Customer- and branch-level determinants of customer satisfaction: A cross level investigation.

We developed a multi-level model of service climate effects on customer satisfaction. This model, unlike past models, is not bound by the assumption that all customers of a service unit react in a similar fashion to service climate. Reanalyzing data by Dietz, Pugh, and Wiley (2004), we found in an HLM analysis that service climate (1) affected average customer satisfaction in service units, thus replicating past research, and (2), extending past research, also had a cross-level effect on individual customers’ satisfaction by interacting with customer frequency of contact. Customers who frequented a branch more often reacted more strongly to service climate. Our multi-level model is theoretically important, as it integrates marketing research on individual level satisfaction with organizational behavior research on aggregate level customer satisfaction. It is also practically relevant because it informs the management of customer satisfaction at both the service unit level and the level of the individual customer