Does Back-Office Employee Satisfaction Affect Customer Satisfaction? An Empirical Examination

Abstract

This paper aims to investigate the relationship between back-office employee satisfaction and customer satisfaction. Based on the review of existing related theories, this paper puts forward a conceptual model and some hypotheses. The tests of the hypotheses use data from 359 back-office employees, 412 front-line employees and 723 customers across 90 restaurants. Employing statistics techniques of reliability analysis, validity analysis, and structural equation model analysis, empirical results show that back-office employee satisfaction has significant influence on customer satisfaction. Furthermore, back-office employee satisfaction is found to be the key factor to customer satisfaction, affecting customer satisfaction in both direct and indirect ways. The findings provide a deep insight into the academic research and enable practitioners to better understand back-office employees.