A New Approach to Customer Satisfaction, Service Quality and Relationship Quality Research

Australian & New Zealand Marketing Academy (ANZMAC) Conference 2000
 Visionary Marketing for the 21st Century: Facing the Challenge

AUTHOR:
Byron Sharp
Narelle Page
John Dawes


ABSTRACT:

In this paper we outline an overall approach for tracking service and relationship quality that differs substantially from the conventional paradigm. The conventional attitude-based approach relies on assumptions about the link between evaluations of service quality and subsequent behaviour which are not supported by the substantive body of research findings about buyer behaviour. The attitude-based approach also requires inferences to be made concerning what aspects of service provision determine the attitudes. Unfortunately the traditional approach is still widely practiced in commercial market research, as well as practised and taught in Universities. We therefore now explain a different approach which looks directly at service provision by using descriptive non-attitudinal measures and seeks to relate these to observed buying behaviours of interest. The approach has been trialled across a number of service categories and markets with promising results.

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