Preliminary Research Design - Assignment Example

However, once a business has been operating for an amount of time, they begin to rely on their customers to help their business continue to strive. Of course, customers are only a small part of the business, but the way that customers are treated will have a direct impact on the way that the business grows. Many businesses understand the relationship of customers to loyalty, but many do not see that it makes much difference in the way they do business. In the old days, there was a phrase that everyone seemed to use: "The customer is always right.

" But today, this may not be the case for every business. Customer satisfaction will automatically lead to customer loyalty if customers are treated well. Theoretical Framework Most business people understand that the relationship that they build with their customers will either bring them back to the business or make them go to someone else. The most important factor for them to remember is that there is a relationship between customer satisfaction and loyalty. The idea of customer satisfaction can be defined in many different ways. . Some researchers suggest that defining customer satisfaction means that quality of the product is important to customer satisfaction.

Although this is one component that points to customer satisfaction, it is not the only one that can be seen in developing this concept. In order to define customer satisfaction, a research must look a several issues that create good customer service. Roethlein and Wicks (2009) suggest that one of those components is quality. Whether it is a product or a service, there are certain elements of quality service that most customers will expect. Customers satisfaction connects to customer loyalty which in turn connects to costumer retention.

In each situation, customers are the major part of why a business or service works well and continues to thrive, especially in difficult economic times. According to Dubrovski (as cited in Roethlein and Wicks, 2009), consumer satisfaction is the most important aspect of profit because it is through customer satisfaction that profits are made. In other words, the more satisfied customers are, the more they want to purchase from the company. Kumar, Petersen, and Leone (2010) suggest that when customers are satisfied with a product or service, they will tell other people about it and they will refer them to the business.

They devised a formula to decide what customers had the highest value for referrals and applied it to their research. They found that customers who had a high level of referral possibility only needed to have one form of advertising come to them because if they liked the business enough, they would automatically refer people to it. These different theories of how researchers see customer satisfaction makes it difficult to devise a strong independent or dependent variable for what