Customer satisfaction

Customer satisfaction is a term frequently used in marketing to evaluate customer experience. It is a measure of how products and services supplied by a company meet or surpass customer expectation. Customer satisfaction is defined as "the number of customers, or percentage of total customers, whose reported experience with a firm, its products, or its services (ratings) exceeds specified satisfaction goals."^[1] Enhancing customer satisfaction and fostering customer loyalty are pivotal for businesses, given the significant importance of improving the balance between customer attitudes before and after the consumption process.^[2]

Expectancy Disconfirmation Theory is the most widely accepted theoretical framework for explaining customer satisfaction.^[3] However, other frameworks, such as Equity Theory, Attribution Theory, Contrast Theory, Assimilation Theory, and various others, are also used to gain insights into customer satisfaction.^[4][5][6] However, traditionally applied satisfaction surveys are influence by biases related to social desirability, availability heuristics, memory limitations, respondents' mood while answering questions, as well as affective, unconscious, and dynamic nature of customer experience.^[2]

The Marketing Accountability Standards Board endorses the definitions, purposes, and measures that appear in Marketing Metrics as part of its ongoing Common Language in Marketing Project.^[7] In a survey of nearly 200 senior marketing managers, 71 percent responded that they found a customer satisfaction metric very useful in managing and monitoring their businesses.^[1] Customer satisfaction is viewed as a key performance indicator within business and is often part of a Balanced Scorecard. In a competitive marketplace where businesses compete for customers, customer satisfaction is seen as a major differentiator and increasingly has become an important element of business strategy.^[8]