Dealer satisfaction in automotive channel relationships. Antecedents and Consequences

Drawing from studies on relational capital value and the importance accorded to the satisfaction, we analyzed the relationship between industrial and commercial customers. A gap in literature is due to the major focus on business to consumer relationship and a consequent less importance reserved to the business to business sector. The effects of variables related to the supplier’s product offering, marketing actions, and aftersales assistance in determining dealer satisfaction and trust have been relatively neglected. We applied industrial consumer satisfaction model to the context of automotive sector and integrated it with other strategic variables as trust and reputation. We argue that supply chain success is also due to dealer satisfaction and propose causal linkages in which dealer satisfaction is recognized as an antecedent of trust and reputation. Empirical results confirm the importance of dealer satisfaction in the process of building a lasting relationship between buyers and sellers.