Customer value (CV), overall satisfaction, end-user loyalty and market performance in detail-intensive industries (DII)

The concept and utility of customer value is well established, but there is a "lacuna of theoretical frameworks and models" (Huber et al., 2001). This research proposes and tests a comprehensive and integrative theoretical framework in the DII setting. The study found empirical support for the theoretical links of several of the antecedents to customer value and its subsequent links to all three-outcome measures---overall satisfaction, end-user loyalty and market performance---thus providing management with a strategic rationale for improving the customer value delivery process. However, the postulated links from the higher order constructs to the three outcomes measures were only weakly supported. Instead, stronger links were found from the customer value components---Product, Personal, Strategic Benefits and Sacrifice---directly to the outcome measures.; Customer value also linked to other marketing constructs. For example, overall satisfaction was found to mediate the effect of customer value on end-user loyalty then indirectly influence market performance. Also overall satisfaction was found to be a better predictor of end-user loyalty than customer value, thus confirming previous research showing that overall satisfaction and customer value play different but complementary roles (Eggert and Ulaga, 2001).; End-user loyalty was then found to be a better predictor of market performance than overall satisfaction, particularly in this hybrid DII marketing setting, where the consumer has considerable and growing power to request their preferred product due to the increasing use of direct-to-consumer advertising messages.