This chapter discusses the research literature review on the roles of physical environment, price perception and service quality in determining customer loyalty. Chapter 2 will includes the headings: the SERVQUAL model, the physical environment, price perception, what is customer satisfaction and what is customer loyalty.
2.1 The SERVQUAL model. Delivering an excellent customer service that meets the customers need allows the customer to come back and repurchase the products. In determining the customer service quality, Parasuraman, Zeithaml, and Berry (1985) have comes out with ten components to evaluate customer service quality: reliability, responsiveness, competence, access, courtesy, communication, credibility, security, understanding/knowing the customer and tangibles. Later these ten key categories were summaries to five dimensions of service quality which also known as SERVQUAL: reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy and tangibles. According to Kulasin (2005), the definition of each dimensions are as follow:
Dimensions
Definition
Reliability
The ability to perform the promised service dependably and accurately
Assurance
The knowledge and courtesy of employees and their ability to convey trust and confidence
Tangibles
The appearance of physical facilities, equipment, personnel and communication materials
Empathy
The provision of caring, individualized attention to customers
Responsiveness
The willingness to help customers and to provide prompt service
Service quality is referred to a valuation of how good a delivered service meets the customer’s expectation. Upper management
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,
The second dimension is tangibles which are things like physical facilities, equipment, personnel, communication materials, etc. The third dimension is responsiveness, as the company needs to make sure they are giving the customer the most adequate service, as well as promptly giving that service. The fourth dimension is assurance, which is when a company conveys trust and confidence so the consumer does not have to worry about their service being completed. The last dimension is empathy; because consumers do not want an uncaring person handling a mistake when they are stressed enough, but much rather have a caring employee deal with the matter. All of the quality dimensions are really focused around keeping your product or service where it has been without raising costs, as well as keeping a healthy customer service sector on board to work through troubling economic times where consumers do not want to worry about services that have been loyal to them in the past. (Hartlet et al., 2008, p. 34,36,121) (Hollis, 2008, p. 3-4)"
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
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
Loyalty is one of the core elements that drive sales and, as such, it affects economic commerce as well. This aspect is closely related to perceived service quality and customer service satisfaction.
Customer satisfaction is dependent of one’s intention to perform the decision to purchasing intention. On the other hand, service quality has an appositive impact on customer satisfaction because quality measure the value and this value added the loyalty (Fishbein, & Ajzen, 1975). Finally, customer satisfaction is directly or indirectly connected to customer loyalty if a customer is satisfied to buy something with full of expectation, customers may or may not be loyal to the brand or products.
Obviously, from a Best Value point of view the measuring of service quality in the service segment ought to consider client desires of service and also impression of service. Be that as it may, as Robinson (1999) postulated that: "It is clear that there is little agreement of supposition and much contradiction about how to gauge service quality". One service quality estimation show that has been widely used is the SERVQUAL model created by Parasuraman et al . (1985, 1986, 1988, 1991, 1993, 1994; Zeithaml et al. , 1990). SERVQUAL as the frequently utilized tool for measuring service quality has been to look at clients ' desires before an service experience and their impression of the real service conveyed
Understanding consumer behaviour has taken the attention of researchers and companies due to their relevance for business success (Jones et al 2000). How is consumer satisfaction related with their loyalty has been likely the most important issue in consumer behaviour for ensure a long-term success in a marketing strategy (Pappu et al 2006). The literature and researchers suggest that there is a strong relation between product satisfaction and brand loyalty, but always highlighting their relation as a unidirectional relationship. In other words, product or service satisfaction has a direct relationship with loyalty, but loyalty has not a significant dependency with satisfaction (Oslen 2005). In other words, brands can have satisfied
Sureshchandra, Rajendran and Anantharaman (2002) identified five critical aspects of service quality from the customers point of view namely core service/service product, human element of service delivery, systematisation of service delivery, tangibles of service and lastly social responsibility in order to conceptualise service quality. Table 1 will further provide an explanation to the five critical aspects of service quality as outlined by Sureshchandra et al (2002).
Due to the intangibility of service quality, it is very difficult for a firm to know whether the consumers satisfy their service or not. Although it is difficult to measure service quality, it is still a development of a multiple-item scale for measuring service quality which is called SERVQUAL (Parasuraman et al. 1988). The SERVQUAL was developed originally based on the 10 potentially dimensions which revealed by Parasuraman et al. (1985) as access, courtesy, communication, tangibles, understanding/knowing the customer, responsiveness, reliability, security, competence, and credibility. But the final dimensions of the SERVQUAL are only five, tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy (Parasuraman et al. 1988). As the five dimensions have some relationship with the difficult of measuring service quality. First one is the tangibles which include the physical facilities, equipment and appearance of personnel that will affect the service quality by the external environment. Reliability and the other three dimensions are all the internal effects which relate to the service producer him or herself. These four dimensions are more difficult to control than the external one which is tangibles. Both of the expectations of the consumer to the service and perceptions of the provider’s performance can be assessed by the SERVQUAL method (McAlexander
Service Quality is the comparison of a customer to a service by a person/company between the perception of what a service and the expectations of a customer. Different customers have different perceptions on what a good service and what a bad service. It is up to the company to satisfy every ones needs and expectations to have happy and contented customers (Oliver, 1997).
It means says when a customer consistently rebus your product in the future unrespectable situational influences it shows customer loyalty. Customer loyalty plays a vital role in organization to achieving its profitability. Organizations should give preference to customer’s feelings and their needs should be the main concern in order to achieve customer loyalty (Akhter et al., 2011)
Purpose – The paper intends to explore the influencing factors on customer satisfaction and customer loyalty in the internet shopping mall through service quality based on the data obtained from furniture purchaser. Design/methodology/approach – The research model and the relevant research hypothesis were set up through the data derived from the existing researches, and then the relevant