Perceived service quality and patronage behaviour in the auto-repair industry. Andreas Andronikidis*, Victoria Bellou and Chris Vasiliadis

Transcription

1 196 Int. J. Services, Economics and Management, Vol. 1, No. 2, 2008 Perceived service quality and patronage behaviour in the auto-repair industry Andreas Andronikidis*, Victoria Bellou and Chris Vasiliadis University of Macedonia, 156 Egnatia St., Thessaloniki 54006, Greece Fax: *Corresponding author Abstract: This research investigated the dealer patronage behaviour relationship to perceived quality dimensions. A total of 831 questionnaires were personally administered to customers of nine auto-repair companies in Greece. Factor analysis revealed three dimensions, namely, holistic customer consideration, infrastructure, and personalised support as the most important drivers to customers service quality. Analysis of variance, examining the relationship between perceptions of service quality and patronage behaviour (a loyalty indicator), showed that there is significant relationship only with personalised support. The implications of these findings for managers are also discussed. Keywords: service quality; patronage behaviour; auto-repair industry; Greece. Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Andronikidis, A., Bellou, V. and Vasiliadis, C. (2008) Perceived service quality and patronage behaviour in the auto-repair industry, Int. J. Services, Economics and Management, Vol. 1, No. 2, pp Biographical notes: Andreas Andronikidis is a Lecturer in Marketing at the University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, Greece. Prior to joining the University in September 2005, Andreas provided consultancy, training and advice to businesses in Greece and the UK gaining extensive experience in strategic marketing and market research both in the Greek and the European market. Currently, most of his research focuses on services marketing, psychographic segmentation and consumer behaviour, though previously he conducted research in a number of public sector and voluntary sector organisations. Andreas received both his MBA and PhD in Marketing from Sheffield University Management School, UK. Victoria Bellou is an Adjunct Lecturer at the University of Thessaly, Greece She has gained her Bachelor s degree at the University of New Haven, CT, USA, her Master s at the University of Macedonia, Greece, and her PhD at the University of Piraeus, Greece. She has professional experience as Human Resource Specialist and has worked on several research projects. Her research interests include psychological contract, organisational culture, public sector management, management of change, and service quality. She can be contacted at: vbellou@uth.gr. Copyright 2008 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

2 Perceived service quality and patronage behaviour 197 Chris Vassiliadis is a Senior Lecturer of Marketing at the University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, Greece. His research interests focus specifically on tourism destination marketing and management. His research has been published in various refereed journals, such as The Journal of Targeting, Measurement and Analysis for Marketing, The Journal of Tourism Management and The Journal of Tourism Analysis. 1 Introduction Business environment is characterised by fierce competition. Huge variety of products and services, high quality production and numerous enterprises in every sector combined with globalisation and liberalisation led to increased competition (Wisner and Corney, 2001). According to Sirohi et al. (1998), in retail markets the need for retailers to use strategies focused on attracting the right customers increases, since intense competition has usually the form of new technologies, more sophisticated management practices and industry consolidations. Companies try to create unique and sustainable competitive advantages in order to survive and succeed in this environment. One of the major strategic goals is the creation of a loyal customer base (O Malley, 1998). Specifically in the auto-repair industry, underlining all these trends and the competitive pressure is the realisation that the present downward trends in volumes can only be stemmed by an increase in customer loyalty. Stronger price/quality awareness, increased emphasis on service and general economic pressures which have reduced buying power, require the development of strategies which are geared towards achieving greater brand loyalty among customers. There is more than ever, a need to ensure that present customers are continuously satisfied. The main argument of the customer satisfaction concept lies in the assumption of a close dependence between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty (i.e. Kandampully and Suhartanto, 2000, 2003). According to Knox (1998), customer loyalty can be defined in two distinct ways: 1 as an attitude where different feelings create an individual s overall attachment to a product, service or organisation, defining the individual s degree of loyalty 2 as behaviour, including continuing to purchase services from the same supplier (store patronage), increasing the scale and/or scope of a relationship, or the act of recommendation (Sivadas and Baker-Prewit, 2000) It seems logical that dissatisfied customers are more willing to break up a relationship than are satisfied customers. However, increasing doubts emerge that satisfaction is a sufficient guarantee for customer loyalty. Gierl (1993) questioned customers who described themselves as basically brand-loyal and who stated that they had changed their brand lately. It showed that the vast majority of switches did not occur due to dissatisfaction but despite satisfaction. Also, Reichheld and Aspinall (1994) observed that a US car producer in the early 1980s always reached better satisfaction scores than his competitors. However, it was permanently losing market share. About 90% of its customers who switched were satisfied or very satisfied but had found an even better

