Parisa Islam Khan, Eastern University Ayesha Tabassum, Eastern University The beauty-care service industry is one of the flourishing industries in Dhaka, the capital and largest city, in terms of population density, in Bangladesh. The growing number of beauty-conscious women and their demand for variety of services cater to the growth and importance of this industry. This study aims at measuring the service quality and customer satisfaction level of high-end women’s parlors in Dhaka. Other purposes of this study are to assess the importance of different attributes of customer’s preference, evaluate the service quality level and the extent of customer satisfaction and reveal the final factors that create customer satisfaction. This study includes in-depth interviews of beauticians and executives and questionnaire survey of 260 customers of high-end beauty parlors of Dhaka city. The findings show that customers put utmost importance in issues such as the service provider’s behavior, knowledge, environment, counseling system and affordability of the parlors. The customers of the high-end parlors are highly satisfied with the environment, executive’s politeness, complaint handling system, trustworthiness and materials. The politeness of the service providers, knowledge level of the executives and safety and hygiene issues are also satisfactory. Factor analysis (Principal Component Analysis) has been carried out by taking sixteen variables and the result indicates that four service quality factors are creating customer satisfaction. These factors are Support & Facility Factor, Employee
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Performance Factor, Customer Relation Factor and Communication Factor. Beauty is now a USD 10 billion plus industry in Bangladesh, providing employment for an estimated 100,000 women (Akter 2009). Thousands of beauty-care service providers or beauty
References: Volume 12 (2010-11) High-End Beauty Parlors