax, Brown, Chandrashekaran study from 1998. The two main differences between this study and the previous one are that the current study concentrates on the impact on satisfaction levels and satisfaction strengths of justice perceptions. This study measured commitment to service providers as well as the likelihood of word-of-mouth. This second study supports the findings of the first one, that customers with low satisfaction levels are at a higher risk of defecting than those who score high. The first study was a study of a service provider that provides business-tobusiness services, while the second study was a study on customer experiences. Not only is it about satisfaction, but how complete the satisfaction of customers with the firms is. This journal article may seem like an ordinary research, but in reality it is a valuable tool for improving the performance of firms over time. This article is a journal that contains valuable information.
In today’s world, it is more important to keep customers because customer satisfaction doesn’t always translate into loyalty. This article in the journal helps us be more aware by pointing out other factors such as prior service experience or customer sensitivity. It is also an extra journal article because, rather than using only one study, it uses two to support its theorization. This study focused on business-tobusiness services and the experiences of individual customers to demonstrate that loyalty is strongly influenced by satisfaction. This study, which was published in a journal, highlights the problem of only looking at the average level of satisfaction. Other researchers may not be aware that customers with previous experience can still leave despite being satisfied with their service.
The authors did not include variables in their study because they relied on secondary data collected by the organization. In the context of measuring corporate satisfaction, the authors also lost control of the data collection. In addition, this article does not include other types of loyalty like attitudinal or behavioral loyalty. The focus on psychological customer loyalty could help develop early warning systems on the issue.
This research can be extended in the future by a few different methods. Future research will be enhanced by observing over time what customers think about their relationships with firms, like trust and reliability. The current study found that the uncertainty will persist among customers after a service failure. How long is the uncertainty going to last? What causes the uncertainty to vanish and how can it be overcome? In the future, it would be very valuable to focus on and investigate the strength of the key judgments made by customers even when they have failed multiple times and how they try to recover from the failures.
The study’s limitations are that it relied on secondary data and did not produce its own results. It therefore produced less reliable data. It would be better if future studies used the National Customer Satisfaction Index, which estimates the parameters for hidden categories. In future research, the CSI model will help define relationships between categories and provide predictions. This article can be used for both educational purposes and to convey messages that public administrators and organizations will find useful. The company who survives for a long time will be the one to continuously improve the relationship of customer satisfaction with customer loyalty.
