Quantifying the link between employee engagement, and customer satisfaction and retention in the car rental industry
利用一家大型租车公司的数据，研究发现员工敬业度对客户满意度和留存率有正面影响，但服务中断（如车辆降级）会削弱这种效果。
Abstract In the retail service industry, employee engagement may play an important role in customer satisfaction and retention, as employees often interact directly with customers. This paper investigates the empirical link between employee engagement and customer satisfaction and retention by analyzing a unique data set from a large car rental company. Our analysis makes use of retirement-induced employee turnover as an exclusion restriction that is plausibly induced by employee age, thereby allowing for variation in employee engagement that is partially exogenous to common underlying factors that also impact customer satisfaction and retention. We show that there is a positive effect of employee engagement on customer satisfaction and retention. Further analysis of moderating effects highlight potential limits to employee engagement, as service disruptions in the form of car downgrades can dampen the positive effects of employee engagement. However, despite the dampened impact of employee engagement its overall effect remains positive indicating that employee engagement can be a key factor in building resilience to unforeseen service disruptions.