7

The concept and assessment of customer satisfaction

Irena Ograjenšek and Iddo Gal

In all sectors of the economy, organizations need to know how well they are satisfying customer needs and expectations. To achieve this, they have to translate general conceptions of customer satisfaction into decisions about what to measure and what methods to use to collect data. A full understanding of the customer satisfaction assessment thus requires a look beyond technical (analytical methods and models) into substantive and methodological issues. Both conceptualization and operationalization of customer satisfaction, as well as the logic of measuring it, have to be examined. This chapter offers a roadmap for such examination. Following the introductory section, Section 7.2 addresses the interrelated concepts of customer satisfaction....