Ten Determinants Of Service Quality

Service Quality

Service quality is frequently defined as the consumer’s judgement about a firm’s overall excellence or superiority, similar in many ways to the consumer’s general attitude toward the firm ( Parasurman, Zeithaml, and Berry 1988: Zeithaml 1987: Bitner 1988). Service quality plays a key role influencing the perception of the customers either in negative/ positive way, as its one of the intangible means of delivering the firm’s service in right way to the hands of customer’s toward standing competitive in the cluster of the market. Customer-perceived service quality is viewed as the result of two generic types of quality: technical (or output) quality and functional (or process) quality ( Grönroos 1984: Lehtinen 1985). Apparently,

(Parasuraman, Zeithaml, & Berry (1985) identified ten determinants of service quality that may relate to any service: reliability, responsiveness, competence, access, courtesy, communication, credibility, security, understanding, knowing the customer, and tangibles. Later these were boiled down to five: tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance & empathy (Parasuraman, Zethaml & Berry 1988) .

Customer Satisfaction

In service management literature customer satisfaction is viewed as the result of a customer’s perception of the value received in a transaction or relationship – where value equals perceived service quality relative to price and customer acquisition costs (Heskett et al., 1990) – relative to the value expected from transactions or relationships with competing vendors (Zeithaml et al., 1996). Customer satisfaction refers to the extent to which customers are happy with the products and services provided by a business. Gaining high levels of customer

First, loyalty is an attitude. Different feelings create an individual’s overall attachment to a product, service, or organization. These feelings define the individual’s (purely cognitive) degree of loyalty. The second definition of loyalty is behavioural. Examples of loyalty behaviour include continuing to purchase services from the same supplier, increasing the scale and or scope of a relationship, or the act of recommendation (Yi, 1990). Customer loyalty is developed over a period from a consistent record of meeting, and sometimes even exceeding customer expectations (Teich, 1997). Kotler et al. (1999) asserted that the cost of attracting a new customer may be five times the cost of keeping a current customer happy. Furthermore, Gremler and Brown (1996) noted that the degree to which a customer exhibits repeat purchasing behavior from a service provider, possesses a positive attitudinal disposition toward the provider, and considers using only this provider when a need for this service exists. Bloemer & Kasper (1995) hold a contrary view about customer loyalty. According to the authors, Loyalty may be interpreted as true loyalty rather than repeat purchasing behavior, which is the actual re-buying of a brand, regardless of commitment. Zeithaml et al. (1996) states loyalty is a multi-dimensional construct and includes both positive and negative responses. However, a loyal customer may not necessarily be a satisfied