The roles of service encounters, service value, and job satisfaction in achieving customer satisfaction in business relationships

Abstract

Along with variables like the service process, perceived service value and customer satisfaction, job satisfaction of service employees plays a vital role in customer evaluation of service result. However, there has been little in-depth research into the nature of this relation, in particular in the context of B2B relations. In the sphere of an organization providing financial intermediation services to the banking sector and on the basis of a literature review, hypotheses are developed which establish the mediator role of service value and the moderator role of job satisfaction of service employees when delimiting customer satisfaction. Reliability and validity analysis give satisfactory results and our conclusions establish firstly that service encounter directly and significantly affects perceived service value which is the final antecedent to customer satisfaction and secondly, that the level of employment satisfaction moderates its effect on service value.