Antecedents and Outcomes of Customer Satisfaction : A Comprehensive Review

Understanding the antecedents and outcome variables of customer satisfaction is become an important issue, since there are few comprehensive studies conducted related to the various antecedent and outcome variables of customer satisfaction as a whole. Therefore, the main aims of this qualitative study are to investigate and to build two comprehensive models related to the antecedent and outcome variables of customer satisfaction with the various literature supports. Importantly, the comprehensive and complex models contributes to the existing literature and enhances the future studies, which are related in both online and offline customer satisfaction contexts. Keyword: customer satisfaction, antecedents, outcomes, variables, comprehensive model

The rest of the study is organized as follows: the next section gives the definitions for customer satisfaction, followed by its antecedents and outcomes.The final section offers the conclusion.

Definitions of Customer Satisfaction
One of the basic and important goals of any organization is to create high level of customer satisfaction.Howard and Sheth (1969) define satisfaction as 'the buyer's cognitive state of being adequately or inadequately rewarded for the sacrifice he has undergone'.According to Rust and Oliver (1994) customer satisfaction is an extent to which a person believes that an experience creates positive feelings.Oliver (1997) also defines customer satisfaction as: Satisfaction is the consumer's fulfillment response.It is a judgment that a product or service feature, or the product or service, itself, provided (or is providing) a pleasurable level of consumption related fulfillment, including levels of under-or over-fulfillment.
Justice theory emerges from equity theory (Adams, 1965) and social exchange theory (Blau, 1960), and other empirical evidences in the literature suggest that service quality and its dimensions such as, reliability, speed, responsiveness, value, empathy, service architecture, convenience service encounter, employee service criteria and customer focus are the antecedents of customer satisfaction (Oliver, 1993;Dabholkar, Shepherd, & Thorpe, 2000;Heung, Wong, & Qu, 2002;Sureshchandar et al., 2002;Ekinci, Dawes, & Massey, 2008;Lien & Kao, 2008;Awan, Bukhari, & Iqbal, 2011;Tan, 2014;Yuen & Thai, 2015).Indeed, Kaura (2013) indicates that service quality dimensions namely, employee behaviour and information technology, and the dimensions of service convenience namely, decision convenience, access convenience, transaction convenience, benefit convenience and post-benefit convenience, are as antecedents have positive impact on customer satisfaction for public sector banks in India.Subsequently, previous studies have suggested that service quality and perceived value affect on customer satisfaction (Lai, 2004;Hu et al., 2009;Adeola & Adebiyi, 2014).However, some studies imply that this perceived value moderates the relationships between service quality and customer satisfaction (e.g., Ismail, Abdullah, & Francis, 2009a;Ismail, Alli, & Abdullah, 2009b;Raza, Siddiquei, & Awan, 2012), whereas Malik (2012) argues perceived value does act as a mediating variable in the relationship between service quality and customer satisfaction.
According to Orth, Limon, and Rose (2010), and Jani and Han (2014) personality factors, especially Big Five Factors that include openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism have influence on customer satisfaction, while Gountas and Gountas (2007) argue that Jungian personality factors of thinking, material, feeling, and intuitive impact on customer satisfaction.Nevertheless, Brakus et al. 2009 assert that brand personality dimensions including, ruggedness, sophistication, competence, excitement, sincerity, and brand experience and its dimensions-sensory, affective¸ intellectual, behavioural experiences affect consumer satisfaction.
Analysis of past studies suggests that employee satisfaction leads to customer satisfaction (Pugh et al., 1983;Jeon & Choi, 2012).Further, both employee satisfaction and adaptive selling positively impact customer satisfaction, while dominance is negatively related to customer satisfaction (Evanschitzky et al., 2012).Notably, Jeon and Choi (2012) argue that self efficiency and corporate orientation moderate the impact of employee satisfaction on customer satisfaction.Nevertheless, Hennig-Thurau (2004) assets that customer orientation of service employees, consisting of employees' technical skills, social skills, motivation, and decision-making power has a positive influence on customer satisfaction.
According to the equity theory roots from exchange, dissonance, and social comparison theories, an individual's satisfaction or dissatisfaction judgment is based on the comparison of input against output, and compare them with other people in the same condition (Adams, 1965;Adams & Freedman, 1976;Huseman, Hatfield, & Miles, 1987;Oliver & Swan, 1989;Oliver, 1997;Andreassen, 2000).Therefore, as consistent with equity theory it is possible to argue that equity have a significant impact on customer satisfaction (Andreassen, 2000;Naser, 2002).In addition, customer based brand equity and its five dimensions namely, physical quality, staff behaviour, ideal self-congruence, brand identification and lifestyle-congruence are found to have positive impact on customer satisfaction (Nam et al., 2011).Furthermore, customer expertise and its dimensions namely, expertise and familiarity (Alba & Hutchinson, 1987) are negatively related to customer satisfaction (Naser, 2002).In addition, customers' experience with the products and services leads to customer satisfaction (Johnson & Fornell, 1991).
Marketing mix elements namely, product, price, place and promotion (i.e., 4Ps) and extended marketing mix elements people, process and physical evidence (i.e., extended 3Ps) are the antecedents of customer satisfaction (Yelkur, 2000;AmyPoh et al., 2012;Thusyanthy & Senthilnathan, 2012;Mucai et al., 2013).Moreover, Cater and Cater (2009) imply that customer satisfaction to be negatively affected by price, whilst positively by delivery performance, supplier know-how and personal interaction.Further, organizational culture along with the four dimensions: involvement, consistency, adaptability, and mission relates significantly and positively to customer satisfaction (Gillespie et al., 2008).
The summarized description for the above mentioned antecedents of customer satisfaction are shown in the Table 1.