3 198 A. Andronikidis et al. alternative. The authors conclude that customer satisfaction is not a particularly reliable indicator of customers future action. Service quality is a concept related to customer satisfaction (Hoisington and Naumann, 2003). Sawmong and Omar (2004) suggests that among other characteristics such as price, uniqueness, convenience and reliability, service quality can lead to customer satisfaction and then to customer loyalty. Also, research has shown that service quality is an essential strategy for winning and retaining customers (Ghobadian et al., 1994; Buzzell and Gale, 1987; Zeithaml, 2000). Indeed, the quality of service is more important than price in differentiating a service firm from its competitors and in fostering customer loyalty (Kandampully and Suhartanto, 2000, 2003). Delivering quality service is thus vital if firms are to increase market share and profitability. Customer loyalty is a prime determinant of long-term financial performance of firms (Jones and Sasser, 1995). This is particularly true for service firms where increased loyalty can substantially increase profits (Reichheld and Sasser, 1990; Reichheld, 1996). Service firms focus on achieving customer satisfaction and loyalty by delivering superior value, an underlying source of competitive advantage (Woodruff, 1997). For service firms the challenge is identifying the critical factors that determine customer satisfaction and loyalty. Considerable research has focused on service quality dimensions as the primary determinants of customer satisfaction (Parasuraman et al., 1988; Brown et al., 1993; Zeithaml et al., 1996). Since customer satisfaction is determinative of loyalty (Kandampully and Suhartanto, 2003), in this study, we examine whether perceived service quality directly impacts on loyalty too. As for measuring service quality in the car industry, to our knowledge, there is only one previous research. In specific, only Bouman and Van der Wiele (1992) used 48 service items to measure the service quality delivered. These items were spread over the SERVQUAL dimensions, tailored for the service that an auto-repair company provides. Therefore, this is the first study that utilised the five factor SERVPERF model to measure service quality in this industry. The present study examines service quality in the car industry in Greece in an attempt to respond to the following questions: 1 Which dimensions are distinguished by customers when they evaluate service quality in the car industry? 2 Which dimensions of quality, if any, is related to customer patronage behaviour? 2 Literature review This section discusses the concepts of customer loyalty and satisfaction in relation to service quality as an antecedent to them. It also presents SERVPERF as the instrument utilised in this study. Loyalty is one of those words that conjure up images of best friend, lifelong college pals and trusting partners. When it applies to marketing loyalty, expectations and associations of the highest order are implied (Magrath, 2000). Hoisington and Naumann (2003) suggests a model (Figure 1) in which business performance and global perceptions can lead to customer loyalty, which in turn leads to increased market share, reduced cost and increased employee loyalty, resulting in raised profits and added shareholder value. Quality, prices, image of the store and the relationships that a company has managed to

