Personality influences on customer satisfaction

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine relationships between personality factors and customer satisfaction for services. The study has various distinctive features. Previously there has been no meaningful research on the relationship between personality traits and customer satisfaction variables. Most previous studies were directed towards establishing a relationship between individual personality traits and buying behaviour or to predict sales of expensive items such as automobiles, in which personality was not the only influencing factor. Moreover, almost all of the earlier work on personality traits and consumer decision-making was targeted at the study of products not services. In contrast, the current study was aimed at ‘customer satisfaction’ rather than ‘buying’ behaviour; and building the conceptual framework on services rather than products. Using two services (credit cards services [N=220] and mobile phone services [N=588]), consistent support was found for the effects of personality traits on customer satisfaction patterns among mobile phone and credit card users. The personality factor agreeableness emerged as a single predictor for customer satisfaction for both services. Personality facets modesty, altruism, and trust were consistent in providing major predictive power predicting customer satisfaction for the two services.