Customer Satisfaction and Expectations of Service Quality in Luxury Car in Singapore - Research Proposal Example

The paper “Customer Satisfaction and Expectations of Service Quality in Luxury Car in Singapore“ is an excellent variant of a research paper on marketing. Service quality and customer satisfaction are very important concepts that companies must understand in order to remain competitive in business and hence grow. It is very important for companies to know how to measure these constructs from the consumers’ perspective in order to better understand their needs and hence satisfy them. Service quality is considered very important because it leads to higher customer satisfaction, profitability, reduced cost, customer loyalty, and retention

Service quality is inevitable for a prospering business. Improvement of service quality is a great secret being utilized by various business sectors to outdo each other. According to the Business Dictionary an assessment of how well a delivered service conforms to the client’s expectations. Service business operators often assess the service quality provided to their customers in order to improve their service, to quickly identify problems, and to better assess client satisfaction. Zeithami & Bitner (2003:85) states that: ‘’service quality is a focused evaluation that reflects the customer’s perception of specific dimensions of service: reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy, tangibles. Satisfaction, on the other hand, is more inclusive: it is influenced by perceptions of service quality, product quality and price as well as situational factors and personal factors’. Service quality affects customer satisfaction by providing performance (real benefits). For example, if consumers believe that they have entered the McDonald’s car dealers they will get quality cars, service, high quality everywhere the same, no matter the location of the car dealer, put forward by Milland M Lele (1995:126)

According to Parasuraman et al. (1988), service quality can be defined as an overall judgment similar to attitude towards the service and generally accepted as an antecedent of overall customer satisfaction (Zeithaml and Bitner, 1996). Parasuraman et al. (1988) define service quality as the ability of the organization to meet or exceed customer expectations. It is the difference between customers’ expectations of service and perceived service (Zeithml et al., 1990). Perceived service quality results from comparison by customers of expectations with their perceptions of service delivered by the suppliers (Zeithaml et al.,1990). If expectations are greater than performance, then perceived quality is less than satisfactory and hence dissatisfaction occurs (Parasuraman et al, 1985; Lewis and Mitchell, 1990)

The term customer satisfaction is frequently used in marketing. While it’s often abbreviated as CSAT, it’s more correct to abbreviate it as CSat. Basically it’s measures supplied by a company meet or surpass customer expectations. According to Business Dictionary, it’s the degree of satisfaction provided by the goods or services of a company as measured by the number of repeat customers

Services, unlike tangible products, are produced and encountered and consumed at the same time in the presence of the customer and the service producer. The presence of the human element during the service delivery process greatly increases the probability of error on the part of employees and customers. This error is due to the intangible behavioral process that cannot be easily monitored or controlled (Bowen, 1986). however, a substantial amount of service quality research has focused on serving customers’ perceived service quality (Parasuraman et al., 1988; Carman, 1990; Parasuraman et al. 1991; Babakus and Boller, 1992; Cronin and Taylor, 1992; Babakus and Mangold, 1992), relatively little attention has been paid to exploring the factors that impact on service employees’ behavior with regard to delivering service quality.