The chain from customer satisfaction via word-of-mouthreferrals to new customer acquisition

It has often been argued that word-of-mouth(WOM) can contribute significantly to a firm’s success in avariety of ways. Here, we analyze the functional linkagebetween customer satisfaction, WOM, and new customeracquisition. Using data from two empirical studies weconceptualize and test the direct, non-linear, and moderatedrelationship between satisfaction and WOM. We furtherexplore the circumstances under which WOM leads to newcustomer acquisition using a logistic regression model. Wedo so for two groups (new customers and long-termcustomers) from the customer base of a large energyprovider (n=688), and for a random sample of B2Bcustomers (n=416) in the same market.[...]