ORCID Identifier(s)

0000-0002-2874-5472

Graduation Semester and Year

2017

Language

English

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy in Marketing

Department

Marketing

First Advisor

Elten Briggs

Abstract

Service providers serving business customers face some unique challenges in assessing and building customer satisfaction. These challenges arise when service providers have to deal with a team or a group of people within the client’s organization. Each of these individuals, depending on their role in the service provision, go through a unique customer journey and have a distinctive service experience. Imagine yourself in a situation with several bosses with different expectations and evaluations. Not only is it challenging to meet their expectations, but it is also hard to know if they are truly satisfied with you. This dissertation explores the above challenges and develops a comprehensive view of customer satisfaction in a business-to-business (B2B) services context. In the first essay, we conduct a meta-analysis on the antecedents and consequences of customer satisfaction and investigate the inconsistencies from previous research. There is a need to examine the antecedents of satisfaction as it is difficult to prioritize attributes that drive overall customer satisfaction or know which antecedent(s) has the strongest effect on satisfaction. We also find it necessary to look at the outcomes of satisfaction, which include, attitudinal loyalty and direct and indirect customer engagement (purchase intention and WOM/recommend). This study will examine these relationships in addition to moderating variables that affect the strength of the antecedent-satisfaction-outcomes relationships. The second essay elaborates on the research shortcomings identified in the first essay. To address them, we develop a conceptual framework for evaluating collective satisfaction of all client’s team members, hereafter called overall firm satisfaction (OFS). We first propose that OFS should be based on a weighted average of the individual satisfactions of all actors in the customer firm with a vested interest in service provision. We then explore how overall firm OFS changes over time due to interpersonal interactions. Furthermore, we dig into the relationships between decision makers and other actors, and propose that they will influence the overall satisfaction of one another over time. Finally, we explore when the OFS framework is applicable and when other approaches provide a satisfactory understanding of customer satisfaction. The third essay further develops and empirically tests some of the ideas put forth in the conceptual framework. We shed light on the role emotions have in a B2B context, how they exist and what are their consequences. To get a better understanding of how customers experience and evaluate the service, we studied group interactions among clients’ team members. We conducted a series of scenariobased role-playing experiments. Our sample included 160 undergrad students who were assigned to three-member teams. Our study showed that group dynamic elements influence group members’ emotions and behaviors towards the firm. We contribute to the literature by providing empirical evidence on the importance of a multi-perspective evaluation of a service provider as opposed to the common single informant approach.

Keywords

Emotions, Affect, Customer Journey, Customer Engagement, Business to Business, B2B, Customer Satisfaction, Services Marketing, Meta-Analysis

Disciplines

Business | Marketing

Comments

Degree granted by The University of Texas at Arlington

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Marketing Commons

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