It is obvious that customers are important stakeholders in organizations and their satisfaction is a priority to management. Customer satisfaction has been a subject of great interest to organizations and researchers alike.
In recent years, organizations are obliged to render more services in addition to their offers. The quality of service has become an aspect of customer satisfaction. It has been proven by some researchers that service quality is related to customer satisfaction. Others used service quality dimensions to evaluate service quality. What about the relationship between customer satisfaction and service quality dimensions; the relationship between service quality and its dimensions?
Purpose: The main purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between customer satisfaction and service quality in service sectors with respect to the service quality dimensions.
Method: Convenience sampling technique was used to collect quantitative data from customers of Umeå University, ICA and Forex to get their satisfaction levels and meaning of service quality which were substituted in the SERVQUAL model. Chi-square test was used to test the hypotheses separately and in a group.
Findings: The study showed distinctive results for the relationship between service quality dimensions and service quality/customer satisfaction. ICA and Forex had significant relationship between service quality and customer satisfaction; butUmeåUniversity had no significant relationship between service quality and customer satisfaction.
Meanwhile the group result showed that: ´responsiveness`, empathy´ and ´reliability´ were significantly related to service quality; ´reliability` and `empathy`, were significantly related to customer satisfaction but `responsiveness` was not significantly related to customer satisfaction; meanwhile service quality was significantly related to customer satisfaction.
Source: Umeå University
Author: Agbor, Jenet Manyi