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Article history:
Received 9 May 2012
Revised 11 November 2012
Accepted 18 February 2013
Available online 30 April 2013
a b s t r a c t
The aim of this study is twofold and is conducted in two separate studies. The rst study validated the
Customer Satisfaction Survey (CSS) Scale in the fast food industry with an Australian sample. Nicholls
et al. (1998) developed the CSS as a way to assess key service elements. The authors tested it in multiple
service industries and Gilbert et al. (2004) tested it across cultures. Both sets of authors argued that the
tool was universal irrespective of service industry or culture. Similar to previous ndings, this current
study found that personal service and service setting are key dimensions of satisfaction. However Australian consumers also assess whether service providers are delivering on their promises as part of assessing
satisfaction. The second study compared CSS responses collected immediately following the service
encounter to those collected after a temporal delay. After a delay customers used more items to assess
each dimension but assessed satisfaction on similar dimensions. Managerial implications are discussed
together with future directions.
2013 Australian and New Zealand Marketing Academy. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
In a review of marketing metrics and their impact on nancial
performance, Gupta and Zeithaml (2006) claim that customer satisfaction is the most commonly used measure of service performance. They attribute this popularity to simple collection of
responses that can be used to improve service performance, and
enable performance to be compared between locations and over
time (Gupta and Zeithaml, 2006). Other authors have highlighted
the link between customer satisfaction and brand loyalty (Morgeson et al., 2011) which has positive implications for purchase
intention, customer retention, positive word of mouth and nancial performance (Bolton and Drew, 1991; Bolton, 1998; Mittal
and Kamakura, 2001; Kumar, 2002; Yeung et al., 2002; Anderson
et al., 2004; Gilbert et al., 2004; Fornell et al., 2006; Oliver,
2010). Recent studies have continued to nd that customer satisfaction is related to the likelihood of CEOs receiving bonuses
(OConnell and OSullivan, 2011), advertising effectiveness and
brand equity (Samaraweera and Gelb, 2011), and market performance (Aksoy et al., 2008; Williams and Naumann, 2011).
Measuring satisfaction becomes more important and more
difcult as brands locate and market themselves in international
markets (Morgeson et al., 2011). Measures must be able to accommodate differences in culture and still reliably measure satisfaction
1441-3582/$ - see front matter 2013 Australian and New Zealand Marketing Academy. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ausmj.2013.02.006
148
expects & receives inferior service. Is this customer satised or dissatised? In addition, measuring expectations can be difcult. Carman (1990) suggested that expectations should be measured prior
to the service encounter but collecting data accessing customers
prior to the experience can be difcult, it is likely that new customers cannot form detailed expectations, that expectations will
change as the service experience progresses, and that overall customers will struggle to enunciate expectations prior to the experience (Danaher and Mattsson, 1994; Yuksel and Rimmington, 1998;
Oliver, 2010). Therefore despite potential contamination of expectations, researchers often collect both expectations and satisfaction
assessments after the service encounter (1998). Oliver (2010) argued that customers will modify their expectations to reduce cognitive dissonance and conceptualise expectations more vividly if
the experience was extremely satisfying or dissatisfying. Therefore
comparisons between expectations and performance measured in
this way lack credibility.
Some research has discounted the ability of disconrmation of
expectations to explain customer satisfaction. Churchill and Suprenants (1982) research, found that satisfaction was not inuenced
by disconrmation of expectations but rather by performance of
the product. Lee et al. (2000) found that perceived performance
scores explained a larger amount of the variation in service quality
than scores of the difference between expectations and performance. Therefore some academics advocate the measurement of
satisfaction without measuring expectations (Johnson et al., 2001).
