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32 School of Doctoral Studies (European Union) Journal2011The Relationship Between Service Quality and Satisfactionon Customer Loyalty in Malaysian Mobile CommunicationIndustrySany Sanuri Mohd. MokhtarChairperson of Quality at Quality Management Centre and Senior Lecturer at the College of Business, University, UtaraMalaysia (UUM). PhD in Marketing and Quality Management. Sany was formerly a deputy director of Quality ManagementInstitute, UUM.Ahmed Audu Maiyaki (corresponding author)Ph.D. Candidate in Marketing at the College of Business, Universiti Utara Malaysia.Lecturer at Bayero University Kano, Nigeria.T 11 008, Maybank Residential Hall Universiti Utara Malaysia, 06010 SintokCollege of Business, Universiti Utara MalaysiaEmail: aamaiyaki@yahoo.comNorzaini bt Mohd NoorMasters degree holder from UUM. Researcher on service quality and service marketing.AbstractThe paper explores the relationship between service quality and customer satisfaction on customer loyalty with regards to mobilephone usage among the postgraduate students of a university in Northern Malaysia. The sample consists of 341 students randomlyselected from the population frame provided by the university. The respondents are made of up students from various part of the worldsuch Asia, Middle-east and Africa. The results show that both service quality and customer satisfaction significantly affect the levelof customer loyalty of mobile phone users in Malaysia. Hence, all the hypotheses except one have been supported. It was therefore,recommended that mobile service providers should pay special attention to their service quality and the factors that drive customersatisfaction. Suggestion for future research was also offered. Key words: Service quality, Customer satisfaction, Loyalty, Mobilecommunication, Malaysia.Over the last few years, the number of mobile phoneshas increased at an exponential rate globally. This increaseis more pronounced in the developed countries. The reasonsfor this are numerous, low acquisition price and availabilityof the equipment contributes in no small measure to itswidespread usage. Furthermore, the number of mobilephones in the world has already passed the number offixed land lines and the revenue from mobiles phoneswill soon exceed that of fixed land lines. In the era ofimproved mobile communication technology, vast amountof changes are generated in facilitating communicationand the transfer of information from business to business,business to customers, employers to employees amongothers. Consequently, the utilization of mobile phones incommunication and information transfer leads to providingmore and more added value services (Steenderen, 2002).Despite the various information services provided throughmobile phone services nowadays, detail assessments need tobe made in order to understand the needs and requirementsof the mobile phone users.Service quality and customer satisfaction are inarguablythe two core concepts that are at the crux of the marketingtheory and practice (Spreng & Mackoy, 1996). In today’sworld of intense competition, it is generally believedthat the key to sustainable competitive advantage lies indelivering high quality service that will in turn result insatisfied customers. The prominence of these two conceptsis further manifested by the root of theoretical and empiricalSchool of Doctoral Studies (European Union) Journal - 2011
2011 The Relationship Between Service Quality and Satisfaction on Customer Loyalty in Malaysian Mobile Communication Industry33studies on the topic that have emanated over the past fewyears. Therefore, there is no doubt about the importanceof service quality and customer satisfaction as the ultimategoals of service providers. To this end therefore, the studyseeks to understand the nature of mobile phone use amongrespondents at a higher learning institution and investigatetheir perceptions on the mobile phone applications in thecontext of services quality.Literature ReviewService QualityParasuraman, Berry and Zeithaml (1991) defined servicequality as “the extent of discrepancy between customer’sexpectations or desires and their perceptions.” After indepthinterviews of executives and a few focus groups infour service categories, Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry(1985) developed a service quality model, which identifyfive gaps between customers and marketers. The gap modelof service quality was first developed by Parasuraman et al.(1985). According to Ueno (2010) the authors observe thatthe service quality gaps model is the conceptualisation ofservice quality as the gap between customer expectationson the services and perceptions of the service performance.Furthermore, based on the gap model there are four majordiscrepancies contributing to service quality gaps, and eachof the four gaps in turn contributes to the existence of gap5 (Ueno, 2010).Gap 1: The first gap is between consumer expectationsand management perceptions of consumer expectations. Inthe Parasuraman et al. (1985) study, the authors found thatprivacy or confidentiality during transactions emerged asa pivotal quality attribute in every banking and securitiesbrokerage focus group; however this considerations wasmentioned rarely by the executives. Parasuraman et al.(1985) concluded that the lack of understanding of this gapwill have an impact on the consumer’s evaluation of theservice quality.Gap 2: The second gap is between managementperceptions of customer expectation and service qualityspecifications. Even though the executives attempt tomatch or exceed customer expectations, they find it difficultto deliver what the customer expects (Parasuraman et al.,1985). The authors indicated that one of the reasons forthis is the difficulty in establishing specifications to delivera fast response consistently because of a lack of trainedservice personnel and the wide range of function demand.Gap 3: The third gap is between service qualityspecifications and service actually delivered. High servicequality cannot be guaranteed even when there are guidelinesfor carrying out excellent services. Parasuraman et al.(1985) indicated that the employees of a service companyplay an important role on the service quality and theemployee’s performance cannot always be standardized.Gap 4: The fourth gap is between service delivery andwhat is communicated to customers about the service.Parasuraman et al. (1985) contended that promising morethan can be delivered has a detrimental effect on customerbecause it raises the initial expectations but lowersperception quality.Gap 5: The fifth gap is between the customer’sperceptions of service quality and their expectations ofservice quality. Parasuraman et al. (1985) discoveredthat the key to service quality is to meet or exceed theexpectations of customers.Subsequently, based on the gap model in theirexploratory study, Parasuraman et al. (1985) came upwith ten dimension of service quality namely: reliability,responsiveness, competence, access, communication,courtesy, credibility, security, understanding and tangibles.However, these ten dimensions of service quality werecollapsed into 5 dimensions due to overlaps. The fivedimension of service quality according to Parasuraman,Zeithaml and Berry (1988) are: tangibility, reliability,assurance, responsiveness and empathy. Although,criticisms have been made against the measurement ofservice quality “SERVQUAL” developed by Parasuramanet al. (1988), their contribution in the area of service qualitycontinue to be significant for over quarter a century.Customer LoyaltyLoyalty of customers is considered to be a function ofsatisfaction and that loyal customers contribute to companyprofitability by spending more on company products andservices, via repeat purchasing, and by recommending theorganization to other consumers (Bowen & Chen, 2001:Fecikova, 2004). To further understand the behavior ofloyal customers, recent research has attempted to integratethe concept of customer commitment (Fullerton, 2005:Zins, 2001). For the most part, these recent studies havebeen built upon customer commitment as a key mediatorof the relationship between the customer's evaluations of afirm's performance and the customer's intentions regardingthe future relationship with the firm (Fullerton, 2005).Maiyaki A. A.- The Relationship Between Service Quality and Satisfaction on Customer Loyalty in Malaysian Mobile Communication Industry
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