Demographics and customer satisfaction: a multi-category study
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2025
Authors
Dawes, J.
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Journal article
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Journal of Consumer Satisfaction, Dissatisfaction and Complaining Behavior, 2025; 38(1):99-122
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Abstract
Customer satisfaction is a key metric for many organizations and is considered to be vital for business success. Therefore, understanding how and why satisfaction scores vary across customers is important knowledge for firms and researchers. This study examines the impact of three commonly used demographic variables, namely gender, age and income on customer satisfaction scores. Understanding the relationship between demographic variables and satisfaction scores will help firms understand which customer types are inherently easier or harder to satisfy. Drawing on theories of social roles, expectation-disconfirmation and loss aversion, the study formulates and tests a series of hypotheses as to how those demographic factors will be associated with higher or lower customer satisfaction scores, and how differences between demographic groups in satisfaction scores are related to the firm’s overall satisfaction level. The study employs data from ten categories in the UK. The hypotheses are tested using a regression model with satisfaction scores as the dependent variable and dummy-coded demographic groups as the independent variables. Building on past work, the study finds higher satisfaction among women and older consumers, and slightly lower satisfaction among high-income consumers. The study also finds that the comparatively lower levels of satisfaction among high-income earners is even more apparent for low-performing firms. The findings will be informative to customer satisfaction scholars, and to service managers seeking an enhanced understanding of their satisfaction performance overall, and among different customer groups.
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Copyright 2025 University of Nevada Las Vegas.