Increased empirical study of consumer satisfaction has not yet been accompanied by commensurate refinements in the conceptualization and measurement of the construct. A review of the related literatures in job, health (patient), marital, and life satisfaction reveals that varying degrees of methodological rigor have been used to develop satisfaction measures, resulting in instruments as long as 80 items, but that little consensus on conceptual or measurement issues is evident. In an attempt to further satisfaction measurement in the consumer domain, a number of suggested multi-disciplinary approaches were combined in a two-product satisfaction instrument to test for response characteristics, reliability, and convergent and discriminant validity. Results in two separate pilot samples indicate that the highest reliabilities were achieved with semantic differential and Likert scales.
These measures along with other verbal and graphic rating scales also demonstrated a high level of convergence and acceptable levels of discriminability. |