Dear Scholar, I guess there is some confusion. Are you asking about dependent variables for Customer satisfaction or control variables which are often kept constant to conduct experiement? One control variable can be price.So if we want to identify satisfiers say in mobiles, please take similar price range ,say under $100 mobiles and identify variables that consumers report for satisfaction.Customer satisfaction is very complex indeed as it covers both latent and obvious attributes in product/service.It starts from desiogtn to after sales service. Customer satisfaction comes to highest point when price-cost-value triangle works in favour of customer. When customer cant find a better product to recommend after using a product then we can say customer satisfaction is highest.IT is difficukt to make absolute scale for measuring customer satisfaction. It is all subjective and comparative scoring.

yes, i thought there might be confusion :-)

i don't mean control variable in the statistical sense but more like a variable which allows you to control if you have measured customer satisfaction in a valid sense.

so for example a dependent variable (customer satisfaction as the independent variable) which is known to be a very reliable and very valid outcome of customer satisfaction.

I think expectation from product is crucial for satisfaction. Two different customers bought a product or services one could satiffact other is couldnt due to the expectation. 

Hi, Manfred:

Among others, most likely i believe word of mouth (as a variable/construct behavior!) perhaps has a very plausible connection (or the closest/strongest link) to customer satisfaction! Please take a look at the following recent research study:

In this study (Eisingerich, Auh, &  Merlo, 2014)  evidence has shown that satisfied customers do not necessarily buy more of a company’s products and services, thus spurring researchers to look for a missing link between customer satisfaction and purchase behavior!

The authors argued that the Word of mouth (WOM) has been advocated as the elusive missing link and as a key indicator of customer-firm relationship strength. Yet, WOM is only one type of customer voluntary performance (CVP). In this study, a second type of CVP, namely customer participation (i.e., customers’ willingness to provide the firm with constructive feedback and suggestions), is argued to be crucial to ensure that a satisfied customer repurchases.

The authors developed and tested a model that predicts that satisfied customers repurchase when they become productive resources through two spontaneous and cooperative customer behaviors: WOM and participation. The empirical findings support the predictions, thus complementing and extending previous research.

Finally the authors suggests that while WOM has been heralded as an important factor in firm growth, another factor that is at least equally if not more important to future sales is---customer participation!

• Eisingerich, A. B., Auh, S., & Merlo, O. (2014). Acta Non Verba? The Role of Customer Participation and Word of Mouth in the Relationship Between Service Firms’ Customer Satisfaction and Sales Performance. Journal Of Service Research, 17(1), 40-53.

Hope this helps!

Nadeem

To reach to customer satisfaction, let the perceived value equal to the expectation value.

If you want to delight your customer, let the perceived value exceed the expectation value.

The Customer's  EXPECTED AREAS of Performance / Service affecting

• ATTITUDE
• PERCEPTION
• MOTIVATION 

are bench marked and processed over threshold FELT levels, leads to satisfaction.

These parameters are Qualitatively measured.

Dear Krishnan Umachandran, could you please explain the meaning of "threshold FELT levels"? Many thanks.

That is qualitative (descriptive) levels that need to be customized with respect to the population. May be you can use a LIKERT scale with 2 point intervals to evolve it and then test it before actual application.

Threshold is the limit you evolve to be over the median value.

Hi,

There is a new construct which includes customer satisfaction and the other indicators such as word of mouth, repurchase etc. , this is customer engagement.

There are resources in the net you can look them up yourself.

Doris

Well, I think variables like brand image and word of mouth impact the most as far as satisfaction is concerned. Therefore, you may try these variables.

Hai Manfred,

I think word of mouth publicity and customer repurchase behavior are the best dependent variable that you can use for measuring the customer satisfaction. Apart from that you can do a pilot study with a small sample size, then you can find some more important dependent variables that you can use for your study, for measuring the customer satisfaction and also you can find some sub variables also.

Thanks & Best Regards,

Ajai Krishnan G

You could look at Ganglmair's Affective Response to Consumption, a scale that captures the full range of satisfaction and which is conceptually better able to discriminate between those less or more likely to repurchase or recommend

I partially suggest loyalty as a substitute. However, here I would focus on affective loyalty/commitment. Only repurchase/action loyalty seems to be somewhat short. There are many people defecting instead of high satisfaction levels.

dear researchers, thank you all for your answers so far! i think there are some really valuable hints and suggestions in the answers.

i will now check your suggestions in details and study the literature some of you suggested.

Customer satisfaction is always based on his/hers expectations. In fact You should measure how well a product meets consumer expectation, how a similar product  can surpass its expectations and how well is the current product at this.

Keep in mind that:

- a satisfied customer results on a product fulfills its expectations (path to fidelity)

A delighted customer results on a product surpasses customer expectations (path to loialty) --- as a result customer future expectation level rises.

My Handbook of Management Scales contains a customer satisfaction scale: https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Handbook_of_Management_Scales

Word of mouth is only linked to pre purchase decisions. For customer satisfaction it is not a direct linked variable since customer has already bought and used item or service. Hence customer satisfaction will depend on expectations and perceived quality post purchase. Some times even by poor sales process dissonance takes place and customer looses interest in product. For example you buy a desktop or mobile .Training is often not given now a days .Most buy is online. Customer cannot install or operate or it goes bad due to faulty operations. It is seller to blame. Such product will permanently loose goodwill, unless it turns out finally to be very high much beyond expected level. Like pure delight fo0r customer to use. or some compensation is provided due to sales failure by extremely fast and personalized service.

Short term success of seller sends her to illusion that her product is best and service is best and she is uncrowned and permanent king of the segment. That is beginning of downfall of seller. Most MNCs suffer form this syndrome. Arrogance and unwieldy sales volumes and service needs. often companies expand much faster in products and manufacturing facilities than expanding of required human resource that is slow and cumbersome process. HR should lead production by several months or even years . But companies act stingy trying to save dollars on human resource. Unless you have well trained and skilled service agents how customer service will be obtained. and hence satisfaction. Results are required ion ground by way of earnest action. mere sales theories and academics wont produce any results.

I hope my comment will help. You see in research you explain all the decisions you have taken and put the likely omissions as limitations of the study. I advise you choose a proxy variable for customer satisfaction, adapt the instrument from any study that has used the same proxy to measure customer satisfaction. This is why research is dynamic. It goes on

I suggest that experienced utility can be considered as a better measure of customer experience than satisfaction.

Satisfaction is typically measured with self-reported retrospective evaluations of previous experience. At the same time, the memory-based approaches have numerous limitations related to social desirability, availability heuristics, previous knowledge, mood at the time of answering questions and do not reflect the moment-by-moment nature of customer experience. These limitations can be eliminated by introducing instant components of experienced utility as measures of customer experience. The experienced utility allows eliminating the majority of self-report biases, capturing the affective components of customer experience, analyzing relationships between anticipation, experienced, and remembered utilities, and applying emerging moment-based research techniques such as experience sampling method, psychophysiological techniques, etc.

Article Satisfaction vs experienced utility: current issues and opportunities