4 Perceived service quality and patronage behaviour 199 create with the external environment are elements that affect in a great degree the overall satisfaction of consumers. As implied by the model (Figure 1), satisfied customers become loyal, providing thus shareholder value. Figure 1 A customer loyalty model (see online version for colours) Source: Adapted from Hoisington and Naumann (2003, p.34). One of the main issues discussed in literature is whether loyalty is an attitudinal or behavioural measure. Used loosely, as it usually is, the term loyalty conjures up various notions of affection, fidelity or commitment [McGoldrick and Andre, (1997), p.74]. This has led to the use of customer satisfaction as a proxy measure of loyalty because it has been assumed that satisfaction affects buying intentions in a positive way. However, research indicates that it is overly simplistic to assume that dissatisfied customers will defect, and that satisfied customers will remain loyal (McDougall and Levesque, 1992). Further, it seems that neither attitudinal nor behavioural measures on their own are sufficient to explain or define loyalty (McDougall and Levesque, 2000). This is important for managers, as it suggests that existing measures of loyalty may be seriously flawed, and thus strategies developed on the strength of such measures may be inadequate. A number of frameworks have been developed which combine both attitudinal and behavioural measures of loyalty in an effort to overcome such problems (Dick and Basu, 1994; Knox, 1996; McGoldrick and Andre, 1977). In summary, the framework proposed by Dick and Basu (1994) is particularly useful incorporating both relative attitude and patronage behaviour. They explain that relative attitude not only focuses on attitude to the entity, but also incorporates attitudes to alternatives. This encapsulates not only

5 200 A. Andronikidis et al. satisfaction measures, but also preference measures. The suggestion is that the higher the relative attitude between alternatives, the more likely that attitude will influence behaviour. Also, patronage behaviour includes traditional measures such as frequency and monetary value of purchases, share of wallet, purchase sequence, etc. This paper examines patronage behaviour clearly a behavioural measure in relation to service quality evaluations through SERVPERF. Although behavioural measures do overcome some of the limitations of using satisfaction as a proxy measure for loyalty, it is clear that behaviour is also insufficient as a measure of store or brand loyalty (Dick and Basu, 1994; Knox, 1996; Knox and Walker, 1995; McGoldrick and Andre, 1997; Solomon, 1996). As a result, the extent to which behavioural measures are of benefit in developing long-term loyalty strategies is clearly questionable. Measuring service quality is a challenging task because the concept of service quality is inherently intangible in nature and difficult to define (Kandampully, 1997). Measuring improvements in service quality is even more challenging (Zeithaml et al., 1990). Commonly used techniques for measuring service quality include customer service audits (Takuechi and Quelch, 1983), gap analysis (Zeithaml et al., 1988), SERVQUAL (Parasuraman et al., 1988), SERVPERF (Cronin and Taylor, 1992), critical incident technique (Bitner, 1990), and sequential incident technique (Stauss and Weinlich, 1997). Parasuraman et al. (1988) distinguished five dimensions for evaluating service quality: tangibles: appearance of physical facilities, equipment, personnel and communication materials; reliability: ability to perform the promised service dependably and accurately; responsiveness: willingness to help customers and provide prompt service; assurance: knowledge and courtesy of employees and their ability to convey trust and confidence; and empathy: caring, individualised attention which the firm provides for its customers. The perceived quality of these five dimensions is measured either with SERVQUAL or SERVPERF. SERVQUAL consists of two sections: an expectations section containing 22 statements to ascertain the general expectations of customers concerning a service, and a perceptions section containing a matching set of 22 statements to measure customers assessment of a specific firm within the service category. On the contrary, SERVPERF includes only the performance scale (the 22 statements pertaining to the customers assessment of a specific firm within the service category). Statements are scored on a seven-point scale. According to Cronin and Taylor (1992), SERVQUAL measures customer satisfaction instead of service quality. Therefore, given that this study tries to relate quality dimensions to customer patronage behaviour, SERVPERF was regarded as more appropriate. 3 Methodology On the basis of the five SERVPERF dimensions we developed a questionnaire for the Greek auto-repair industry. We have chosen to use the 22 items used in the SERVPERF questionnaire. For developing the questionnaire we started by making a list of the important service marks in the auto-repair industry. Because we wanted to build an instrument which would give more precise direction to quality improvement activities in auto-repair organisations, this list was made up after interviewing five customers and eight specialists in the industry. Those items have been compared with items found in service literature. All the features identified by the specialists were already included in

