Measurement Instrument Development Using Two Competing Concepts of Customer Satisfaction

Abstract

This paper reports on the development of two instruments for the measurement of customer satisfaction. The development of two instruments reflects the fact that there are two philosophies found in the literature regarding the appropriate form of the concept of customer satisfaction. The first indicates that the concept is a ratio of perceptions and expectations and the second approach indicates that it is the difference between perceptions and expectations. There are important implications for the process of scaling in the use of one approach or the other. This paper reports an investigation into the implications of each approach. The investigation found that the ratio of perceptions and expectations, when used in scale development, resulted in a scale with lower reliability, lower relative validity, and dimensions that were more difficult to interpret than the scale developed using the differences.