Antecedents of customer satisfaction Source
Service qualitycustomer satisfaction Oliver (1993) Price, delivery performance, supplier know-how and personal interactioncustomer satisfaction Cater and Cater (2009) Organizational culturecustomer satisfaction Gillespie et al. 2008 Although the preceding scientific studies address various antecedents of customer satisfaction, past studies also have investigated different outcomes of customer satisfaction.

Outcomes Associated with Customer Satisfaction
Analysis of scientific literature suggests that customer satisfaction is an important driver of financial performance, profitability, shareholder value, return on investment, price sensitivity, customer loyalty, consumer based retailer equity, firm based brand equity, word-of-mouth, purchase intention, repeat-purchase intention and customer retention (e.g., Fornell, 1992;Hallowell, 1996;Anderson et al., 1997;Soderlund, 1998;Cronin, Brady, & Hult, 2000;Rust et al., 2002;Matzler et al., 2005;Stock, 2005;Gustaffsson, Johnson, & Roos, 2006;Pappu & Quester, 2006;Walsh, Evanschitzky, & Wunderlich, 2008;Torres & Tribo, 2011;Tuu & Olsen, 2012).Rust et al. (2002) affirm that firms can achieve higher financial return along with its underlying focus on customer satisfaction.In other words, customer satisfaction has an impact on financial performance.Specifically, Hallowell (1996), Yeung and Ennew (2000), and Luo and Homburg (2007) suggest firm's profitability is a significant outcome of customer satisfaction.Matzler et al. (2005) remark that there is a positive relationship between customer satisfaction and shareholder value.Further, both customer satisfaction and productivity are positively related with return on investment for products and services (Anderson et al., 1997).Stock (2005) highlights that inverse relationship between customer satisfaction and price sensitivity (i.e., when the customers are satisfied with the products or services and they are less sensitive for the price).
Empirical studies demonstrate that customer satisfaction produces a stronger customer loyalty (Fornell, 1992;Rust & Zahorik, 1993;Jones & Sasser, 1995;Back & Parks, 2003;Yoon & Uysal, 2005).Indeed, Brunner, Stocklin, and Opwis (2008) suggest that both customer satisfaction and image have impact on customer loyalty.Moreover, according to associative network memory model is applied from cognitive psychology, there is a positive relationship exist between customer satisfaction and consumer based retailer equity, where consumer based retailer equity consist of four dimensions namely, retailer awareness, retailer associations, retailer perceived quality, and retailer loyalty (Pappu & Quester, 2006).In addition, Torres and Tribo (2011) remark that direct positive effect move from customer satisfaction to firm based brand equity.On the other hand, Nam et al. (2011) shows customer satisfaction mediates the relationship between customer based brand equity and customer loyalty.Soderlund (1998) argues that customer satisfaction produces positive word-of-mouth, whilst dissatisfied customers transmits negative word-of-mouth.On the other hand, previous marketing studies affirm customer satisfaction creates positive purchase intention towards products or services (Walsh et al., 2008;Tuu & Olsen, 2012).According to Cronin et al. (2000) and Kuo, Hu, and Yang (2013), there is a positive association between customer satisfaction and repeat-purchase intention.Further, Kuo et al. (2013) also state that in the context of online shopping, word-of-mouth positively moderate the relationship between customer satisfaction and repeat-purchase intention.It is important to note that this customer satisfaction ultimately creates customer retention (Hansemark & Albinsson, 2004;Gustaffsson et al., 2006).
As can be discussed in the above, the outcomes associated with customer satisfaction are presented in the Table 2.
Table 2. Outcomes of customer satisfaction

Conclusion
The preceding comprehensive review gives descriptions for various antecedent and outcome variables of customer satisfaction from past studies.Further, service quality, service convenience, perceived value, personality factors, brand personality, brand experience, employee satisfaction, adaptive selling, dominance, customer orientation of service employees, equity, customer based brand equity, customer expertise, customer's experience, marketing mix and extended marketing mix elements, delivery performance, supplier know-how, personal interaction and organizational culture are identified as antecedents of customer satisfaction.In addition, several variables are identified as outcomes of customer satisfaction, namely, financial performance, shareholder value, return on investment, price sensitivity, customer loyalty, consumer based retailer equity, firm based brand equity, word-of-mouth, purchase intention, repeat-purchase intention and customer retention.