Does advertising exposure prior to customer satisfaction survey enhance customer satisfaction ratings?

Abstract

As an increasing number of firms adopt customer satisfaction (CS) scores as one of their performance measures, they tend to invest in diverse activities to enhance their CS scores. Educating and rewarding employees and investing in marketing research are considered genuine efforts by firms to serve their customers better. However, there are some activities for which one should question the motivation behind them. Increasing media advertising prior to conducting CS surveys in the hope of positively affecting prospective survey respondents is one such example. While this practice has been observed at least in some parts of the world, there has been little, if any, research on whether such a practice could indeed lead to higher CS ratings for the firm. Drawing on Feldman and Lynch's framework, extant research on contextual factors in the CS survey, and the assimilation-contrast effect, this paper develops a set of hypotheses and tests them in two experiments. We find that advertising exposure prior to conducting a CS survey enhances a firm's CS ratings, while the same advertisements may backfire for those respondents who displayed complaining behavior towards the firm. This paper concludes by providing implications for marketers keen on obtaining higher CS scores and third-party organizations releasing CS scores in public.