ABSTRACT
The concept of satisfying customers is deeply rooted in the philosophy of marketing and is a key element in most marketing definitions. Academics and practitioners agree that being able to create and maintain customer satisfaction is critical to business performance. In competitive markets where customers have choice, they may choose to take their business elsewhere in search of greater satisfaction. In this chapter, we define customer satisfaction and explain why delivering satisfaction is important, especially given the growing popularity of online customer reviews and user-generated content in social media; we then discuss customer satisfaction guarantees in hospitality and explain how companies choose between investing in improvements in customer satisfaction and investing in returns to the other, non-customer stakeholders. Finally, we review measures for capturing customer satisfaction data, and customer complaint processes.
