Integrating Service Quality and Satisfaction: Pain in the Neck or Marketing Opportunity?

Abstract

The service quality and the customer satisfaction paradigms are still competing for the primate of marketing's attention. While both paradigms stem from two distinct research traditions, a number of similarities also exist and several attempts have been made to integrate both points of view into one model in the literature. However, the question of the sequential order of service quality and customer satisfaction in such models has remained largely unresolved and has caused considerable debate in the literature. In this article a conceptual model is formulated and empirically tested to gain insight into relationship between the two concepts. The results suggest that service quality should be treated as an antecedent of customer satisfaction. However, it was also found that perception is a direct indicator of satisfaction. The influence of expectations and disconfirmation on satisfaction seems to be rather small.