Linking internal marketing to employee perception of customer satisfaction: Evidence from a non-profit organization

Nwamaka Augustina Anaza, Purdue University

Abstract

A central focus within consumer behavior has been the study of customer satisfaction. With a constantly changing economy, customer satisfaction has been accepted as the backbone of business sustainability and remains one of the most studied constructs in marketing. Despite its importance, researchers have demonstrated that the current study of customer satisfaction possesses a major flaw because of its failure to observe multiple dimensions of the service encounter. Till date, the study of satisfaction has been predominately captured from the customer's point of view, without considering the service provider's (employee) viewpoints. To ignore an employee's view of customer satisfaction is to disregard the major role employee's play as firsthand facilitators in a service encounter. Thus, little remains known about employee perceptions of customer satisfaction and what variables affect it? It is evident and without question that customer satisfaction is attained through the combined efforts of human and organizational performances. Yet only a hand full of studies has attempted to investigate how organizational behaviors and employee attitudes affect customer satisfaction using employees as proxies. The primary purpose of this research study is to advance the organizational behavior and consumer behavior field by examining the direct and indirect relationship between internal marketing, organizational identification, employee-customer identification, job satisfaction on employee perceptions of customer satisfaction. Data for this research study was collected from employees working at a major Mid-Western University Cooperative Extension Service. Of the eight hypotheses proposed, seven were supported with adequate model fit. A reduced model of the significant pathways was further tested to validate the extended model and re-confirm the results found. The research study discloses striking results. The findings reveal that internal marketing positively affects employee job satisfaction, employee-company identification, and employee-customer identification. The findings further indicate the importance of building deep-lying bonds between employees and customers, and employees and organization as a means of enhancing customer satisfaction and employee satisfaction, respectively. In line with recent research findings, the results illustrate that customer satisfaction is motivated by employee's level of identification with their customers. In other words, greater employee attachment to their customers leads to greater customer satisfaction.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Widdows, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Marketing|Behavioral psychology|Management|Occupational psychology

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