Anticipated firm interaction can bias expressed customer satisfaction

Abstract

Customers sometimes anticipate interacting with firms after completing satisfaction surveys to discuss their survey responses. The purpose of this research is to investigate the potential effect of anticipated firm interaction on expressed satisfaction in surveys. Results of four studies show that anticipated firm interaction can bias expressed satisfaction in surveys, such that expressed satisfaction is a less accurate measure of actual satisfaction when anticipated firm interaction is present. Results also indicate that the bias is driven by a psychological mechanism of conflict avoidance, and the bias is eliminated when customers have extremely low levels of actual satisfaction. These results contribute theoretically to the literature by identifying a new survey-related bias in satisfaction measurement, identifying the underlying mechanism of the bias, and specifying a boundary condition within which the bias operates.