A Psychologically-Based Framework for the Measurement of Customer Satisfaction in Service Operations

In the past two decades, service organizations have come under intense governmental and societal pressures to become more cost effective and have come under intense stakeholder pressure to become more profitable. These pressures have caused organizations to focus on what actually creates profits from their operations. A consensus exists that customer retention is the key to financial success. The literature establishes that loyalty is an antecedent of retention and that satisfaction is the major antecedent of loyalty; however, prior service operations studies have focused on quality. Therefore, there is a need to establish a framework for measuring satisfaction before attempting to measure loyalty or retention. This study examines the operations management, marketing, and psychology literature to develop a structural equation modeling framework within which to measure customer satisfaction. Request a copy of the paper from the author: Angela M. Wicks (awicks@bryant.edu