The relationship between service quality and customer satisfaction has received considerable academic attention in the past few years. But the nature of the exact relationship between service quality and customer satisfaction (especially in the way the two constructs have been operationalized) is still shrouded with uncertainty. Many researchers have operationalized customer satisfaction by using a single item scale and many others have used multiple item scales. The present study adopts a different approach and views customer satisfaction as a multi dimensional construct just as service quality, but argues that customer satisfaction should be operationalized along the same factors (and the corresponding items) on which service quality is operationalized. Based on this approach, the link between service quality and customer satisfaction has been investigated. The results have indicated that the two constructs are indeed independent but are closely related, implying that an increase in one is likely to lead to an increase in another.
This study investigates the applicability of a modified SERVQUAL instrument as a means of measuring residents' perceptions of long‐term health‐care service quality in the USA and UK. The results confirm a stable, four‐factor structure that is similar to previously defined service quality dimensions and is invariant across the countries studied.
If service quality relates to retention of customers at the aggregate level, as other research has indicated, then evidence of its impact on customers’ behavioral responses should be detectable. Th...