The fit of Chinese firm´s customer satisfaction strategies in a developed country market: an empirical study of Chinese products in Norway

Abstract

Customer satisfaction is a concept that has aroused considerable interest and debate in the research literature because of the difficulties in both defining and measuring it with no overall consensus emerging on either. Customer satisfaction and product quality are often treated together as functions of customer‟s perceptions and expectations and research has shown that high product quality contribute significantly to profitability. Product quality is required to be first measured in order to improve the quality in production companies. Practitioners and academicians are eager on measuring product quality and customer satisfaction accurately in order to have better understanding of its indispensable antecedent and consequences, and eventually ascertain methods for improving and measuring product quality in search for competitive advantage. The aim of this study is to determine the fit of Chinese firm‟s customer satisfaction strategy in a developed market: an empirical study of Norway. A questionnaire used in this study was published on a website and the sample used in this research was students from the University of Agder (UiA). This study also examined the product quality gap by comparing customers‟ expectations and their actual perceptions. The results of the study indicated that all of the customer satisfaction precursor variables of price and quality are important. The findings of the study reveal that there is an inverse relationship between price and customer satisfaction. Further, when quality is high the satisfaction is also high. The same trend was established for the relationship between price and satisfaction. To achieve high purchase intention, the importance of satisfaction was clearly evident in the study. In conclusion, therefore, for the developing country products to be successfully in the developed market, the product aspects of price, quality have to be systematically addressed. .