The Influence of Customer Satisfaction Feedback on Service Quality and Performance Improvement in English Social Housing

This thesis presents a service operations management approach to exploring the influence of customer satisfaction feedback on service quality and performance improvement in the English social housing sector. Although social housing historically applied customer satisfaction as a performance tool, there is a paucity of academic research exploring how customer satisfaction influences service quality and performance improvement in a social housing context. This study meets that gap. In doing so, the study aligns with contemporary service research priorities which “have the potential to advance the service field, and benefit customers, organisations, and society” by “measuring and optimising service performance and impact” and “improving well-being through transformative service” (Ostrom et al, 2015, P.127). Using organisations participating in the UK Customer Satisfaction Index, and informed by practice theory, a mixed methods research design firstly investigates three quantitative studies examining the phenomena of customer satisfaction in social housing and its relationship with service quality and performance. This is followed by two qualitative case studies exploring practices associated with how customer satisfaction feedback influences performance improvement. The results found a positive relationship between customer satisfaction and service quality, and that higher performing housing associations appear more effective at operationalising customer satisfaction feedback for performance improvement purposes. Additionally, an increasing disparity in performance between higher and lower performers was noted over time. By identifying practices, a theoretical framework for the operationalisation of customer satisfaction feedback for service performance improvement was developed. The thesis contributes to academic knowledge by providing evidence of the influence of customer satisfaction feedback on service quality and performance in a social housing context whilst developing a new theoretical framework, thereby offering new understanding for academia and practitioners in the social housing sector on how best to apply customer satisfaction feedback for service performance improvement purposes.