Customer satisfaction and brand equity

Abstract

a b s t r a c t Keywords:Corporate social responsibility Brand equity Shareholders' commitment Customer loyaltyThe study here examines the interaction between shareholder value and customer satisfaction, as well as the impact on a firm's brand equity. Customer satisfaction may have a positive effect on brand equity, except when managers show excessive customer orientation, in which case the effect is negative because of reductions in shareholder value. The empirical analysis uses incomplete panel data pertaining to 69 firms from 11 nations during the period 2002-2005 and supports the theoretical contentions. This result warns of the perverse effect on brand equity of implementing policies focused exclusively on satisfying customers at the expense of shareholders' interests.

Antecedents and Outcomes of Customer Satisfaction: A Comprehensive Review

“…Importantly, this study uses previous literatures in bank marketing, business and industrial marketing, business to business marketing, business research, consumer research, economic psychology, hospitality management, information systems, Islamic marketing, management, marketing, professional service marketing, quality and service sciences, retailing, service industry, service industry management, services marketing, service quality, social and humanistic sciences, strategic marketing, tourism management, tourism research, travel and tourism marketing, and work and organizational psychology (e.g., Pugh et al, 1983;Johnson & Fornell, 1991;Oliver, 1993;Rust & Zahorik, 1993;Hallowell, 1996;Soderlund, 1998;Andreassen, 2000;Dabholkar et al, 2000;Yelkur, 2000;Yeung & Ennew, 2000;Heung et al, 2002;Naser, 2002;Rust et al, 2002;Sureshchandar et al, 2002;Back & Parks, 2003;Hansemark & Albinsson, 2004;Hennig-Thurau, 2004;Lai, 2004;Stock, 2005;Yoon & Uysal, 2005;Gustaffsson et al, 2006;Gountas & Gountas, 2007;Luo & Homburg, 2007;Ekinci et al, 2008;Gillespie et al, 2008;Walsh et al, 2008;Brakus et al, 2009;Cater & Cater, 2009;Hu et al, 2009;Cronin et al, 2000;Orth et al, 2010;Awan et al, 2011;Nam at al., 2011;Torres & Tribo, 2011;AmyPoh et al, 2012;Evanschitzky et al, 2012;…”

“…Analysis of scientific literature suggests that customer satisfaction is an important driver of financial performance, profitability, shareholder value, return on investment, price sensitivity, customer loyalty, consumer based retailer equity, firm based brand equity, word-of-mouth, purchase intention, repeat-purchase intention and customer retention (e.g., Fornell, 1992;Hallowell, 1996;Anderson et al, 1997;Soderlund, 1998;Cronin, Brady, & Hult, 2000;Rust et al, 2002;Matzler et al, 2005;Stock, 2005;Gustaffsson, Johnson, & Roos, 2006;Pappu & Quester, 2006;Walsh, Evanschitzky, & Wunderlich, 2008;Torres & Tribo, 2011;Tuu & Olsen, 2012). Rust et al (2002) affirm that firms can achieve higher financial return along with its underlying focus on customer satisfaction.…”

“…Moreover, according to associative network memory model is applied from cognitive psychology, there is a positive relationship exist between customer satisfaction and consumer based retailer equity, where consumer based retailer equity consist of four dimensions namely, retailer awareness, retailer associations, retailer perceived quality, and retailer loyalty (Pappu & Quester, 2006). In addition, Torres and Tribo (2011) remark that direct positive effect move from customer satisfaction to firm based brand equity. On the other hand, Nam et al (2011) shows customer satisfaction mediates the relationship between customer based brand equity and customer loyalty.…”

“…Customer satisfactionfinancial performance Rust et al (2002) Customer satisfactionprofitability Hallowell (1996); Yeung and Ennew (2000); Luo and Homburg (2007) Customer satisfactionshareholder value Matzler et al (2005) Customer satisfactionreturn on investment Anderson et al (1997) Customer satisfactionprice sensitivity Stock (2005) Customer satisfactioncustomer loyalty Fornell (1992); Rust and Zahorik (1993); Jones and Sasser Customer satisfactionconsumer based retailer equity Pappu and Quester (2006) Customer satisfactionfirm based brand equity Torres and Tribo (2011) Customer satisfactionword-of-mouth Soderlund (1998) Customer satisfactionpurchase intention Walsh et al, (2008); Tuu and Olsen (2012) …”

Consumer Complaints and Company Market Value

“…Intuitively, it seems evident that high levels of complaints are associated with poor financial performance, however, marketing research has mainly paid attention to the effects on customer experiences, especially at the customer satisfaction levels (Bernhardt, Donthu, & Kennett, 2000;Fornell, Mithas, Morgeson, & Krishnan, 2006;Luo & Homburg, 2008). In addition, studies have focused more on assessing consumer intentions (East, Hammond, & Lomax, 2008) or employee satisfaction (Bernhardt et al, 2000) and few have measured companies' financial performance (see Torres & Tribó, 2011 for one exception).…”