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Customer satisfaction with business services: is agile better?

Silke Bambauer-Sachse (Chair of Marketing II, Department of Management, University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland)
Thomas Helbling (University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland, Olten, Switzerland)

Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing

ISSN: 0885-8624

Article publication date: 11 January 2021

Issue publication date: 13 August 2021

2240

Abstract

Purpose

Agile methods have considerably transformed project management. The purpose of this study is to analyze the impact of agile (as compared to plan-driven) methods on customer satisfaction in the context of knowledge-intensive business services.

Design/methodology/approach

This study uses a survey examining the experiences of 361 customers with different outsourced software projects in Switzerland and a regression-based model to test the hypotheses.

Findings

The findings show that agile approaches can lead to higher customer satisfaction than plan-driven approaches, but the impact size is not as substantial as expected. The effect does not depend on the number of specification changes.

Practical implications

Managers must be aware that merely switching from a plan driven to an agile approach will not lead to substantial improvement in customer satisfaction. Satisfaction with the process is a more important driver of overall customer satisfaction than satisfaction with the service outcome. Thus, providers of knowledge-intensive services should train their employees in recognizing the importance of the cooperation process.

Originality/value

So far, the positive impact of agile methods is often only based on anecdotal evidence as well as on surveys examining the supplier perspective. This study provides support for the positive impact of agile methods on customer satisfaction, an important response variable from a marketing perspective, which has not been examined before in the context considered here.

Keywords

Citation

Bambauer-Sachse, S. and Helbling, T. (2021), "Customer satisfaction with business services: is agile better?", Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, Vol. 36 No. 8, pp. 1389-1402. https://doi.org/10.1108/JBIM-04-2020-0221

Publisher

:

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited

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