The dimensions of service quality was later reduced to 5 dimensions, encompassing: Tangibles (physical facilities, equipment and appearance of personnel), Reliability (ability to perform the services accurately and dependably), Responsiveness (willingness to help customers and provide prompt services), Empathy (caring and individualized attention given to customers, which includes both access to and understanding of the customers and Assurance (providers’ knowledge, courtesy and ability to convey trust and confidence) (Parasuraman et al., 1991).
From the above literature customer satisfaction is a key factor in increasing organization profitability. It is however important to note that company that raises customer’s expectation too high will
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When a customer is loyal he or she will definitely repeat purchase and even advertise your organization through word of mouth. Customer loyalty is the act of customers buying repeatedly as opposed to choosing those of competitors (Wyse, 2012). The impact of customer satisfaction on customer loyalty was showed in a study conducted by Mitchell (2004) who revealed a positive relationship between customer satisfaction and loyalty. Customer loyalty requires that firms or organizations meet their customers’ needs and demands in order to maintain a long lasting relationship (Campton, 2004). Coldburn (2013) also showed that satisfaction and loyalty goes together. The author indicated in his/her study that as far as customers expectation of a products or services are met, they remain loyal to the organization. An increase in satisfaction then lead to an increase in a company’s profits (Cacioappo, 2000).Eckert emphasizes that loyal customers according to are more likely to purchase or to recommend the purchase of a company’s products and services to someone else. The opposite is also true. Dissatisfied customers are likely to tell others the experiences they had with firms. Firms therefore will need to improve their customer satisfaction in order to grow loyalty and attract new customers (Agarwal,
Without good customer service and keeping your promises, your company would have loyal customers. According to 5 Focusing Steps, “If you’re not yet sold on the idea, consider that a 2 percent increase in customer retention has the same effect as decreasing costs by 10 percent. Not only that, but it costs over six times more to get a new customer than it does to keep one.” Customer satisfaction should be a golden rule of all companies.
Customer satisfaction is what makes a customer come back again for another experience. The customers know the kind of treatment they are going to receive before they enter the store.
If the expectations are set too low, customers will buy your products or services. But if the expectations are set really high, the company runs the risk that buyers will be unhappy. There is a common expression saying “under promise and over deliver.” In other words, the right move is to set consumers’ forecast really low and later set the bar high like that when the seller would exceed the customers hope in order to create a pleased one who would be enthusiastic about the products or services. A seller expects that happy customers will tell their friends about the seller’s products or services. Consequently, positive words would be spread about the company. One of the customer satisfaction strategies that came out of Carlson’s idea of delighted customers is to give responsibility to personnel dealing directly with customers. Personnel dealing directly with customers are those that encounter and interact with customers. In a luxurious apartment complex, this might include desk clerks, housekeepers, concierge, and other staff members. Give more responsibilities to employees like they can drop what they are doing in order to do something special for a customer. In some organizations, employees are even given a budget for such activities. Another one of Carlson’s customer satisfaction strategy is to offer customers a something to trust the company as
“Traditionally, customer loyalty has been defined as a behavioural measure. These measures include proportion of purchase (Cunningham, 1966), probability of purchase (Farley, 1964; Massey, Montgomery, & Morrison, 1970), probability of product repurchase (Lipstein, 1959; Kuehn, 1962), purchase frequency (Brody & Cunningham, 1968), repeat purchase behavior (Brown, 1952), purchase sequence (Kahn, Kalwani, & Morrison, 1986), and multiple aspects of purchase behavior (Ehrenberg, 1988; DuWors & Haines, 1990)” (Kumara et al., 2004) While Khan (2013) defines customer loyalty as “the intention of repurchasing goods, stating that this is the goal of industry and loyalty is a deeply held commitment to re-buy or re-patronize a preferred product or service consistently in the future, thereby causing repetitive same-brand or same-brand set purchasing” (Khan, M, 2013). This suggests Khan (2013) proposes customer loyalty can be defined as a commitment to a brand or retailer where a consumer continuously repurchases from that specific brand. This can be based on numerous qualities and experiences which influence repetitive buying behaviour. There are many reasons why customer loyalty is important, including effective forecasting for the retailer when based on regular customers. Figure 1 shows the positive economic effects of customer loyalty online produced by Schrodter (2003) (Heinemann et al., 2010).
