The role of employee job satisfaction in strengthening customer repurchase intentions

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of front line employee job satisfaction in customers' behavioral intentions. Design/methodology/approach – Research design is nested with data collected from both first line employees and customers. Data are collected from multiple branches of a single bank to eliminate the possibility of other parameters such as design of operations and physical evidence from masking the true effects of the variables under investigation. Findings – Employee job satisfaction influences a customer's perception of quality, customer satisfaction and the development of high relational switching cost. Hence the effect on repurchase intention is indirect but significant and strong while moderated by branch size and age of the employee. Research limitations/implications – The degree of employee job satisfaction is a resource of strategic nature for these companies aiming to improve customer retention rates. Such companies should protect their ability to build employee job satisfaction and restrain themselves from policies that threaten to slim down the satisfaction their employees derive from their job. Originality/value – Using a hierarchical research design, this is the first study that manages to establish the relationship between employee job satisfaction and customers' behavioral intentions while eliminating the effect of complementary marketing mix parameters such as operations design effectiveness and aesthetics.