Notes. Effect of Service Quality on Post-Visit Intentions: The Case of a Computer Centre. Devinder K Banwet and Biplab Datta.

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1 Notes present short pieces which are research-based, experience-based, or idea-based. Effect of Service Quality on Post-Visit Intentions: The Case of a Computer Centre Devinder K Banwet and Biplab Datta Introduction This paper investigates the quality of services offered to students in an institutional computer centre and measures tangible and intangible aspects of service quality, consumer satisfac tion, and post-visit intentions. The effect of service quality on post-visit intentions has been examined in a causal-path framework. The study indicates that service performance gen erally lags behind user's expectations. Im provement in the quality of services increases the level of satisfaction of the user. Tangible aspects of service performance have a stronger direct effect on post-visit intentions than in tangible aspects. Satisfied users intend to revisit the computer centre and advise others to visit it. Devinder K Banwet is Professor and Head at the Department of Management Studies, Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi and Biplab Datta is a Senior Lecturer at the National Institute of Construction Management and Research, New Delhi. There has been a phenomenal growth of computer - based services during the past few decades especially in India. However, research papers on the quality of services offered in a computer centre could not be found. An attempt has been made in this note to measure the quality of service offered by computer centres and relate it with post-visit intentions. The setting is an institutional computer centre in New Delhi. It is widely recognized that service quality and consumer satisfaction are essential for retaining present consumers and attracting new ones (Banwet and Datta, 1999). Retention of present customers is dependent upon the satisfaction with the current service. A modified SERVQUAL questionnaire has been used for this purpose. The importance of each service quality dimension, satisfaction related to those dimensions, and post-visit intentions have been measured. The relationship between tangible and intangible aspects of service quality, consumer satisfaction and post-visit intentions has been examined in a causal-path framework. Computer Centre Services The services offered to students in a computer centre can be divided into two quality dimensions: technical (outcome) quality and functional (process) quality (Gronroos, 1998). Technical quality or static quality can be expressed primarily as the quality of data processing and communication facilities available in the computer centre. These are tangible aspects of service quality. Functional quality or dynamic quality refers to the manner in which the services are delivered and are intangible in nature. The service achieves quality in perception when it meets or exceeds the level of the consumer's expectations. Service quality should be able to satisfy consumers (Bureau of Indian Standards, 1992). Satisfied consumers, in turn, would request additional services and tell others about it (Zeithaml, 1998). Vol. 25, No. 3, July-September Vikalpa

