Exploring satisfaction in business-to-business services: a path-analytic approach

In this article, we propose a path-analytic approach to model the relationships among overall satisfaction, satisfaction with higher order performance domains and the lower order performance attributes for business-to-business services. The model is estimated using data from the business customers of a large provider of electronics products and services. Our results show that overall satisfaction in such contexts may be driven by satisfaction on multiple higher order performance domains and the relevant lower order performance attributes may not drive satisfaction. An adoption of our modeling approach can help service providers make resource allocation decisions across performance domains and identify the micro-level performance levers that they can pull to manage satisfaction levels of their business clients.