An investigation of the cross-national determinants of customer satisfaction

Many multinational corporations have implemented cross-national satisfaction measurement programs for tracking and benchmarking the satisfaction of their customers across their various markets. These companies measure satisfaction with the goal of maximizing customer loyalty and the financial benefits associated with loyalty. However, existing research comparing consumer satisfaction across nations is limited, with the few existing studies examining only a small number of countries or predictors of satisfaction, or a small group of consumers within a particular economic sector. To expand our knowledge of the determinants of cross-national variation in customer satisfaction, we study three sets of factors: cultural, socioeconomic and political-economic. We utilize a unique sample of cross-industry satisfaction data from 19 nations, including nearly 257,000 interviews of consumers. Consistent with our hypotheses, we find that consumers in traditional societies have higher levels of satisfaction than those in secular-rational societies. Likewise, consumers in self-expressive societies have higher levels of customer satisfaction than those in societies with survival values. We also find that literacy rate, trade freedom, and business freedom have a positive effect on customer satisfaction while per capita gross domestic product has a negative effect on customer satisfaction. We discuss the implications of these findings for policymakers, multinational corporations, and researchers.