Developing a Customer Satisfaction Index Based on the Cognitive Structure of Customers

The paper reviews the relative literatures about the cognitive structure of customers and tries to introduce the concept of customer personal value which reflects customers' final needs into the cause-and-effect line of the customer satisfaction index. Customer personal value can reflect customers' value view and the deepest level of customers' needs. The companies can understand customer behavior better, when they conduct the more activities on understanding and recognizing customer personal value. Customer personal value should be an independent antecedent of customer satisfaction, and customer expectation, perceived quality and perceived value are the precondition of customer personal value. The new model of customer satisfaction index will deepen the understanding of the mechanism of forming customer satisfaction, and the theory will guide the service companies to choice suitable indices when they want to appraise the ability of fulfilling customer needs and economic performance in the new consuming environment.