J. Joseph Cronin

Measuring service quality: A reexamination and extension.

The authors investigate the conceptualization and measurement of service quality and the relationships between service quality, consumer satisfaction, and purchase intentions. A literature review s...

Assessing the effects of quality, value, and customer satisfaction on consumer behavioral intentions in service environments

Abstract The following study both synthesizes and builds on the efforts to conceptualize the effects of quality, satisfaction, and value on consumers’ behavioral intentions. Specifically, it reports an empirical assessment of a model of service encounters that simultaneously considers the direct effects of these variables on behavioral intentions. The study builds on recent advances in services marketing theory and assesses the relationships between the identified constructs across multiple service industries. Several competing theories are also considered and compared to the research model. A number of notable findings are reported including the empirical verification that service quality, service value, and satisfaction may all be directly related to behavioral intentions when all of these variables are considered collectively. The results further suggest that the indirect effects of the service quality and value constructs enhanced their impact on behavioral intentions.

Some New Thoughts on Conceptualizing Perceived Service Quality: A Hierarchical Approach

Through qualitative and empirical research, the authors find that the service quality construct conforms to the structure of a third-order factor model that ties service quality perceptions to distinct and actionable dimensions: outcome, interaction, and environmental quality. In turn, each has three subdimensions that define the basis of service quality perceptions. The authors further suggest that for each of these subdimensions to contribute to improved service quality perceptions, the quality received by consumers must be perceived to be reliable, responsive, and empathetic. The authors test and support this conceptualization across four service industries. They consider the research and managerial implications of the study and its limitations.

Customer Orientation Effects on Customer Service Perceptions and Outcome Behaviors

This study investigates the effect of being customer oriented on service performance perceptions and outcome behaviors. Specifically, the focus is on identifying the influence that being perceived as a customer-oriented firm has on consumer quality perceptions, customer satisfaction, and service value. The impact of being customer oriented on consumers’ outcome behaviors is also investigated. Responses from 649 consumers indicate that customer orientation is directly related to customers’ evaluations of employee service performance, physical goods, and servicescapes. Indirect effects on organizational quality, customer satisfaction, value attributions, and outcome behaviors are also reported. The implications of the research are discussed, as are the limitations.

A cross-sectional test of the effect and conceptualization of service value

Focusses attention on service value as a construct which may help explain consumer decision making; however, to date this attention has been largely conceptual. Finds from the results of two empirical studies that models of consumer decision‐making which include service value explain significantly more variance in purchase intentions than models which include only service quality or cost factors, and the means by which consumers form service value perceptions is best depicted as a cognitive addition process.

Relational Exchange in Services

Using primary care physicians, automobile mechanics and hairstylists as the analysed industries, highlights the importance of relationships in the marketing of services. Two key relationship variables, trust and affective commitment, are the focal points for the empirical study. The data suggest that the higher the level of trust and affective commitment in a customer service‐provider relationship, the greater the probability that the consumer will continue the relationship, and the lower the level of perceived risk inherent in the relationship. Also, the findings suggest that females seek more trust and commitment than do males within the service‐provider/customer relationship, and consumers in general place more trust in and are more committed to their doctor and their hairstylist than to their mechanic.

Looking back to see forward in services marketing: some ideas to consider

The article considers the applicability of traditional attitude and other constructs in service quality research. It is suggested that the effects of perceived service quality may be masked by non‐linear relationships and under‐identified explanatory models. Constructs that might assist researchers and practitioners improve their service quality research and strategies are identified.

Recreational Service Quality in the International Setting

The following study suggests that the recrational services sector represents a growing, yet currently understudied, opportunity in the area of international services marketing. For example, personal consumption expenditures in the United States have increased from

The good guys don't always win: the effect of valence on service perceptions and consequences

50 billion in 1985 to

Discrimination Vs. Avoidance: “Zipping” of Television Commercials

246.8 billion in 1988. Parry suggests that European consumers have also been presented with an increasingly eclectic array of recreational alternatives during the last decade.