Customer satisfaction is determined by all of the key elements
of the service (Huber et al., 2007; Anderson et al., 2008). Therefore
researchers have variously attempted to measure satisfaction by
asking customers about those important attributes or by asking
consumers to indicate an overall level of satisfaction (Oliver,
2010). Mittal et al. (1999) argued that customers are more likely
to assess satisfaction against multiple attributes rather than assess
the service overall (i.e. a global view of satisfaction) and therefore
assessing important attributes is a better way to measure satisfaction. They also argue that assessing multiple attributes allows
managers to identify specic opportunities to improve customer
satisfaction. Despite several attempts, researchers have not managed to identify a universal list of dimensions that apply to all contexts (Oliver, 2010).
Some researchers use a dual step process to rate the importance
and the performance of a set of attributes (Gilbert et al., 2004; Oliver, 2010). The idea is to identify which attributes are salient to
satisfaction and combine this insight with a rating of performance.
However, the reason for an attributes importance is unclear.
According to Oliver (2010) the resultant combined scores do not
differentiate between an attribute that is important but not delivered from one that is not important but delivered. As well, the
score may be measuring something other than satisfaction because
of the inclusion of the importance measure. Yuksel and Rimmington (1998) found that including importance weightings on service
attributes did not signicantly improve the power of customer satisfaction measures.
Overall, it seems that assessing the perceived performance of
important service attributes is the most useful way to measure customer satisfaction with service encounters. Functional attributes of
a service affect customer satisfaction (Gronroos, 1984; Oberoi and
Hales, 1990; Yksel and Yksel, 2003) and are an important consideration. Assessing the importance of each attribute seems unimportant (Yuksel and Rimmington, 1998). The expectancydisconrmation approach is attractive conceptually but weakened
by difculties measuring expectations and non-logical conclusions.
One such instrument based on the performance-only approach
is the CSS developed by Nicholls et al. (1998). The scale was developed to be a parsimonious scale to measure customer satisfaction
across all service situations. The intention was to develop a univer-
149
150
Table 1
The CSS measurement instrument.
Table 2
Sample characteristics study one.
Please use the scale to rate how strongly you agree or disagree with the
statement regarding this organizations performance.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
Items
Study one
Age
20 or less
2124
2529
3039
4049
5059
60 and over
30.3%
15.5%
16.3%
22.0%
10.0%
4.5%
2.5%
Gender
Male
Female
44.3%
55.8%
Education
Not a high school graduate
High school graduate
TAFE or similar qualications
University student
University graduate
Postgraduate
11.8%
16.8%
24.5%
20.0%
22.3%
4.8%
Ethnicity/race
Asian
Australian (including Aboriginal descent)
European
Other
26.8%
49.3%
20.0%
4.0%
Table 3
Varimax rotated factor analysis of Customer Satisfaction Survey study one.
Item
Loadings
SatPers
1. Provider courtesy
2. Timely service
3. Competent employees
4. Easy to get help
7. Treatment received
9. Employees listen
10. Security within the organisation
11. Security outside the organisation
12. Prompt help
15.Organization delivers what it promises
16. Helpful personnel
17. Organization backs up its promises
% of variance
Eigen values
Cronbach alpha (correlation)
Pearson correlation
KMO
Bartletts test of sphericity
SatAssu
SatSett
.709
.589
.746
.553
.724
.554
.748
.827
.557
.876
.756
.612
32.85
5.585
.85
.64
.855
.000
9.11
1.549
.70
.46
6.87
1.169
.58
.19
Study one
SPers
Provider courtesy
Timely service
Competent
employees
Easy to get help
Convenient
operating hours
Neat and clean place
Treatment received
Easy access to
service
Employees listen
Security within the
organisation
Security outside the
organisation
Prompt help
Cost
Fair treatment
Organization
delivers what it
promises
Helpful personnel
Organization backs
up its promises
SAssu
SSett
Nicholls
et al. (1998)
Gilbert et al.
