Even with moderate heterogeneity in customer demand, customer satisfaction usually suffers under these circumstances. It is likely that a part of the 18 point difference between McDonald's and Papa John's is due to the fact that Papa John's has a smaller customer base with fewer than 3,000 carry out restaurants. As the price of gasoline has gone up, the ACSI for gas stations have gone down, albeit not nearly as much as the price has increased. In evaluating their experience at the pump, customers' satisfaction is affected by price only to a smaller extent and then mostly at the time the price increase took effect. However, no oil company has been able to differentiate itself relative to competition.
Nobody can claim to be a leader in customer satisfaction.
There is no laggard either. This is not necessarily due to the commodity nature of the product. Differentiation on customer satisfaction can certainly be done on service. Instead, the reason for the lack of differentiation probably lies in the relatively weak influence satisfaction has on repeat business. While customer satisfaction is hardly inconsequential for loyalty to brands of gasoline, its effect is weaker than what we find for other retail categories.