National Customer Satisfaction Indices: A Critical Investigation from an Application Perspective

The development of National Customer Satisfaction Indices (NCSIs) has recently become a central area of research in service management and marketing. Despite an considerable amount on scientific and societal discussion, a massive lack of meta-theoretical research in the area of NCSI development and usage exists. Based on the identification of several levels of NCSI based satisfaction compahsons the authors formulate a catalogue of general criteria which function as a frame of reference for the critical analysis and evaluation of NCSIs. With the American Customer Satisfaction Index and the German Customer Satisfaction Barometer, two wellknown indices are than evaluated with regard to the criteria previously worked out. Several proposals are generated corresponding to the results of the analysis, which can be used as a guideline for future improvements of NCSI methodology and usage.