2 Tangible and Intangible Service The SERVQUAL scale measures five dimensions of service quality tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy based on the definition of service quality as the gap between customer expectations and perceptions of service (Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry, 1988). As perceptual measures sometimes explain more variance in service quality than the gap model (Donthu and Yoo, 1998), a performance-only measure of service quality has been argued to be superior to the SERVQUAL scale (Cronin and Taylor, 1992 and 1994). Liljander (1995) showed that the best approximation of perceived service quality is achieved by omitting comparison standards like the expectation variable altogether and only measuring the service experience. The theoretical value of the concept of dis-confirmation of expectations has been questioned in a study of the validity of the perceived service quality construct (Persson and Lindquist, 1997). However, researchers have demonstrated the application of the SERVQUAL scale in understanding customer expectations and perceptions of specific services and to target specific service elements requiring improvement. (Natarajan, Balaram and Venkataramana, 1999). Tangible aspects of service have been measured using the 4-item SERVQUAL tangibles scale and a similar 4-item outcome scale. Eighteen SERVQUAL items of reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy have been used to measure the intangible aspects. All Likert-type seven-point scales are anchored at "much better than I expected" and much worse than I expected." This modification is consistent with the methods used by scholars in the past (Brown, Churchill and Peter, 1993; Silverman and Grover, 1995; and Hartline and Ferrell, 1996). Respondents also evaluated a question on overall service quality in a seven-point scale anchored at "excellent" and "terrible." Consumer The growing body of literature suggests that service quality is a cognitive, evaluative, and objective concept, while satisfaction is an affective, feelingsbased, and subjective component (Dabholkar, 1995 and Shemwell, Yavas and Bilgin, 1998). A 13-item service satisfaction scale developed by Greenfield and Attkisson (1989) measures service satisfaction related to health care and consists of two predominant dimensions: perceived outcomes and practitioner's manners and skills (Negron-Velazquez et al. 1998). Consumer satisfaction has been operationalized in service satisfaction literature as multiple-item scales anchored at "very unsatisfied/displeased" and "very satisfied/pleased" (Donthu and Yoo, 1998; Shemwell, Yavas and Bilgin 1998; Greenfield and Attkisson 1989; and Patterson and Spreng, 1997). In this study, consumer satisfaction has been measured over the 22 SERVQUAL items and another four outcome items anchored at "much more than satisfied" and "much more than dissatisfied" on a seven-point scale. Respondents also evaluated a single question on overall satisfaction on a sevenpoint scale. Importance Ratings Several scholars have stressed the need to weight determinants of service quality and satisfaction by their importance as different facets may be of unequal importance to different people (Patterson and Spreng, 1997; Czepiel and Rosenberg, 1977; and LaTour and Peat, 1979). Although the importance measures provide valuable information on the severity of the requirement of different dimensions for achieving service quality and consumer satisfaction, some research has indicated that weighting the measures adds no new information (Cronin and Taylor, 1992 and Angur, 1998). In this study, respondents were requested to complete a 22-item, seven-point importance scale ranging from "neither important nor unimportant" to "most important." Post-Visit Intentions Consumers continue to be loyal to an organization if exit barriers are high, alternatives are unavailable or they are satisfied with the service. While both exit barriers and unavailability of alternatives are temporary situations, managers of organizations must consider consumer satisfaction the only viable longterm alternative to keep present customers and attract new ones (Andreassen and Lindestad, 1998). Satisfied users would like to revisit the computer centre and advise others to use it. Respondents were asked to answer two seven-point questions ranging between "always" and "never" on their intentions to "revisit the computer centre in the presence of similar alternatives" and "advise others to visit it." Vol. 25, No. 3, July-September Vikalpa

3 Conceptual Model Figure 1: Conceptual Model Although some early research indicated satisfaction as an antecedent to service quality (Bitner, 1990), later works have confirmed service quality as an antecedent to consumer satisfaction (Cronin and Taylor, 1992 and Shemwell, Yavas and Bilgin, 1998). Past research has also indicated that consumer satisfaction is a reliable predictor of revisit intentions (Cronin and Taylor, 1992 and Shemwell, Yavas and Bilgin, 1998). The proposed conceptual model (Figure 1) shows the underlying process through which improvement in tangible and intangible aspects of service quality and consumer satisfaction can lead to positive post-visit intentions. Method Survey The sample for the survey consisted of 130 students who used the computer centre. The respondents were requested to complete the questionnaire consisting of a service quality scale, a service satisfaction scale, a service importance scale, and the questions to measure their post-visit intentions. All the respondents completed and returned the questionnaires. Two returns were unusable and a final sample of 128 was obtained and used in the analysis. Measures Items of each sub-scale were subjected to reliability assessment. Results of the item analysis for performance against expectations, satisfaction, and importance scores are presented in Exhibit 1. The coefficient alpha values for sub-scales ranged from 0.53 to 0.93 indicating that that test was internally consistent (Cronbach, 1951). Excepting two instances, the item-to-total correlation coefficients for in- Items Perceptions/Expectations Weighted Perceptions/E Overall Quality (OQJ Weighted dividual performance items were greater than the 0.35 cut-off value (Nunnally, 1978). Reliability for linear combinations of the five sub-scales was also computed to assess the overall internal consistency of the measures. Overall coefficient alpha values for the scales ranged between 0.87 and These results were consistent with those reported in the literature (Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry, 1988, Cronin and Taylor, 1992 and Babakus and Boiler, 1991). Service quality was measured as the deviation of performance from the expectation. Pre-weighted and weighted performance and satisfaction scores were correlated with overall quality and satisfaction scores and the values for revisit intentions and service recommendations. The correlation coefficients were statistically significant in the predicted direction (Table 1). This result provided evidence of the predictive validity of the scales. Model Analysis The conceptual model (Figure 1) was tested with the collected data using LISREL* 8 (Joreskog and * LISREL 8 is a computer program which can be used to solve linear structural equation models (SEM) for describing the covariation and relationship between observed and latent variables using iterative procedures. Table 1: Correlation of Summated Scores (N=128) Perceptions/ Expectations (P/E) Weighted Perceptions/ Expectations Overall Quality Weighted Overall Revisit Intention Overall (OS) _ Revisit Intention * Recommendation * 0.418* Note: * implies significance at 0.05 level. Other values are significant at 0.01 level. Vol. 25, No. 3, July-September Vikalpa