(2004)
SPers
SPers
.709
.589
.746
.762
.682
.781
.553
.737
SSett
SSett
.78
.72
.75
.74
.547
.51
.605
.724
.770
.72
.554
.748
.751
.81
.827
.819
.80
.557
.68
.876
.756
.769
.612
.79
151
encounter (e.g. Davis and Heineke, 1998; van Dolen et al., 2004)
while others collect it after a delay (e.g. Oberoi and Hales, 1990;
Fornell et al., 1996; Knutson, 2000; Gilbert et al., 2004). Immediate
collection inherently makes sense as consumers are better able to
assess encounter specic attributes when they are in the moment
and several studies argue that customer assessments of the
encounter will change over time (Mazursky and Geva, 1989;
McQuitty et al., 2000; Koenig-Lewis and Palmer, 2008). Koenig-Lewis and Palmer (2008), for example, argue that over time individual service encounters are interpreted in the context of cumulative
satisfaction, in line with subsequent exposure to the brand (not
necessarily direct experience) and are more likely to reect the
affective components of the experience better than the cognitive
components. Therefore study two sought to explore whether a
temporal delay of data collection would change the attributes used
to assess satisfaction.
If the construct is assessed using different dimensions then delayed measurement of satisfaction may be measuring a different
construct (e.g. cumulative satisfaction). No studies, especially in
the context of customer satisfaction in the fast food industry, were
found that have investigated whether temporal delays affect the
dimensions used to assess encounter specic satisfaction. The ndings will help practitioners and academics to determine when to
collect satisfaction responses, how to measure satisfaction and
how to interpret the results.
152
Item
Loadings
SatPers
1. Provider courtesy
2. Timely service
3. Competent employees
4. Easy to get help
5. Convenient operating hours
6. Neat and clean place
7. Treatment received
8. Easy access to service
9. Employees listen
10. Security within the
organisation
11. Security outside the
organisation
12. Prompt help
14. Fair treatment
15. Organization delivers what it
promises
16. Helpful personnel
17. Organization backs up its
promises
% of var.
Eigen values
Cronbach alpha
Pearson correlation
KMO
Bartletts test of sphericity
SatComm
SatSett
SatAssu
.780
.774
.765
.619
.756
.547
.578
.602
.727
.717
.584
.649
.580
.732
.585
.598
43.96
7.473
.88
.72
.922
.000
8.46
1.438
.74
.66
7.31
1.243
.76
.59
6.13
1.041
.82
.70
Table 5
Complete survey counts by fast food establishment for each study.
10. Findings
Study one
Study two
Total
McDonalds
Hungry Jacks
KFC
Subway
Other
Total
100
100
100
100
400
68
39
30
32
65
234
168
139
130
132
65
634
Table 6
Sample characteristics for studies one and two.
Items
Mail survey
(%)
Age
20 or less
2124
2529
3039
4049
5059
60 and over
30.3
15.5
16.3
22.0
10.0
4.5
2.5
2.2
2.6
9.4
28.6
24.8
20.9
11.5
Gender
Male
Female
44.3
55.8
43.6
56.4
Education
Not a high school graduate
High school graduate
TAFE or similar qualications
University student
University graduate
Postgraduate
11.8
16.8
24.5
20.0
22.3
4.8
5.6
23.1
26.5
3.4
29.5
12.0
26.8
49.3
9.4
70.6
20.0
4.0
17.5
2.6
Ethnicity/race
Asian
Australian (including Aboriginal
descent)
European
Other
153
The focus of the current study on the fast food industry limits
the ndings somewhat due to the unique specic characteristics
including the need for convenience, speed of service, changing consumer preference for fast food, frequency of purchase, etc. As well,
despite the focus on global brands, national fast food consumption
is still comprised of many smaller providers which could be explored in future research. Lastly, it is possible that some groups
of customers (e.g. regular patrons versus special occasion patrons)
assess satisfaction differently. Future research could target measurement of satisfaction amongst specic target customer groups
to explain more of the differences in satisfaction assessment.
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ID
1027035
Title
Validating the Customer Satisfaction Survey (CSS) Scale in the Australian fast food industry
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