The impacts of economic long-term expansion and consumer confidence on perceived value and customer satisfaction

Measuring customer satisfaction at the firm-level is not enough for companies to validly assess corporate performance from the customers' point of view because customer satisfaction is as well influenced by industrial and economic developments distarting firm-level results. In order to deepen initial findings, our study identifies the economic antecedents to customer satisfaction and to the consumer-perceived value of goods and services, which is the primary antecedent to satisfaction at the firm-level, and integrates the results into a structural model. Based on data from Germany, we find that the consumer-perceived value of goods and services is positively influenced both by economic long-term expansion and by consumer and investor confidence. Customer satisfaction is negatively influenced by retail confidence and positively influenced by economic long-term expansion, with more than half of the impact being mediated by perceived value. We also show that these results are not limited to Germany but are reflected by all countries where customer satisfaction is measured on a large scale.