Differentiation as a Basis for Explaining Customer Satisfaction across Industries

Abstract

The paper uses the differentiation of offerings as a basis for explaining differences in aggregate, industry level customer satisfaction in the annual Swedish Customer Satisfaction Barometer. The results reveal that differentiated industries have higher aggregate levels of perceived performance and subsequent customer satisfaction, and that a large portion of variance in customer satisfaction across industries can be explained by the impact of differentiation (via perceived performance). These findings suggest that it is indeed possible to make meaningful comparisons of customer satisfaction across different industries.