Interesting Results

Satisfaction Strength

Customer satisfaction measurement is common in marketing, but it’s also not uncommon for customers who have described themselves as satisfied to defect to competitors. New research¹ suggests a reason for this apparent paradox. It showed that satisfaction is related to loyalty, but that the relationship is much stronger when there is little uncertainty about the level of satisfaction reported. Even if satisfaction scores are high, defection is possible if beliefs about satisfaction are not strongly held (e.g., because the consumer does not feel very well-equipped to judge the quality of service received).

¹ Murali, Kristin Rotte, Stephen S. Tax, Rajdeep Grewal (2007), “Satisfaction Strength and Customer Loyalty”, Journal of Marketing Research, 44(1), 153-163.