Examining the relationship between job satisfaction and customer satisfaction in a South African firm

Abstract

Employee and customer satisfaction have been widely studied and are important for business outcomes. Their relationship has primarily been researched at the organisational and departmental levels within the consumer type industries where frontline employee interaction with the customer is important. Research into the relationship at the job characteristic level and within a business-to-business context is limited and therefore the purpose of the research is to examine these relationships in a South African firm. Two data collection instruments, based on the literature review, were used to obtain the primary data for this research. A self administered job satisfaction survey was preformed as well as a telephonic customer satisfaction survey was undertaken. 67 employees and 66 customers responded to the survey. Descriptive and comparative statistics with a rank order correlation was used to examining and analyse the data. Although a weak relationship was observed between the percentages of satisfied employees and satisfied customers in the survey, a strong and significant relationship exists between the rank order of the different functions within the firm, when comparing the employees job and customers satisfaction results. The results suggest that the job satisfaction levels of the employees in a business-to-business environment influence to some degree the level of satisfaction experienced by the customer.