6 Perceived service quality and patronage behaviour 201 the scale items of the SERVPERF. Therefore, the questionnaire consisted of 22 items spread over the five SERVPERF dimensions, tailored for the services which a garage delivers. A few pilot interviews were held before the study to make sure that all questions were being appropriately understood. After making all necessary adjustments, the researchers asked nine auto-repair firms to allow the study among their customers. All customers entering the garage were approached to be interviewed. Out of 1000 customers contacted over a period of three weeks, 831 agreed to cooperate, yielding a response rate of 83.1%. To convince the customers participate into the study, the researchers stated the importance of the survey. A drawback of the personal presentation is that some customers could feel obliged to give answers which are socially desirable. However, it has the advantage that one would possibly feel more involved and therefore take time to answer the questions. More importantly, by using this method of distribution we were able to reach customers who had just experienced the service delivered. So, their opinion would be pretty sound, free of other impressions and not faded by time. By using the method of distribution we have been unable to create a completely representative sample of the customers of the auto-repair industry in Greece. However, to create a sample which gives an insight into a greater part of the Greek auto-repair industry, we approached nine companies (authorised dealers) which differentiated by new car sales volume, and size of the company. Exploratory factor analysis was utilised to determine the dimensions that explain perceived service quality in the service car industry. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was also utilised to test the relationship between patronage behaviour and service quality items. The categories of the scale for patronage behaviour were the following, 1 = less than six months, 2 = six months to 1.5 years, 3 = 1.5 to three years, 4 = three to five years, and 5 = more than five years. 4 Results and discussion 831 questionnaires were used for the analysis. The questionnaire was based on 22 items that are related with the original SERVPERF perceptions analysis of Parasuraman et al. (1988). The aims of the analysis were to: 1 examine SERVPERF dimensions in the auto-repair industry in Greece 2 find out if the dimensions of SERVPERF analysis instrument affect customer patronage behaviour (loyalty) in the auto-repair industry. First of all, we analysed the data to find out if the dimensionality of the 22 items are compatible like the SERVPERF s theoretical five dimensions. We calculated the quality of the instrument we used to select our data with the coefficient alpha measure. The following Cronbach alphas we found: tangibles 0.94; reliability 0.93; responsiveness 0.94; assurance 0.94; empathy The alphas found in our research all scored above 0.90 range.

7 202 A. Andronikidis et al. Table 1 The three factor solution (*)

8 Perceived service quality and patronage behaviour 203 Examining the dimensionality of the 22 item scale was the next task. The principal factor analysis procedure was used to extract from our data the five factor model of the SERVPERF theory. Varimax rotation analysis was used and the solution of the factor analysis suggests the existence of three factors. The three-factor solution is shown in Table 1. The various items are arranged under the factor for which they have the highest factor loading. Only scores above 0.50 are included. The factor loadings are presented as decimals. Also shown in Table 1 is the SERVPERF dimension to which each item originally belonged and the Cronbach alpha solutions for related items. Although our results did not confirm the five factor SERVPERF model, they are in accordance with those of previous research. In particular, Bouman & Van der Wiele (1992), studying the perceived service quality in the Dutch auto-repair identified three dimensions: customer kindness, tangibles, and faith. In our study, the three-factor model that resulted can be similarly described as follows: Factor 1 Holistic customer consideration. The customer needs to be helped quickly and in a friendly, reliable way. Factor 2 Infrastructure. Feasible, concrete and basic tangible elements of the service. Factor 3 Personalised support. Reassurance, faith and individual processes and communication practices from the personnel to the customer. One item with scored under 0.50 and was removed from the instrument. This leads to an instrument with 21 items spread over three factors. The percentage explained variance was 51.1%. The three factors have the following Cronbach alpha scores: 1 holistic customer consideration infrastructure personalised support The height of these scores shows that the various items possess a common core. On the basis of the results, customers distinguish three dimensions of service quality when they evaluate car servicing. These dimensions appear to be dependent of each other. The resulting factors differ clearly from the five SERVPERF dimensions. The factor holistic customer consideration covers all the SERVPERF dimensions except Tangibles. Those four SERVPERF dimensions are related to the human performance component of service. Therefore, holistic customer consideration can be viewed as the human performance or relational component of service. The factor Infrastructure corresponds with the dimension Tangibles in SERVPERF but also incorporates an item from reliability scale error-free records. It seems that customers consider also the processes for delivering the service as a whole contributing to the development of infrastructure in their mind. Personalised support describes a factor that highlights customisation. The inscrutability of the processes involved in car servicing has perhaps given rise to this dimension. Supporting evidence for the three factors is found in other research. Holistic customer consideration especially is a dimension supported by others, for instance the functional quality of Gronroos (1983), the moments of truth of Carlzon (1987) and the dimension willingness and ability to serve of Hedvall and Paltschik (1989).

