Linking Customer Service Orientation to Competitive Performance: Does the Marketing Concept Really Work?

Abstract

The operation of all business enterprises is guided by some overriding, decision-making philosophy. In today’s market a "customer orientation" philosophy has been widely adopted. This philosophy can be operationalized as the marketing concept. However, the marketing concept’s link to actual business performance has received little empirical verification. This study compares 188 manufucturing firms grouped by level of customer service orientation. The results of a mailed questionnaire show that firms reporting a high level of customer service outperform low level service firms on ten of twelve measures of operational and financial performance. These findings empirically demonstrate a positive linkage between a customer-service-driven market orientation and superior performance in business operations.