Customer Satisfaction during the Service Delivery Process

Abstract

Prior studies of how service quality evolves during the service delivery process have used aggregate case data in retrospect or have not obtained objective measures of the actual dimensions of the service encounter on an individual basis. Reports on a study of an actual hotel service delivery process partitioned into five distinct service encounters; check‐in, the room, the restaurant, the breakfast and check‐out. The aim was to investigate how quality factors were related to their respective encounters and how cumulative satisfaction levels impact on each other and over time. Average satisfaction levels for each of the five encounters were found to be significantly different. Moreover, there was a clear trend in the cumulative satisfaction results. Check‐in resulted in high satisfaction, the room was not so satisfying and the restaurant rated the worst. Satisfaction scores rose after the breakfast experience and rose again after check‐out. A factor analysis of all the questions, for a hypothesized five‐factor solution, explained 78 per cent of the variation. All the first four encounters loaded highly and collectively on four distinct factors. The fifth factor largely comprised correct check‐in booking and a correct bill on check‐out. Finally, a logistic regression model was used to rank the importance of the quality factors on their respective encounters. This information can be used to assist with the quality improvement of each encounter.