Introduction
Yuksel (2008) described the attitude that customers create after receiving services from the providers. The description revealed clear positivity or negativity in accordance to the quality of services offered. Primarily, dissatisfaction is associated with poor quality of services while satisfaction relies on good quality of services. Many researchers have performed evaluation on service enterprises to give valid conclusions regarding the relationships of these two aspects.
According to Yuksel (2008), customer satisfaction is the most vital attribute that enterprises seek to achieve. After all, there are no concrete explanations revealing why an enterprise could aim on earning profits without satisfying the customers. This paper will link service quality to customer satisfaction by reviewing various finding from researchers and evaluating how service enterprises should consider this link.
Market Share and Competition
Businesses are subjected to many forces that have facilitated stability and delivery of competitive services. These outcomes arise from competition where businesses are allowed to enter the market. The free markets triggered close monitoring of services to retain customers by maintaining loyalty.
Essentially, seeking loyalty arose as a new factor to protect customer satisfaction without creating dependence to quality regulations. This implies that enterprises must provide quality services to earn loyalty from customers and raise their income. For instance, if three companies provide communication services, customers have the freedom to choose between the companies and change in accordance to cost and efficacy. The company providing the best services will draw customers from the others and increase its market share.
Similarly, a reverse event will happen to the two remaining companies. They will share a small portion of the market due to loss of customers. Therefore, enterprises must provide quality services to satisfy their customers and attain loyalty. The competitive nature of the world does not give chances to poor quality of services. Additionally, the businesses that have attained loyalty by dominating the market must work to satisfy the customers, follow quality regulations, and avoid ridicule through the media.
Reliability
Provision of reliable services to customers is a critical step that facilitates satisfaction. According to Yuksel (2008), customers prefer to receive services from businesses that are reliable and promising. In essence, quality services must be reliable, responsive, and assuring to enable preferences from many customers. Reliability takes a huge role in establishing satisfaction and raising loyalty. Customers become loyal to enterprises that depict high levels of reliability.
Therefore, unreliable service enterprises are not recommended or preferred by customers. For instance, if a communication company hires a service enterprise to deliver products to the customers, it expects that the enterprise will consider all factors to ensure quality. In case the targets do not receive the products in a timely manner, the enterprise will have failed. This implies that service quality has an indirect relationship to customer satisfaction through reliability.
Satisfaction
Satisfying a customer does not rely entirely on quality of services. Reimann, Lunemann and Chase (2008) indicated that customer satisfaction is affected by personal characters. Their model identified that satisfaction is hard to achieve without aiming at perfection for all outcomes.
When providing services with an aim of reaching perfection, there are minimal chances of dissatisfying a customer. Consequently, quality becomes an outcome of aiming at satisfaction in this model. An enterprise works diligently to satisfy a customer where quality services are invented to achieve this goal.
Attitude and Marketing
Attitude has a strong influence to satisfaction and dissatisfaction of customers. For instance, it is hard to satisfy a customer with a negative attitude against the service. Marketing is a vital tool that could be applied when creating a positive attitude within customers.
It involves dispersion of information that could be facilitated through speaking and interacting. When customers receive appealing services from an enterprise, they spread information regarding the service providers to other people in a positive way. In this way, their friends recognize the enterprise and seek for these services.
Kattara, Dina and Osman (2008) postulated that the customers’ mind could be manipulated to appreciate services if their friends recommended them. The quality of services provides positive attitude that favors satisfaction. Also, positive attitude leads to advertisement of the services and high profits. On the other hand, negative attitude could be initiated by low quality of services. This attitude creates higher chances of dissatisfaction because the customer is sensitive about low quality.
Proportionality Relations
There are proportion relations that link customer satisfaction to services quality. The two make concise trends that show proportionality where a rise in one factor leads to rise in the other factor. Essentially, customer satisfaction seems to cover a wider area that incorporates service quality. Service quality serves as one way of achieving customer satisfaction. Their model shows that other factors could influence satisfaction.
For instance, the cost of receiving services, personal tastes, and situational aspects could influence the satisfaction of customers. Therefore, it could be indicated that there is a directly proportional relationship between service quality and customer satisfaction. This implies that high quality services will lead to high customer satisfaction. Similarly, low quality services cause low satisfaction or dissatisfaction. Professional strategies are applied to ensure that the customers are retained after the first service.
Price
It has been identified that price influences customer satisfaction and regulates the quality of services. Kattara, Dina and Osman (2008) reviewed the trends that prices of products take in relation to quality. For instance, the services provided in 5 star hotels had varying quality. Some room rates were very high due to the services offered.
On the other hand, some rooms were more affordable but received rare attendance and low quality furniture. In today’s world, businesses depict similar regulations where quality and cost are directly proportional. When the qualities of services rise, there are alternate increments in the prices. This strategy facilitated the customers to choose what they want and declare the services they want.
It prevents dissatisfaction through advertising the requirements for each category of service provision. In this model, when customers receive services that satisfy their needs, they become part of the community maintaining the enterprise and providing the services. Therefore, it could be concluded that customer satisfaction and service quality are controlled by prices where high quality service have higher charges than low quality services.
Conclusion
Provision of services must have precise aims of reaching the customers and fulfilling their demands in a satisfactory manner. Failure to reach these standards will lead to loss of customers where they search for promising enterprises. Satisfaction must act as the leading attribute of the enterprise because it is a concrete reason for providing the services.
In fact, if there was no need for satisfaction, the services would not be rendered by any enterprise. Satisfaction must be taken as a critical factor in ensuring loyalty. This loyalty could lead to more customers and income than the prevailing achievements.
References
Kattara, H., Dina W., Osman A., “The Impact Of Employee Behaviour On Customers’ Service Quality Perceptions And Overall Satisfaction”, Tourism and Hospitality Research, 8/4, 2008, PP. 309-323.
Reimann, M., Lunemann, F., Chase, R., “Uncertainty Avoidance As A Moderator Of The Relationship Between Perceived Service Quality And Customer Satisfaction” Journal of Service Research, 1/11, 2008, PP. 63-73.
Yuksel, A., “Nonverbal Service Behavior and Customer’s Affective Assessment”, Journal of Quality Assurance in Hospitality & Tourism, 1/9, 2008, PP. 57-77.