9 204 A. Andronikidis et al. Tangibles are distinguished by Berry et al. (1988) but also Lehtinen and Lehtinen (1991) distinguish such a dimension, which they call physical quality. For determining the relation between loyalty (patronage behaviour) and the three quality dimensions we conducted an ANOVA. As apparent in Table 2, the only significance difference identified in terms of patronage behaviour pertains to the third factor, namely the personalised support. Post hoc multiple comparison based on Tukey s test showed that customers who have been preferring the same auto-repair firm for more than three years are tend to believe that the firm and its employees care more for their individualised needs and fulfil them to a greater extent in comparison with newer customers. Table 2 Analysis of variance results Holistic customer consideration Infrastructure Sum of Squares df Between groups Within groups Total Between groups Within groups Total Mean Square F Sig Personalised support Between groups Within groups Total In recognition of the limitations of satisfaction being a proxy measure for loyalty and service qualities for satisfaction, this study attempted to explore the relationship of a behavioural measure and quality evaluations through SERVPERF. Reichheld (1994) found that despite being satisfied many customers still defect. In the UK, Oglivy Loyalty Centre found that, although 85% of automotive customers reported being satisfied, only 40% repurchased and 66% of packaged goods customers who identified a favourite brand had bought another brand most recently (McKenzie, 1995). Such behaviour may be explained by the impact of other variables such as choice, convenience, price and income. This suggests two things: first, attitudinal measures of satisfaction are poor predictors or measures of behaviour, and second, it casts some doubt on the concept of loyalty (Dowling and Uncles, 1997). 5 Conclusions In the first stage, the research utilised the SERVPERF instrument in the auto-repair industry. The SERVPERF instrument appears to be a useful starting point for measuring quality in service organisations. For the Greek auto-repair industry the original five dimensions were not confirmed by the questionnaire survey. In contrast, three dimensions came out, namely, holistic customer consideration, infrastructure and personalised support. The measuring instrument is easy to use for garage firms. By measuring on a

10 Perceived service quality and patronage behaviour 205 regular basis it can help in identifying changes in the quality of the services delivered. Improvement activities can be implemented it a more specific way. The challenge for managers is to decide how to best allocate resources across the three factors to yield the greatest return in customer satisfaction and loyalty in their particular service area. In the next stage, the research attempted to explore the relationship of patronage behaviour with service quality. Findings revealed that customer perceptions of service quality are only affected with regards to personalised support. The fact that customer perceptions of holistic customer consideration and infrastructure do not vary based on their loyalty pattern may be explained by the fact that loyalty implies the existence of a favourable attitude relative to potential alternatives and repeated purchase behaviour (Dick and Basu, 1994). Besides, as the aforementioned researchers suggested, loyalty is a relationship between relative attitudes towards an entity and patronage behaviour. Knowledge about factors that affect consumers loyalty gives the opportunity to the retailer to be ready and react straightly and effectively in any kind of situation. Services of high quality are considered to have a big impact on the satisfaction of customers (Estell and Brewer, 1999; Sivadas and Baker-Prewitt, 2000). This also applies to other factors that affect consumer behaviour such as price, product variety, product information; typical in studies that focus on determining the dimensions of service quality versus the inclusion of other potential determinants of satisfaction. Also, concerns have been expressed that excluding the customer s perceived price or costs may be a shortcoming of these models (Ravald and Gronroos, 1996). From a managerial perspective, these investigations of the dimensions of service quality have assisted managers in identifying the importance of ensuring that efforts are made to get the service right the first time and to meet or exceed customer expectations in the delivery of the service. However, some have argued that this is a narrow focus and that far too much emphasis has been placed on service quality, particularly relational (process) quality (Heskett et al., 1997). Besides, according to Gounaris et al. (2003), the notion of service quality is a multidimensional concept. Finally, McDougall and Levesque (2000) conclude that the basic promise or implicit contract must be delivered, as it is a significant driver of customer satisfaction, which is directly related to future purchase intentions. And this is consistent to the regression analysis results presented in this study, designating a weak relationship but sole between patronage behaviour and the basic promise of the auto-repair company. References Berry, L.L., Parasuraman, A. and Zeithaml, V.A. (1988) The service quality puzzle, Business Horizon, September October. Bitner, M.J. (1990) Evaluating service encounters: the effects of physical surroundings and employee responses, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 54, No. 4, pp Bouman, M. and Van der Wiele, T. (1992) Measuring service quality in the auto-repair industry: building and testing an instrument, International Journal of Service Industry Management, Vol. 3, No. 4, pp Brown, T.J., Churchill, G.A. Jr. and Peter, P.J. (1993) Improving the measurement of service quality, Journal of Retailing, Spring, Vol. 69, pp Buzzell, R.D. and Gale, B.T. (1987) The PIMS Principles: Linking Strategy to Performance, Free Press, New York. Carlzon, J. (1987) The Moments of Trust, Mass, Ballinger, Cambridge.

