Earlier research by Anderson and Mittal—published in 2000 in the Journal of Service Research—shows that there isn’t a consistent relationship between customer satisfaction and profit.
However, a more recent 2023 Cornell study by Li, Wagner, Gómez, and Mansfield applies that to the brewing world. The results suggest that moving a customer from “somewhat dissatisfied” to “neither satisfied nor dissatisfied” may be less valuable than moving a customer from “somewhat satisfied” to “very satisfied.”
There’s also a point at which promoting higher levels of satisfaction becomes unprofitable again, but the broad takeaway from the 2023 study is this: “The rate of change in purchase decisions is heavily weighted to the more satisfied end of the spectrum.”
