Customer satisfaction: some results for European Retailing

Abstract

Customer satisfaction and customer loyalty are becoming increasingly important factors in modern retailing—a market characterized by slow growth and intense competition. Big non-European chains such as Walmart are already present in some countries and are considering buying some of the retail chains in other countries, e.g. the Scandinavian countries. This development will demand even more focus on customer satisfaction and customer loyalty in order to stay in business and may also demand that existing actors in the market-place form new coalitions. Promising new partners may be identified partly based upon measures identifying how potential partners are perceived by the customers. Based on results from the European Customer Satisfaction study, a comparative analysis of customer satisfaction in Europe is conducted. Some specific Danish results are shown and the relationship between customer loyalty, supermarket type and ownership structure is studied.