The IUP Journal of Marketing Management
An Assessment of the Mediating Effect of Customer Satisfaction on the Relationship Between Service Quality and Customer Loyalty

Article Details
Pub. Date :Aug, 2019
Product Name : The IUP Journal of Marketing Management
Product Type : Article
Product Code : IJMM11908
Author Name : Manish Kumar Yadav and Alok Kumar Rai
Availability : YES
Subject/Domain : Marketing
Download Format : PDF Format
No. of Pages : 17

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Abstract

The dynamics of the service industry has made the environment and assessment of service marketing and its outcomes extremely complex. The competition in the ever-growing service industry and the need to address the ever increasing customer demands have forced service marketers to resort to the applications of psychological concepts in service marketing practice designs. The present study attempts to explain the concept of service quality, customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. It also explores the relationship among these three service marketing constructs. A comprehensive survey of literature on the subjects established the fact that customer satisfaction provides a directional influence on the relationship of service quality and customer loyalty. A mediation model integrating the relationship among service quality, customer satisfaction and customer loyalty is proposed for investigation. Further, this study also helps to assess the strength of the mediating role of customer satisfaction in service quality and customer loyalty.


Description

Service quality has fetched the attention of service marketing researchers and service industry practitioners in recent years due to its specific contribution to business competitiveness, customer satisfaction and customer loyalty formation. Successful organizations pursuing superior service quality have realized the need to focus on quality improvements (Keiningham et al., 1995). The improvement in quality has a three-fold pay-off, namely, cost reduction, increased customer retention and new customers attraction. Service firms are also interested in building and maintaining long-term relationship with their customers (Gwinner et al., 1998). Banks have also realized the significance of concentrating on service quality as an approach to increase customer satisfaction and loyalty and to develop their core competence and business performance (Kunst and Lemmink, 2000).


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