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The determinants of perceived service quality and its relationship with…
The determinants of perceived service quality and its relationship with satisfaction
Hypotheses
H2:Perceived service quality is an antecedent of customer satisfaction (rather than vice versa).
Customers may perceive the service quality immediately after service consumption as well as at a later time and compare their perceptions with their expectations. The perceived service quality would then result in satisfaction/dissatisfaction
H3: Tangibles would be a more important factor in the facility industry than in the people-based service industries, whereas responsiveness would be a more important factor in the people-based than in the facility industries
It can be said that among five dimensions of service quality, the dimension which is most likely to be related to people is responsiveness. In contrast, tangibles are least likely to be related to people
H1: Overall service quality is determined by perception only, rather than the difference between expectation and performance
Methods
Data collection
Measures
Overall service quality:
Satisfaction:
Repurchase intention:
Percieved service quality: SERVQUAL
Parasuraman conceptualized perceived service quality as "a global judgment relating to the superiority of the service''.
Parasuraman proposed that ten dimensions determine service quality: reliability, responsiveness, competence, access, courtesy, communication, credibility, security, understanding/knowing the customers, and tangibles.
Thus, they proposed that the differences between perceived performance and expected performance of these ten dimensions determine overall perceived service quality
One of the important issues related to service quality is the measurement of service quality, and the measurement tool, SERVQUAL developed by Parasuraman has been the starting point of the controversy in this area.
Development & revision of SERVQUAL
SERVQUAL was revised later by Parasuraman et al. (1991) based on the result of an empirical study on five service companies. The differences of the revised version from the original version are as follows:
Second, the negatively worded items in the original version were all changed to a positive format.
Third, two new items were substituted for two original items to more fully capture the dimensions and to incorporate suggestions from managers. The R2 obtained from regression analyses using the revised SERVQUAL appeared to be greater than 0.57 in all five service companies investigated.
First, since the ``should'' terminology in the original version might contribute to unrealistically high expectation scores, a slightly different wording was adopted.
Parasuraman developed SERVQUAL from a modification of the ten dimensions proposed in 1985 to 22 items/five dimensions in 1988: tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy. In this study, overall quality perception scores were regressed on the SERVQUAL scores of the individual dimensions, and R2 appeared 0.28~0.52.
Critiques on SERVQUAL
Carman (1990) argued that SERVQUAL could not be a generic measure that could be applied to any service. It needed to be customized to the specific service.
Babakus and Boller (1992) also maintained that the dimensionality of service quality may
depend on the type of services under study.
Alternative models
Brown et al.'s non-difference score measure
Teas' evaluated performance model and normative quality model
Cronin and Taylor’s SERVPERF
Continuation of controversy
Against Teas’ (1993) Parasuraman et al. (1994) argumented that Teas’ (1993) P-E specification in the SERVQUAL framework, the severity of problems may not be large due to the fact that customers are likely to consider items in SERVQUAL to be vector attributes.
Against Brown et al., Parasuraman et al. (1993) responded that his score conceptualization was debatable. Reasons for this were the reliability of Brown et al. findings. They discovered two incorrect parts. Also, variance restriction problems may arise when difference scores are used in multivariate analysis.
After the critiques received, Parasuraman et al. defended their position of the SERVQUAL model. Against the critiques of Cronin and Taylor (1992) it was pointed out that Cronin and Taylor not allow for possible intercorrelations between the five constructs, which also might have been the reasons of Cronin and Taylor’s poor data quality.
Results
To check the internal consistency of the measures of five dimensions, Cronbach's coefficient alpha was computed for each dimension for the measures of both SERVPERF and SERVQUAL.
Coefficient alphas ranged from 0.69 to 0.84 for SERVPERF and from 0.62 to 0.77 for SERVQUAL.
Coefficient alphas were computed for the measures of overall service quality, satisfaction, and repurchase intention, respectively, for each institution.
The first hypothesis stated that performance only (SERVPERF) explains more variance in overall service quality than does the difference between expectation and performance (SERVQUAL). H1 was supported.
The second hypothesis concerns whether perceived service quality is an antecedent of customer satisfaction, or vice versa. H2 was partially supported.
The third hypothesis concerns whether tangibles is a more important factor in the facility/equipment-based industries and responsiveness is a more important factor in the people-based industries. H3 was supported.
Conclusion
The first issue of this study concerns whether performance only explains more variance in overall service quality than does the difference between expectation and performance.
The third question concerns whether tangibles is a more important factor in the facility/equipment-based industries and responsiveness is a more important factor in the people-based industries.
actors such as convenience, price, or availability may influence satisfaction and then purchase intention while not actually affecting customers' perceptions of service quality (Cronin and Taylor, 1992).
The result suggests that service quality is an antecedent of customer satisfaction and that customer satisfaction exerts a stronger influence on purchase intention than does service quality.
However, the result of this study indicates that this may not be the case and provides empirical support for the notion that perceived service quality in fact leads to satisfaction.
The second question investigated is the causal order of the satisfaction-service quality relationship.
there are two different kinds of expectations: normative expectations and predictive expectations.
This result implies that service managers should place emphasis on performance perceived by customers rather than the difference between perceived performance and prior expectation.
The result suggests that facility/equipment-based service companies must focus on the tangible factors to improve customers' perceptions on service quality.
It can be said that responsiveness of the customer- contact employees is closely related to the organization's culture of providing excellent services.