African Journal of Business Management Vol. 6(11), pp. 4134-4141, 21 March, 2012 Available online at http://www.academicjournals.org/AJBM DOI: 10.5897/AJBM11.1945 ISSN 1993-8233 ©2012 Academic Journals Full Length Research Paper Personality influences on customer satisfaction Kamran Siddiqui Institute of Business Administration, University Road, 75270, Karachi, PAKISTAN. E-mail: ksiddiqui@iba.edu.pk. Tel: +9221111423423. Accepted 31 October, 2011 The purpose of this study was to examine relationships between personality factors and customer satisfaction for services. The study has various distinctive features. Previously there has been no meaningful research on the relationship between personality traits and customer satisfaction variables. Most previous studies were directed towards establishing a relationship between individual personality traits and buying behaviour or to predict sales of expensive items such as automobiles, in which personality was not the only influencing factor. Moreover, almost all of the earlier work on personality traits and consumer decision-making was targeted at the study of products not services. In contrast, the current study was aimed at ‘customer satisfaction’ rather than ‘buying’ behaviour; and building the conceptual framework on services rather than products. Using two services (credit cards services [N=220] and mobile phone services [N=588]), consistent support was found for the effects of personality traits on customer satisfaction patterns among mobile phone and credit card users. The personality factor agreeableness emerged as a single predictor for customer satisfaction for both services. Personality facets modesty, altruism, and trust were consistent in providing major predictive power predicting customer satisfaction for the two services. Key words: Personality, five-factor model, consumer behaviour, customer satisfaction, services, mobile phones, credit cards. INTRODUCTION The concept of customer satisfaction has been recognised as backbone of marketing literature since its inception (Kotler, 1969; Fornell and Werneldt, 1987) and even after several decades it is still a central element in the contemporary services marketing concept (Zeithaml et al., 2006; Evans et al., 2009; Blackwell et al., 2007; Solomon, 2009; Lovelock and Wirtz, 2007). For some service providers, customer satisfaction is the core of their marketing strategy as well as the major focus of their marketing activities; implied to improve the company performance (Martensen et al., 2000). Literature suggest the importance of customer satisfaction, testifying to the fact that customer satisfaction increases the probability of repeat buying; enhances word-of-mouth communications; lowers a consumer’s price sensitivity; reduces complaints (Anderson et al., 1994); drives customer loyalty (Heskett et al., 1994); reduces the customer defection rate (Reichheld and Sasser, 1990) and ultimately positively affects shareholder value (Johnson and Fornell, 1991). For decades consumer personality has been used to predict consumer behaviour variables and it has been used as the basis for market segmentation (Kotler, 1967; Kassarjian, 1971). These findings still hold today (Kotler and Keller, 2006), are consistent across cultures (Hofstede et al., 1999) and most importantly in the current context, are equally valid for services (Palmer, 2008). In addition to market segmentation, marketers have also found personality to be useful for targeting and positioning (Foxall et al., 1998). The purpose of this study was to examine predictability of personality factors for customer satisfaction among services users. LITERATURE REVIEW A comprehensive definition of customer satisfaction, which is consistent with the theoretical and empirical evidence to date states: “Satisfaction is the consumer’s fulfilment response. It is a judgment that a product or service feature, or the product or service itself, provides