Customer Satisfaction in the Tourism and Hospitality Industry: Analysis on Service Quality and Service Failure
1.0 TITLE OF THE STUDY
Customer Satisfaction in the Tourism and Hospitality Industry: Analysis on service quality and service failure
2.0 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY / INTRODUCTION
Customer satisfaction plays a crucial role for success and survival in today’s competitive market. Customer satisfaction is considered a prerequisite for customer retention and loyalty, and obviously helps in realizing economic goals like profitability, market share, return on investment, etc. (Scheuing, 1995; Reichheld, 1996; Hackl and Westlund, 2000). Customer’s overall satisfaction with the services of the organization is based on (or a function of) all the encounters/experiences of the customers with the organization. There are many researchers conceptualize customer satisfaction as an individual’s feeling of pleasure or disappointment resulting from comparing a product’s perceived performance in relation to his or her expectations.
Satisfaction is a widely researched consumer evaluation because it is of the utmost importance to firms, in order to ensure sustainability. Keeping customers satisfied is vitally important for hospitality industry to generate revenues. To achieve a high level of customer satisfaction, it is important to meet customer expectation. However, it is sometimes difficult to realize what customers expect and unless they wish to feedback their opinions to the restaurant. Listening to the customer can be of strategic importance for the future of hospitality industry.
Customer retention has become a continuous focus of service organizations. In hospitality industry, service quality is most important in retaining and gaining customer. Service quality has been defined in different ways. According to the Bitner, Booms and Mohr (1994) define service quality as ‘the customer’s overall impression of the relative inferiority/superiority of the organization and its service’. Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry (1985) defined service quality as ‘a function of the differences
Customer Satisfaction in the Tourism and Hospitality Industry: Analysis on service quality and service failure
2.0 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY / INTRODUCTION
Customer satisfaction plays a crucial role for success and survival in today’s competitive market. Customer satisfaction is considered a prerequisite for customer retention and loyalty, and obviously helps in realizing economic goals like profitability, market share, return on investment, etc. (Scheuing, 1995; Reichheld, 1996; Hackl and Westlund, 2000). Customer’s overall satisfaction with the services of the organization is based on (or a function of) all the encounters/experiences of the customers with the organization. There are many researchers conceptualize customer satisfaction as an individual’s feeling of pleasure or disappointment resulting from comparing a product’s perceived performance in relation to his or her expectations.
Satisfaction is a widely researched consumer evaluation because it is of the utmost importance to firms, in order to ensure sustainability. Keeping customers satisfied is vitally important for hospitality industry to generate revenues. To achieve a high level of customer satisfaction, it is important to meet customer expectation. However, it is sometimes difficult to realize what customers expect and unless they wish to feedback their opinions to the restaurant. Listening to the customer can be of strategic importance for the future of hospitality industry.
Customer retention has become a continuous focus of service organizations. In hospitality industry, service quality is most important in retaining and gaining customer. Service quality has been defined in different ways. According to the Bitner, Booms and Mohr (1994) define service quality as ‘the customer’s overall impression of the relative inferiority/superiority of the organization and its service’. Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry (1985) defined service quality as ‘a function of the differences
References: Caruana, A.. (2000). Service Loyalty: The effects of service quality and the mediating role of customer satisfaction. European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 36, No. 7/8, pp. 811-828. Duverger, P. (2012). Using Dissatisfied Customers as a Source for Innovative Service Ideas. Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research, Vol. 36, No. 4, pp. 537-563. Farzaneh, M. and Jamil, J.. (2011). Service Quality in Penang Hotels: A Gap Score Analysis. World Applied Sciences Journal 12 (Special Issue of Tourism & Hospitality): 19-24. Lewis, B.R. and McCann, P.. (2004). Service failure and recovery: evidence from the hotel industry. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Vol. 16, No. 1, pp. 6-17. Noor, A.Z.. (2012). Identifying Service Failures Among Resort Customers in Langkawi Island. International Conference on Trade, Tourism and Management. Sureshchandar, G.S., Rajendran, C. and Anantharaman, R.N..(2002). The relationship between service quality and cutomer satisfaction – a factor specific approach. Journal of services marketing, Vol. 16, No. 4, pp. 363-379. Vincent Heung, C.S. and Terry Lam.. (2003). Customer complaint behaviour towards hotel restaurant services. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Vol. 15, No. 5, pp. 283-289. Yuanqiong, H., Wenli, L. and Kin, K.L.. (2010). Service climate, employee commitment and customer satisfaction: Evidence from the hospitality industry in China. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Vol. 23, No. 5, pp. 592-607.