Strombeck, SD, Wakefield, KL 2008, ‘ situation Influences on Service Quality Evaluations’ Journal of Services Marketing, vol. 22, no. 5, pp. 409-419.
In most recent times the word “customer care” has fascinated much consideration in the service industry. The word “customer” has therefore been adopted for clients to give confidence and focus on their needs with the view of satisfying them. Customer satisfaction has now become the main concern of every service institution (Goodsell, C. T., 1981). The motive can be due to apparent competition among institutions offering the same service. The customer in this viewpoint has a choice and would patronize the institution that satisfies his or her needs. It is not surprising that customer satisfaction has become the core
Customer loyalty is crucial to the long term survival of a business, particularly in the context of electronic commerce where it becomes essential from the point of view both economic and
A measure of overall customer satisfaction typically shows consumer expectations towards the service provided, as well as how far the provided services are from their side. Customer satisfaction is one of the fundamental determinants of very long term consumer behaviour. In order to control customer defection, most of the company’s focus on the one of the major is managing customer satisfaction. Customer satisfaction has gained very much attention in the last few years in most of the areas of production. In an increasingly competitive and rapid environment, greater attention is paid to customer relationships and existing satisfied customers. For companies, customer satisfaction is most effective way to differentiate from competitors and gain competitive advantage but it is also one of the key issues in their efforts towards improving quality. Satisfaction is most used as a predictor of future consumer purchases. Satisfied customers have a higher likelihood of repeating purchases in time, of recommending that others try the source of satisfaction and of becoming less receptive to the competitor’s
The core principles of excellent customer service involve the following three aspects (See Figure 1):
The dimensions of service quality refer to the attributes which contribute to consumer expectations and perceptions of service quality, thus serving as the determinants of consumers’ quality assessment (Rowley, 1998). The most well-known, commonly used service quality scale is the SERVQUAL, a general instrument for measuring service quality developed by Parasuraman et al., (1988). It includes five dimensions of service quality: (1) tangibles: appearance of physical facilities, equipment, personnel and communication materials; (2) reliability: ability to perform the promised services dependably and accurately; (3) responsiveness: willingness to help customers and provide prompt service; (4) assurance: knowledge and courtesy of employees and their ability to convey trust and confidence; and (5) empathy: caring, individualized attention that a firm provides its
Producing and delivering high quality and affordable services plays an important role in the service industry. In fact, nowadays customer satisfaction and service quality are considered as critical issues in most service industries (Haghighi Kafash et al. 2010).
Overall customer satisfaction is the key performance variable in our study and is measured against the determinants of customer satisfaction – customer experience, customer trust and confidence, customer compliance process, customer awareness and customer perception. This leads us to the empirical analysis of the model and its variables.
Customer satisfaction is a key ingredient to the success of any business.It is the most important factor that creates repeated customers. Some people know it but do not realize its importance. If a customer of yours is satisfied with one of your products or services, chances are this customer will purchase more of your products or services, which will increase your revenue. Therefore, in order to have your new or existing customers buy more from you, you will have to follow techniques that work. Customer satisfaction takes a very important place in Marketing. As much as you think that your marketing strategies should help you generate sales, think about how the same marketing strategies could help you achieve Customer satisfaction. There are a lot of elements involved with Customer satisfaction.
we would be tempted to believe that is a simple, linear relation between satisfaction and loyalty. According the research of (Jones & Sasser Jr., 1995) , relation satisfaction and loyalty is different according to time and circumstances. Unless they are totally satisfied, there is always a chance you will see your customers be lured away (Jones & Sasser Jr., 1995).
Customer satisfaction measures the expectation of a customer relating to the product and services provided by the retail stores. Satisfied customers tend to be loyal to the organization and make more and more purchase from the same store, which in turn is beneficial for the organization. According to Hoyer and Maclnnis (2001) satisfaction can be compared with the feeling of acceptance, relief, pleasure and