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Relationship
of Service Quality, Satisfaction and Trust with Customers'
Commitment towards their Personal Banks
-- Lam
Siew Yong and Jamil Bojei
The
study extends the existing knowledge by integrating the
service quality literature with relationship marketing literature.
A descriptive research was conducted to examine the influence
of service quality (functional and technical quality), customer
satisfaction, and trust on retail bank clients' commitment,
towards their main local banks with which they have key
relationships in Malaysia. The study was conducted among
adults, aged 18 years and above, who reside in the Klang
Valley. Convenience sampling of mall-intercept with questionnaire
survey approach was employed to obtain 400 respondents.
The findings of the study show that trust, technical quality
and customer satisfaction have a significant and direct
influence in relationship commitment. In return, trust was
found related to customer satisfaction and service quality
(the technical as well as functional quality). Interestingly,
technical quality was found to have a greater influence
than functional quality on both customer satisfaction and
trust in banks. Subsequently, the causal path analysis identifies
trust as having a greater direct effect on relationship
commitment, while technical quality the greater overall
effect (direct and indirect) on relationship commitment.
Therefore, bankers who wish to engender relationship commitment,
trust and customer satisfaction among their retail customers,
should focus more on the service outcome than the delivery
process of their services.
©
2007 IUP . All Rights Reserved.
Customer
Satisfaction with Service Quality in the Life Insurance
Industry in India
-- Paromita
Goswami
The
insurance industry in India was opened up to private sector
participation in the year 2000. Prior to this, Life Insurance
Corporation (LIC) of India was the sole player in the life
insurance industry in India. In six years since the entry
of private players in the insurance market, LIC has lost
29% market share to the private players, although both,
market size and the insurance premium being collected, are
on the rise. In 2005, life insurance accounted for 79% of
the total insurance market in India. In view of the increasing
competition, this paper attempts to understand the dimensions
of service quality, which helps ensuring maximum customer
satisfaction, and hence, helps life insurers to acquire
a larger share of the market. The study was done on a systematic
sampling design. SERVQUAL scale was used to discern the
different dimensions of service quality and stepwise multiple
regression was run with the scores on tangibility, reliability,
responsiveness, assurance and empathy as independent variables
and customer satisfaction as the dependent variable. It
was found that the responsiveness dimension of service quality
provides maximum customer satisfaction in the life insurance
industry in India.
©
2007 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Public
Sector Road Transport Corporations: A Comparative Study
of Service Quality Perceptions
--
C
Madhavaiah and S Durga Rao
This
study compares customers' perceptions of service quality
of public sector Road Transport Corporations of Andhra Pradesh
and Tamil Nadu. Service quality of both the transport corporations
have been measured using SERVPERF (Service Performance)
and measures based on passenger road transport industry.
A total of 185 respondents participated from Andhra Pradesh
and 172 from Tamil Nadu in the survey, yielding 357 usable
total responses. A pilot test showed that most of the respondents
were regular users of road transport corporation bus services
of either state. Individual measures were subjected to reliability
analysis in accordance with their predicted dimensions.
Based on the analysis using coefficient alpha, all the dimensions
showed acceptable reliability. A set of stepwise regression
analyses was performed for each sample to determine differential
effects of SERVPERF and industry-based measures on customer
satisfaction with road transport services. The results of
the study indicate that passengers of Andhra Pradesh are
generally more satisfied with their public sector road transport
service than passengers of Tamil Nadu on most of the SERVPERF
dimensions. The results from the regression analyses offer
significant insights into road transport corporations. First,
the results indicate that customers of Andhra Pradesh think
of service reliability and ease of using the service as
the key factors determining the passenger road transport
service quality. On the other hand, passengers of Tamil
Nadu generally consider reliability and assurance as the
most important factors and other industry-based service
items as less important. The study demonstrates that the
SERVPERF scale is applicable and usable in inter-state studies
in an emerging economy like India. Further, this study also
demonstrates the validity of service reliability as a key
predictor in both satisfaction and repatronization.
©
2007 IUP . All Rights Reserved.
A
Study of Motivational Factors and
Level of Satisfaction of Agents and Development Officers
of LIC of India
-- K M Chinnadorai,
B Kalpana and B Sadhana
Insurance
is the best form of fortification against risk that has
been formulated by man. Since its emergence, insurance has
become unavoidable to every aspect of human life from health
disorders to building properties, from household articles
to multimillion-dollar projects. The list is infinite. A
mission statement aims to capture the values and beliefs
of service organizations and provides guidelines to the
way it should interact with its identified customer markets
and other influenced markets. Almost every person, these
days has a very short-term perspective on life and mostly
depend on something that will satisfy their immediate needs.
It is in this context that insurance is considered to be
a social device to meet uncertain losses, when the need
arises. In general, it is clear that an insurance organization
bears the responsibility of offering world-class services
to the ultimate users, which needs innovative marketing
practices. Success occurs when opportunity meets preparation.
Although there are big opportunities in the insurance sector
in India, the success rate depends on the effective distribution
system. Traditionally, the agency sales force is a predominant
method of distribution that requires personal interaction
and guidance, since selling insurance is a complicated process
with the sales force as the key distribution channel. It
is apt to mention that the business of insurance is based
on the skill and excellence of agents and this builds a
strong advocacy in favor of personal selling. Hence, the
role of agents and development officers is not restricted
to just effecting services or sale contract for the customers
on behalf of insurance companies: It is beyond that—where
policyholders view them as a friend, philosopher and guide.
As LIC's total business is affected through the agency sales
force, the need of the hour is to study the importance of
motivational factors and the level of satisfaction of agents
and development officers of LIC of India, as they constitute
the human element in the insurance sector.
©
2007 IUP . All Rights Reserved.
India
and Outsourcing of Services
-- Jayesh
N Desai
The
advances in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)
have facilitated the trend of outsourcing of business services
worldwide. This trend has invoked mixed reactions in different
parts of the world. While large corporations in developed
countries are under increasing pressure to outsource services
from developing countries to be competitive, the trend of
outsourcing of services from low cost centers has raised
severe concerns about loss of jobs in these countries. However,
this trend has clearly emerged as a new growth engine for
developing countries like India. This paper first takes
a synoptic view of outsourcing of services from India by
studying shifting trends in India's services exports, its
effects on employment and India's position in world business
services export market. It also attempts to understand the
prospects of outsourcing in India in terms of future potential
of outsourcing, employment generation and sustainability
of outsourcing from India amongst challenges from importing
countries, emerging competition from other developing countries
and problems of infrastructure and data security, increasing
manpower costs, etc.
©
2007 IUP . All Rights Reserved.
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