Customer Satisfaction and Service Quality in Consumer Industries
Summary
Customer satisfaction and service quality constitute foundational constructs in the study of consumer industries, reflecting the degree to which products and interactions meet or exceed consumer expectations. Service quality is typically conceptualised as a multidimensional construct encompassing reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy and tangibles, while customer satisfaction represents an evaluative response to perceived performance relative to expectations. These constructs are closely intertwined: high service quality enhances perceived value and fosters satisfaction, which in turn drives behavioural outcomes such as repeat purchase, positive word-of-mouth and loyalty. Over recent decades, theoretical models such as SERVQUAL and the American Customer Satisfaction Index have provided structured frameworks for measurement, enabling practitioners to diagnose gaps between expectations and perceptions. The digital transformation of commerce, the rise of AI-powered services and growing consumer demand for personalised, sustainable offerings have further deepened research on how novel delivery channels and environmental concerns influence satisfaction and quality assessments. Global markets increasingly seek actionable insights into factors that shape consumer experience—from frontline employee competencies to omnichannel service integration—with a view to achieving competitive advantage in mature and emerging sectors alike.
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Customer Satisfaction and Service Quality in Consumer Industries publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in customer satisfaction and service quality in consumer industries across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Service quality: A multidimensional measure of consumer perceptions across reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy and tangibles.
Customer satisfaction: An evaluative response to the extent that a product or service meets or exceeds prior expectations.
Perceived value: The consumer’s overall assessment of the utility of a product or service based on perceptions of what is received versus what is given.
SERVQUAL: A diagnostic model for measuring service quality gaps between expectations and perceptions across five dimensions.
American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI): A national economic indicator tracking consumer satisfaction across industry sectors using a cause-and-effect framework.
Loyalty: A consumer’s readiness to engage in repeat purchases and to advocate positively for a brand or service provider.
References
- Assessing Customer Satisfaction in AI-Powered Services: An Empirical Study with SmartPLS. International Transactions on Artificial Intelligence (ITALIC) (2023).
- Analysis of Customer Satisfaction with the Quality of Energy Market Services in Poland. Energies (2022).
- Factors affecting customer satisfaction with life insurance service quality: A case study in Hanoi. International Journal of Scientific Research and Management (IJSRM) (2024).
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