Relationship Between Service Quality And Customer Satisfaction

Today’s world competition is very strong in every kind of businesses. Every organisations must provide high quality products or services in order to survive, however their competitors also providing the same or comparable products or services. An important way to an organisation to get an edge over its competitors is to provide extra service to satisfy and delight their customers, which can retain them and also gain new customers. Therefore the achievement of customer satisfaction must be a major objective in all organisations.

Today's world competition is very strong in every kind of businesses. Every organisations must provide high quality products or services in order to survive, however their competitors also providing the same or comparable products or services. An important way to an organisation to get an edge over its competitors is to provide extra service to satisfy and delight their customers, which can retain them and also gain new customers. Therefore the achievement of customer satisfaction must be a major objective in all organisations.

For different types of companies, quality might refer to quality of products or quality of service. Compares with quality of products, service quality is much more difficult to measure because service is intangible and acts and processes only existing in time. In addition, service has unique characteristic which cannot be found in products, such as customer influence, inseparability of production and consumption, heterogeneity, perishability and labor intensity (Nie & Kellogg, 1999). Even though, there are still many practitioners and academics are keen on measuring service quality because it has already emerged as a key strategic issue. Companies want to better understand service quality, and to establish methods for improving quality to achieve competitive advantage and build customer loyalty (Abdullah, 2006). Based on the importance of service quality, an increasing number of literatures and companies pay attention to measuring

Brandy and Cronin (2001) introduced their own dimensions of service quality which are 1.) service environment, 2.) customer-employee interaction, and 3.) service outcome. These dimensions are considered the sources of quality of a service. Different dimensions of service quality have been introduced and accepted in past researches and studies but the 5 dimensions of Zeithaml et al., (1988) were proved to be the most reliable and credible. One of the most important strategies service providers can use to position themselves effectively in a competitive environment, and to distinguish themselves from competitors, is to provide and improve service quality to ensure the customer satisfaction (Cronin & Taylor,

Study indicates that satisfaction basically consists of cognitive and affective variables. Cognitive measures include disconfirmation and expectations (Oliver,1980), also perceived performance (Tse and Wilton, 1998). Other measures include equity and performance (Oliver and DeSarbo,1988), “fairness” (Oliver and Swan,1989), expectancy disconfirmation (Oliver and Burke, 1999), need fulfilment (Oliver, 1995), and price acceptance or desire to pay (Huber et al., 2000). This measurement can lead to the discovery of affective variables by trying to improve satisfaction. There are two affective variables that Westbrook (1987) found. One is positive affect the other is negative affect. He stated that both positive and negative affect are linked to post-purchased word of mouth. Thus, this makes that there’s a relationship between quality and customer

Carman, J. M. (1990). Consumer perceptions of service quality: An assessment of the SERVQUAL dimensions. Journal of Retailing, 66 (1), 33-55.

The key to ensuring good quality service is meeting or exceeding what the customers expect from services. Judgements of high and low quality depend on how customers the actual service performance in the context of what they expected. Service quality, as perceived by the customers, can be defined as the extent of discrepancy but customers’ expectations or desires and their

Perceived service quality as customer-based performances measure is also known as SERVQUAL Model. This study empirically examines organizational barriers to delivering high-quality service performance as measured by customer perceptions and expectations. Using the extended service-quality model developed by Zeithaml, Berry, and Parasuraman (Journal of Marketing, 52, 35-48) as a conceptual framework, five specific propositions implied by the model and by earlier studies contributing to its development were tested. Such testing required a complex research design involving five service companies as well as samples of customers, contact employees, and managers from each company. The results have

To compete now a day’s competitive environment companies have to take a look on customer satisfaction as a high priority because they now a days demands improved products in quality, cost and reliability. And these are the key factors on which the organization must focus on and to consider those key factors, organizations must adopt new approaches of management to gain the satisfaction of customer. We can examine every item in the figure shown below.

This report describes a dissatisfying service incident and analyses the incident helping to develop recommendations for the serviced provider. The report integrates the description of an incident, a critical analysis of the incident, including and examinations of the service quality gaps model. Customer gap: dimensions, types of encounters and sources of displeasure and Providers Gaps 1, 3 and 4. The objective of this report is to analyse the critical incident description and provide a comprehensive service marketers’ analysis of the critical incident. Through this report recommendations have been made for the firm in order to reduce eliminate and or/ better manage the factors that led to

Customer satisfaction and service quality are the two important components that direct anyone’s attention in every concept related to marketing, services, etc. (Spreng and Mackoy, 2006). In today’s competitive era, the success lies in

Similarly, Molinari, Abratt, and Dion (2008) assert that there is a direct and strong link between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty behavior. If the customers enjoy the product or service, they will not be bothered to become loyal to the company. In other words, high levels of satisfaction commonly occur when the customer is delighted or happy with either the products or services provided by a business supplier. As Caceres and Paparoidamis (2005) state, customer satisfaction levels are determined and influenced by many elements. For example, it is commonly admitted that the customers will naturally repeatedly return to the company when things are done right, or in other words, business service companies successfully meet the customer’s expectation (Gil-Saura, et. al., 2009). Furthermore, increases in satisfaction could result to increase customer loyalty. A business enterprise, which could address the elements moderating the level of satisfaction of customers, probably would reach the higher level of loyalty. In other words, customer satisfaction is likely to improve customer loyalty in general.

Researcher’s trust that the service quality theory depends on the literature of client satisfaction and product quality. In other words, service quality can be defined as the customer’s overall journey of experience with the product, which can be measured by customer satisfaction while experiencing the service.

To review critically literature on customer satisfaction and how it affects the development of a company; defining the idea and concept of customer satisfaction; analysing the core elements of customer satisfaction; analysing the factors affecting customer satisfaction; and why customer satisfaction is important for companies such as STO Supermart in Maldives.

Service quality represents a fundamental aspect of delivery, which strongly influences consumer satisfaction and, as a result, loyalty. In today’s global market a customer’s service expectation has to be met and exceeded eventually in order to retain customers as well as achieve success. Perceived quality of a product or a service is becoming one of the major competitive factors in the business world and has led to the innovation of the ‘Quality Era’ (Peeler, 1996). In simple words, the comparison of customer expectations with service performance is service quality. On the other hand, customer satisfaction is defined as a pleasurable fulfilment response toward a good, service, benefit, or reward (Oliver, 1997). Both of these