Faculty of Business and Design
Master of Business Administration (International)
Customers’ Satisfaction with Service Quality of Front Line Staff of ABC Company
The positive relationship between service quality and customer satisfaction is recognized to lead to profitability and a stronger and sustainable brand image for a business. Significance of communication skills as part of service quality in service industry necessitates effective training programs tailored to meet the needs of front line staff as ineffective training could negatively impact staff’s morale and productivity, thus affecting the company’s revenue and image. Given significance of these, this study aims to evaluate (1) satisfaction of two groups of customers with the service quality provided by ABC Company front line staff – customers who make enquiries and those who make purchase and (2) the staff’s perceived effectiveness of the training programs that the company provides to them. Employing a mixed method approach, this study conducted a modified version of the SERVQUAL questionnaire survey with 193 customers of ABC Company to gauge customer satisfaction. Qualitative data was collected through interviews with the front-line staff and their manager to find out staff’s perceived effectiveness of the training programs provided to them. Customer satisfaction was measured in relation to six dimensions of service quality -Reliability, Responsiveness, Empathy, Assurance, Tangibility and Communication Skills. People who made enquiries at the company were shown to be more satisfied with than those who purchased and they were satisfied with Reliability and Communication Skills of the staff. Customers who made purchase were not as satisfied as those who made enquiries as their communication with the company involves buying decision, and more aspects of the SERVQUAL were looked at. Aspects such as delivery time, transaction process, and clarity of information are considered and taken highly by these customers. Furthermore, based on the multiple regression analysis of data from customers who made enquiries, the relationship between the SERVQUAL dimensions and customers’ satisfaction is shown to be significant for all dimensions except for Tangibility, Responsiveness, Assurance and Empathy. Multiple regression analysis of data from customers who made purchase indicates that the relationship between SERVQUAL dimensions and customers’ satisfaction is significant apart from Tangibility. Based on the findings from the interview session with the manager and staff of ABC Company, it can be concluded that the training programs provided by the company is not perfect, and can still be improved further although they were reported to be useful for the staff’s daily work.
Author: Asyraf Khan bin Asgar Khan
Publication year: 2018
