Understanding Firms’ Customer Satisfaction Information Usage

Abstract

Despite theoretical and empirical research linking a firm's business performance to the satisfaction of its customers, knowledge of how firms collect and use customer satisfaction information is limited. The authors investigate firms’ customer satisfaction information usage (CSIU) by drawing on in-depth interviews, a focus group of managers, and the existing literature. They identify key characteristics of the major processes involved in firms’ CSIU and compare the CSIU practices revealed in their fieldwork with widely held normative theory prescriptions. They also identify variations in CSIU among the firms in the fieldwork and uncover factors that may help explain the observed differences.