1. Introduction
ustomer satisfaction, as a construct, has been fundamental to marketing for over three decades. As early Keith (1960) defined marketing as satisfying the needs and desires of the consumer. Hunt (1982) reported that by the 1970s, interest in customer satisfaction had increase to such an extent that over 500 studies were published. This trend continued and Peterson and Wilson (1992) estimated the amount of academic and trade article on customer satisfaction to be over 15,000. Further, customer satisfaction is vital for every organization to make customer profitability, customer retention and for customer loyalty (Hallowell, 1996;Soderlund & Vilgon, 1999;Khan, 2012;Srivastava, 2015).
According to the above statement, the researcher aimed to investigate about the relationship variables of customer satisfaction, which mean there are several factors impact on customer satisfaction, those are stated by numerous authors. In fact, based on those articles the researcher finds several factors and made a mind map of a review on the relationship variables to customer satisfaction. Here the researcher didn't consider about the categories of organization and the sector of that, only considered the factors of customer satisfaction whether that is service or product organization. Importantly this study assists future researchers who are doing customer satisfaction related studies.
The rest of the study is organized as follows: the next section gives the definitions and variables related to customer satisfaction. The final section offers the conclusion.
2. II.
3. Customer Satisfaction a) Definitions of Customer Satisfaction
Satisfaction is the customer's fulfillment response. It is a judgmental that a product or service feature, or the product or service itself, provides a pleasurable level of consumption related fulfillment (Oliver, 1981). According to Gustafsson (2005) customer satisfaction is defined as a customer's overall evaluation of the performance of an offering to date. Hayes (2008) defined the terms of customer satisfaction and perceptions of quality are labels we use to summarize a set of observable actions related to the product or service. Another author Hunt (1977) defines customer satisfaction as a process of evaluation rendered that the experience was at least as good as it was supposed to be. More precisely, consumer satisfaction definitions have either emphasized an evaluation process (e.g., Hunt, 1977;Oliver, 1981, Fornell, 1992) or a response to an evaluation process (e.g., Howard & Sheth, 1969;Oliver, 1981Oliver, , 1997;;Westbrook & Reilly, 1983;Tse & Wilton, 1988;Halstead, Hartman & Schmidt, 1994).
Even though many authors define customer satisfaction in different way, this study uses Oliver (1981) whose definition is cited by many studies. (e.g., Iacobucci A Review on the Relationship Variables to Customer Satisfaction factors (Tamrakar, 2014), SERFPERF dimensions (Habtie, 2015) and 7Ps marketing mix elements (Mohammad, 2015). Parasuraman et al. (1988) identify five dimensions of service quality (SERVQUAL) that must be present in any service delivery. SERVQUAL helps to identify clearly the impact of quality dimensions on the development of customer perceptions and the resulting customer satisfaction. SERVQUAL include reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy and tangibles.
Abdullah and Rozario (2009) study the influence of service and product quality towards customer satisfaction, a case study at the staff cafeteria in the hotel industry. This research posits a customer's overall satisfaction with a transaction to be a function of his or her assessment of service quality, product quality and price. They suggested that service quality to be positively correlated with customer satisfaction. Therefore, when perception of service quality is high, customer satisfaction is high and vice versa.
Hwang and Zhao (2010), investigate the factors influencing customer satisfaction or dissatisfaction in the restaurant business. The study argues which perceived quality factors more strongly affect customer satisfaction or dissatisfaction. Study results indicated three perceived quality factors (good value, tasty food, and restaurant cleanness) most affected satisfied customers. On the other hand, three perceived quality factors (good value, tasty food, and employee's knowledge of menu) most affected dissatisfied customers.
Hanif, Hafeez and Riaz (2010) examine the factors affecting customer satisfaction. The study finds customer satisfaction is established when brand fulfills the needs and desires of customers. In this research study, the subscribers of telecom sector in Pakistan were targeted as the population while price, fairness and customer services were the taken as predicting variables towards customer satisfaction as criterion variable. The results further reveal that both the factors significantly contributed to explain customer satisfaction but comparatively price fairness had the larger impact on customer satisfaction than customer services.
Nasser, Salleh and Gelaidan (2012) aim to find out the customer's satisfaction with Yemeni Mobile service providers. This study examined the relationship between perceived quality, perceived value, customer expectation, and corporate image with customer satisfaction. The study found that the relationship between perceived value, perceived quality and corporate image have a significant positive influence on customer satisfaction, whereas customer expectation has positive but without statistical significance.
Anand and Selvaraj (2012) examine an empirical study regarding the impact of demographic variables on customer satisfaction in banking sector. For every organization, customer satisfaction plays vital roles that enhance loyalty and profit. The purpose of this paper was to evaluate the impact of demographic variables on customer satisfaction in public sector bank. The result revealed that there is negative relationship between the demographic variables and customer satisfaction except the choice of the bank and the status of residential area.
Tamrakar (2014) study the factors affecting customer satisfaction in telecommunication sector in Nepal; they indicate that socioeconomic factors such as allowances, expenses and mobile expenses of students has strong relationship with customer satisfaction.
Habtie (2015) analyzes about the impact of service performance dimensions modified by postal service enterprise on the customers in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, The main purpose of this study was to empirically examine the modified SERFPERF dimensions or model that affect service quality in Ethiopian postal service enterprise and its impact on the customer satisfaction on the services of Ethiopian postal service enterprise. Recovery, reliability, tangibility, assurance, responsiveness and empathy have been the dominant influences evaluated in bringing customer satisfaction where the organization may invest more on these dominant dimensions. Based on the study reliability, assurance, responsiveness, and recovery have strong association with customer satisfaction while the moderate association is with tangibility and empathy respectively and their level of significance is vary among dimensions in the sector. Mohammad (2015) analyzes customer satisfaction using 7Ps marketing mix elements to retail bank customers in North east Nigeria. Objectives include examining product, price, place, promotion, people, process and physical evidence as drivers of retail bank customer satisfaction. The results found that product, process and physical evidence were significantly related to customer satisfaction while price, promotion, place and people negatively related.
Many scholars have implied that several variables impact on customer satisfaction. This comprehensive review explores with the various literature supports for the relationship variables to customer satisfaction. To extend and facilitate further studies contextually and empirically, a comprehensive model is presented. III.
4. Conclusion
The preceding mind review gives descriptions from previous literatures on customer satisfaction with its related variables and dimensions. This is very important to every organization to achieve their target and make sure the survival in the industry. Therefore, the researcher carrying out this mind map to overcome those issues regarding the customer satisfaction. In every organization they has different types of need and want, but they expect to satisfy it's through their goods and services. Hence they have the responsibility to identify the tools that are impact on customer satisfaction especially in their organization's products and services.
For the above stated substances, researcher wills to give a genuine answer to all products and services organizations. This model is exhibited to demonstrate the relationship variables to customer satisfaction with the support of previous literatures (see figure 1). Therefore, this study will assist the customer satisfaction related future studies. In fact, this study can further extended by considering other relevant variables and dimensions other than the constructs and dimensions, which are considered for this study.
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| Volume XVI Issue V Version I | |
| ( ) | |
| Global Journal of Management and Business Research | , Ostrom & Grayson, 1995; Hom, 2000; Giese & Cote, 2002; Cengiz, 2010; Gandhi & Kang, 2011; Angelova & Zekiri, 2011) b) Variables Associated with Customer Satisfaction Many authors have carried out several studies regarding the factors impact on customer satisfaction; selected customer perceptions (Parasuraman et al., |
| 1988), service quality, product quality and price |