Customer satisfaction in the Austrian food retail market

This paper discusses a new customer satisfaction index which is based on the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) model but takes into account company- or sector-specific satisfaction drivers. The concept is developed for the Austrian food retail market. Suitable satisfaction drivers have been identified from the literature and talks with experts. Application of factor analysis shows that these variables are well represented by three factors, viz. the emotional perception, the assessment of the customer orientation and the price-performance ratio. An empirical investigation based on 1000 households shows that the emotional factor and the price-performance ratio but not the assessment of the customer orientation contribute significantly to the explanation of the data. These empirical results show that the extension of the model by satisfaction drivers is a necessary feature for the ACSI model to be adequate, at least in the case of the food retail market. From the point of view of the user, an advantage of the new customer satisfaction index is that the values of the coefficients of the satisfaction drivers give clear hints on potential improvements.