The Impact of Customer Satisfaction on Share-of-Wallet in a Business-to-Business Environment

Abstract

Research has found that customer satisfaction is positively related to repurchase intention, actual repurchase, market share, and word of mouth. There is growing recognition among managers of the importance of measuring the share of business a customer conducts with a particular service provider (share-of-wallet) as opposed to simply repurchasing a product or service at some point in the future or continuing to keep a business relationship with a service provider. Currently there is very little empirical research concerning the relationship between customer satisfaction and share-of-wallet. This article examines the relationship between satisfaction and actual share-of-wallet in a business-to-business environment. The authors not only find that there is a positive relationship but that the relationship is nonlinear, with the greatest positive impact occurring at the upper extreme of satisfaction levels.