Call Me Maybe: Does Customer Feedback Seeking Impact Nonsolicited Customers?
Rupali Kaul, Stephen J. Anderson, Pradeep K. Chintagunta, Naufel Vilcassim
Marketing Science · 2025 · Volume 44 · Issue 1
Abstract
Academics and practitioners acknowledge the value of customer feedback in improving firm performance. Companies routinely solicit feedback from different customer subsets. However, the extent to which this feedback impacts nonsolicited customers depends on whether firms implement meaningful business-level changes that resonate with customers. This paper assesses customer feedback’s impact on firm learning and business improvements as well as its spillover effects on nonsolicited customers using a randomized, controlled field experiment conducted in Rwanda over two years. We hypothesize that private feedback seeking could operate through two broad mechanisms: (a) directly influencing solicited customers and/or (b) prompting firms to improve their offerings, leading to spillover effects on other customers. Our results demonstrate a 38.2% increase in recall and a 77.4% increase in purchases for customers not engaged in the feedback process. The analysis further suggests that business-level changes driven by customer feedback fuel these spillovers. Additionally, customer feedback seeking significantly improves treatment firm performance, resulting in a 62.0% revenue increase and 54.5% profit increase compared with control firms. Our study also introduces a basic customer feedback-seeking technology for small businesses to improve performance. These findings can guide firms in leveraging customer feedback to undertake business changes and generate greater revenues/profits. History: Olivier Toubia served as the senior editor for this article. Funding: This research was supported by grants from the Stanford King Center on Global Development, the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation (Chicago Booth), the Rustandy Center for Social Sector Innovation (Chicago Booth), the London School of Economics and Political Science, the Stanford Graduate School of Business, the John A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn Faculty Scholar award (Stanford), the UK Department for International Development (DFID) and Economic and Social Research Council’s (ESRC) joint Growth Research Program, Private Enterprise Development in Low-Income Countries (PEDL), and the Fama-Miller Center for Research in Finance. Further support is acknowledged from the Chicago Booth Kilts Center for Marketing and the Leonard L. Berry Chair in Services Marketing at Mays Business School. Supplemental Material: The online appendix and data files are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mksc.2023.0324 .
Keywords
customer feedback, feedback spillover, firm learning, small firm growth, entrepreneurship, emerging markets
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