Tell Us Again, How Satisfied Are You? The Influence of Recurring Posttransaction Surveys on Purchase Behavior

Abstract

Service firms frequently contact customers after a transaction to solicit feedback and assess satisfaction with the service experience. Customers who have an ongoing relationship with a firm may receive satisfaction surveys after many or even most of their service encounters, yielding effects that are likely to be cumulative over time. Yet how these cumulative effects influence customer purchase behavior is not clear. Because satisfaction surveys serve a dual purpose of providing valuable customer feedback and incorporating bidirectional communication into relational marketing strategies, understanding their longer term effects is important. This study examines the influence of recurring posttransaction satisfaction surveys on purchase behavior at the individual customer transaction level using service transaction data and relational contact data spanning 3 years at a large North American automotive dealership. The findings reveal that repeatedly soliciting a customer’s feedback may have detrimental cumulative effects on purchase amount and interpurchase time, and the cumulative effects vary with customers’ cross purchasing history. Results indicate diminished impact of other individualized direct contacts when a customer also receives a posttransaction satisfaction survey. The authors discuss how companies can use satisfaction surveys as an effective tool within a firm’s portfolio of relational communications and minimize detrimental effects over time.