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ABSTRACT
In any business activity whether profit oriented or non profit, satisfying a customer is the ultimate goal and objective. In fact, it is difficult to understand what is going on in customers mind especially in service sector where the offerings are intangible. Transportation is one among service sectors and uncertain of what customers think about its offerings. This study was designed to determine the impact of service quality on customer satisfaction. It also investigated five other dimensions expected to affect customer satisfaction (customer service, price, safety, experienced quality and Word of Mouth and image) in addition to the five SERVQUAL(Service Quality) instruments developed by Parasuraman (1985)(tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy)which is analyzed separately and reported in an aggregated manner as SERVQUAL dimension. Questionnaires were distributed to 200 customers and resulted in 69% response rate. The questionnaire aimed to determine the level of customers' expectation and perception towards the service quality of the Sky Bus Public Transport. The results revealed that the experienced quality and safety and luxury dimensions elevated the highest level of expectation, whereas the responsiveness, assurance, and safety and luxury dimensions pleased the highest level of perception.The findings showed that all the dimensions of service quality such as tangible, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy, price, safety, customer service and experienced quality are positively correlated to customer satisfaction.
Keywords: Customer Satisfaction, Service Quality, Public Transport, Perception, Luxury.
INTRODUCTION
Over the last few years, companies have gradually focused on service quality and customer satisfaction. Success of a service provider depends on the high quality relationship with customers (Panda, 2003) which determines customer satisfaction and loyalty (Jones, 2002 as cited by Lymperopoulos et al., 2006). This strategy is very profitable for both companies and customers, generally for service industries and particularly for transportation companies and passengers. Furthermore, service quality and customer satisfaction were found to be related to customer loyalty through repurchase intentions (Levesque & Mc. Dougall, 1996; Newman, 2001; Caruana, 2002). Delivering quality service to customers is a must for success and survival in today's competitive transport agencies. An improvement of the supplied service quality can attract further users. For this reason, the development of techniques for customer satisfaction analysis is necessary. These techniques allow the critical aspects of the supplied services to...