Academic Research学术研究连载

走进中国工业品牌管理与竞争的新常态

Entering into the “IB and HB branding management Era”

                               by Dr. Yang XiaoTong

 Edited by Eric and authorized for release

OVERVIEW

Throughout this part, we will have a discussion why customer satisfaction, mainly over a longer period of time for most of other similar studies on this subject, will matter much to a certain business entity, in terms of its overall financial performance and most importantly profitability. Over the course of our discussion, we are going to use a number of most-referred terms in relation to branding strategy so as to give you a better understanding of the extent to which a strong corporate profitability is reliant on a positively perceived and evaluated brand translating into a reinforced customer loyalty in a sustainable way.              

2.4 How Customer Satisfaction Relates to Quality and Brand

Currently, cognitive psychology and customer expectations difference theory are what those dominating theories about customer satisfaction are based on (Andreassen & Lindestad, 1998). At the heart of contemporary marketing theories is the customer satisfaction theory. As found out by Daniel E. Innis and Bernard J. La Londe, marketing strategy functions in a way that long-term corporate business performance is improved through increased customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. From brand marketing theory’s perspective, brand is what affects customer satisfaction and customer loyalty, two key factors to determine a given firm’s business performance (Aaker & Joachimsthaler, 2000; Keller, 1993).

It is argued in customer expectations difference theory (Oliver, 1980, 1996) that, due to a series of strategies implemented by a given firm to support R&D, manufacturing, marketing, servicing and etc, customer expectations will be generated towards the quality of a given branded product before it is purchased or used, while customer perception to it’s quality will arise after it is purchased or used. Therefore, the gap between what is expected by the customers and what is perceived by the customers will determine how satisfied and how loyal they are going to be with the product: better customers’ perception beyond what is expected will positively lead to both their satisfaction levels and loyalty going up and vice versa. Based on this argument customer loyalty is thought to be something as a consequence of increased customer’s satisfaction and furtherly making customers stay loyal can be considerably beneficial to a given firm in terms of achieving superior business performance. Prior market research revealed that in B2C market retaining existing customers costs only one fifth that for attracting new customers (Rust & Zahrik). In general terms, customer’s satisfaction is derived from two types of sources, one is from a single deal and the other is from the entire course of business relationship developing over time (Boulding et al, 1993). When it comes to only a single deal, customer’s satisfaction can be defined as post-purchase evaluation or assessment to be made by the customers (Hunt, 1977; Oliver, 1977, 1980, 1993). In the latter form, customer’s satisfaction refers to a more comprehensive evaluation or assessment that is made from a long-term experience with purchasing and using the products or service (Fornell, 1992; Johnson & Fornell, 1991). It is quite clear that customer’s satisfaction accumulated over a lengthy period of time stands as a more sensible indicator of a given firm’s performance in the past, at present and in the future. Since this article is focused on ingredient brand marketing and its consequential influence on customer’s satisfaction, we take the latter form alone to continue our discussion.

Primarily, the quality of an individual product or service is a common attribute that relates closely to how satisfied the customers would be. Due to this very reason, from the angle of marketing, perceived quality is thus taken as a universally recognized dimension to measuring the products or service which an individual supplier can offer (Steenkamp, 1989). As Zeithaml summarized in his generalized reflection on his research with quality-centric marketing in 1988, perceived quality lies in a comprehensive assessment to be made by the customers with all of the merits which can be recalled with a specific product or service taken into account. For quite a long time, customers’ satisfaction has been rated as an important variable to dictating induced value (Howard and Sheth, 1969; Kotler and Levy, 1969), which in marketing can be expressed as a ratio of perceived quality or value-added benefit to cost input for assessment purposes (Dodds, Monroe & Grewal, 1991; Holbrook, 1994; Zeithaml, 1988). It has been proven for times from prior research that quality is fundamentally a key building block to customers’ satisfaction and that the same is true when brand marketing strategy is followed (e.g. Anderson & Sullivan, 1993; Churchill & Suprenant, 1982; Cronin & Taylor, 1992; Fornell, 1992;Oliver & DeSarbo, 1988; McCarthy & Norris, 1999).

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For contact with the author, please email to shanshan@towermind.com;

For contact with the editor, please email to yangls@skiplifting.com