11 206 A. Andronikidis et al. Cronin, J.J. and Taylor, S.A. (1992) Measuring service quality: a re-examination and extension, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 56, No. 1, pp Dick, A.S. and Basu, K. (1994) Customer loyalty: toward an integrated conceptual framework, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Vol. 22, No. 2, pp Dowling, G.R. and Uncles, M.D. (1997) Do customer loyalty programs really work, Sloan Management Review, Vol. 38, No. 4, pp Estell, L. and Brewer, G. (1999) This call center accelerates sales, Sales and Marketing Management, Vol. 15, No. 2, p.72. Ghobadian, A., Speller, S. and Jones, M. (1994) Service quality concepts and models, International Journal of Quality and Reliability Management, Vol. 11, pp Gierl, H. (1993) Einfluß des Etiketts auf das Produktimage, Werbeforschung & Praxis, Vol. 3, pp Gounaris, S.P., Stathakopoulos V. and Athanassopoulos, A.D. (2003) Antecedents to perceived service quality: an exploratory study in the banking industry, International Journal of Bank Marketing, Vol. 21, No. 4, pp Grönroos, C. (1983) Strategic Management and Marketing in the Service Sector, Marketing Science Institute, Cambridge, MA. Hedvall, M.B. and Paltschik, M. (1989) Perceived service quality in pharmacies, Svenska Handelshögskolan, Working Papers, 175/1988, Helsinki. Heskett, J.L., Sasser, W.E. Jr. and Schlesinger, L.A. (1997) The Service Profit Chain: How Leading Companies Link Profit and Growth to Loyalty, Satisfaction, and Value, Free Press, NY. Hoisington, S. and Naumann, E. (2003) The Loyalty Elephant, American Society for Quality, Quality Progress, Compaq Company Publication. Jones, T.O. and Sasser, W.E. Jr. (1995) Why satisfied customers defect, Harvard Business Review, November December, Vol. 73, pp Kandampully, J. (1997) Firms should give loyalty before they can expect it from customers, Managing Service Quality, Vol. 7, No. 2, pp Kandampully, J. and Suhartanto, D. (2000) Customer loyalty in the hotel industry: the role of customer satisfaction and image, International Journal of Hospitality Management, Vol. 12, No. 6, pp Kandampully, J. and Suhartanto, D. (2003) The role of customer satisfaction and image in gaining customer loyalty in the hotel industry, Journal of Hospitality and Leisure Marketing, Vol. 10, No. 1/2, pp Knox, S. (1996) The death of brand deference: can brand management stop the rot?, Marketing Intelligence & Planning, Vol. 14, No. 7, pp Knox, S. (1998) Loyalty-based segmentation and the customer development process, European Management Journal, Vol. 16, pp Knox, S. and Walker, D. (1995) Empirical developments in the measurement of invesment, brand loyalty and their structural relationships in grocery markets, Cranfield School of Management Working Paper Series, S.W.P. Lehtinen, U. and Lehtinen, J.R. (1991) Two approaches and service quality dimensions, The Service Industry Journal, Vol. 11, No. 3, pp Magrath, A.J. (2000) The loyalty effect, Ivey Business Journal, Vol. 64, No. 3, pp McDougall, G.H.G. and Levesque, T. (1992) The measurement of service quality: some methodological issues, 2nd International Research Seminar in Service Management, Le-Londe-Les Maures, France, pp McDougall, G.H.G. and Levesque, T. (2000) Customer satisfaction with services: putting perceived value into equation, Journal of Services Marketing, Vol. 14, No. 5, pp McGoldrick, P.J. and Andre, E. (1997) Consumer misbehaviour: promiscuity or loyalty in grocery shopping, Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Vol. 4, No. 2, pp

