Customer satisfaction: Cost driver or value driver? Empirical evidence from the financial services industry

•Investigates relation between customer satisfaction, servicing costs and value.•Customer satisfaction is positively associated with customer servicing costs.•Customer satisfaction is positively associated with customer value.•Non-linear relations.•Customer satisfaction has higher return for most profitable customer segments.

We investigate the relation between customer satisfaction, customer servicing costs, and customer value in a financial services firm. We find that customer satisfaction is positively associated with future customer servicing costs, as well as with customer value. The relation between customer satisfaction and customer value appears non-linear; higher customer satisfaction appears to have a higher return for the most profitable customer segments. Our findings indicate that customer satisfaction is a value driver; however, customer satisfaction is not cost-free and managers have to consider the costs, as well as the benefits, of increasing customer satisfaction.