12 Perceived service quality and patronage behaviour 207 McKenzie, S. (1995) Distinguishing marks, Marketing Week, 17 November, pp O Malley, L. (1998) Can loyalty schemes really build loyalty?, Marketing Intelligence & Planning, Vol. 16, No. 1, pp Parasuraman, A., Zeithaml, V. and Berry, L. (1988) SERVQUAL: a multi-item scale for measuring consumer perceptions of service quality, Journal of Retailing, Vol. 64, No. 1, pp Ravald, A. and Gronroos, C. (1996) The value concept and relationship marketing, European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 30, No. 2, pp Reichheld, F.F. (1994) Loyalty and the renaissance of marketing, Marketing Management, Vol. 2, No. 4, pp Reichheld, F.F. (1996) The Loyalty Effect, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, MA. Reichheld, F.F. and Aspinall, K. (1994) Building high-loyalty business systems, Journal of Retail Banking, Winter, Vol. 15, pp Reichheld, F.F. and Sasser, W.E. (1990) Zero defections: quality comes to services. Harvard Business Review, September October, pp Sawmong, S. and Omar, O. (2004) The store loyalty of the UK s retail consumers, The Journal of the American Academy of Business, Vol. 5, No. 1, pp Sirohi, N., McLaughlin, W.W. and Wittink, D.R. (1998) A model of consumer perceptions and store loyalty intentions for a supermarket, Journal of Retailing, Vol. 74, No. 2, pp Sivadas, E. and Baker-Prewitt, J.L. (2000) An examination of the relationship between service quality, customer satisfaction and store loyalty, International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, Vol. 28, No. 2, pp Solomon, M. (1996) Consumer Behavior, 3rd ed., Prentice-Hall, Engelwood Cliffs, NJ. Stauss, B. and Weinlich, B. (1997) Process-oriented measurement of service quality: applying the sequential incident technique, European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 31, No. 1, pp Takuechi, H. and Quelch, J.A. (1983) Quality is more than making a good product, Harvard Business Review, Vol. 6, No. 4, pp Wisner, J.D. and Corney, W.J. (2001) Comparing practices for capturing bank customer feedback: internet versus traditional banking, Benchmarking: An International Journal, Vol. 8, No. 3, pp Woodruff, R.B. (1997) Customer value: the next source for competitive advantage, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Spring, Vol. 25, No. 2, pp Zeithaml, V.A. (2000) Service quality, profitability, and the economic worth of customers: what we know and what we need to learn, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Vol. 28, No. 1, pp Zeithaml, V.A., Berry, L.L. and Parasuraman, A. (1996) The behavioral consequences of service quality, Journal of Marketing, April, Vol. 60, pp Zeithaml, V.A., Parasuraman, A. and Berry, L.L. (1988) Communication and control processes in the delivery of service quality, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 52, pp Zeithaml, V.A., Parasuraman, A. and Berry, L.L. (1990) Delivering Quality Service. Balancing Customer Perceptions and Expectations, The Free Press, NY, p.20.