4 Sorbom, 1989). The overall fit of the model was adequate with the Goodness of Fit Index (GFI) as 0.88 and the Comparative Fit Index (CFI) as The chi-square statistic was (28 df, p=0.79). The standardized path coefficients and other measures are shown in Table 2. Results and Discussion The data collected and the analysis of the conceptual model yielded the following conclusions: The service importance scale clearly indicates that students place more importance on the technical performance of the computer facilities than other service dimensions. This places a greater empha sis on the technical quality of the computing facility than the functional aspects. This result is consistent with past research, where the outcome factor was rated as the most important dimension affecting service satisfaction (Patterson and Spreng, 1997). Other technical aspects like staff's knowl edge in answering students' queries and their problem-solving ability are rated to be among the more important factors for achieving high quality in computer centre service. It is worthwhile to note that while students are not satisfied with many aspects of the service being provided to them (Figure 1), the condition and performance of the computing facilities seem to be lacking to a large extent. Although the staff is knowledge able and capable of solving students' problems, they are lacking in sensitivity to their needs and are unable to address them. The satisfaction/ dissatisfaction scale indicates that respondents are largely dissatisfied with the condition and per formance of computing facilities and are far from delighted while working in this computer centre. The correlation coefficients between the overall quality dimension and revisit intention or service recommendation seem to be significantly low. Although the investigation into the effect of price on such post-visit intentions was beyond the scope Table 2: Standardized Path Coefficients From To Tangible Quality Intangible Quality Consumer Consumer Post-Visit Intentions of this paper, it is worthwhile to note that respondents are likely to shift to another centre offering better computing facilities. Analysis of the conceptual model endorses the proposed causal order of the relationship between tangible and intangible aspects of perceived service quality, consumer satisfaction, and post-visit intentions. Both perceived service quality and satisfaction have a positive impact on post-visit intentions. The total effect from tangible service quality to post-visit intentions is more than the effect from intangible aspects of service quality (Table 3). Moreover, consumer satisfaction completely mediates the path between intangible service quality and post-visit intentions. These results are consistent with the findings of similar studies (Mittal, Kumar and Tsiros, 1999 and Patterson and Spreng, 1997). The result suggests that computer centre managers must strive towards providing a contemporary state-of-art computing facility. Moreover, they must satisfy users in order to ensure that the latter continue visiting the computer centre and advise others to use it. Conclusion The current study identifies areas for improving the quality of services being delivered in a computer centre. The perceived service performance is found to be generally lower than users' expectations. Students rate the technical performance of computing facilities as the most important dimension of service quality. Tangible aspects of service performance have a stronger direct and positive effect on favourable post-visit intentions than the intangible aspects, although the effects seem to change with time (Mittal, Kumar and Tsiros, 1999). An enhancement in the quality of service generally leads to the users' satisfaction, which in turn, leads to positive post-visit intentions. Providing state-of-art computing facilities can be the only way to ensure customer loyalty in this era of intense competition. Table 3: Service Quality Effects on Intentions Quality Aspect Tangible Intangible Effect on Post-Visit Intentions Direct Indirect Total (via ) Note: Coefficient t-values are significant at 0.05 level. Note: Coefficient t-values are significant at 0.05 level. Vol. 25, No. 3, July-September Vikalpa

5 Exhibit 1: Importance, Performance, and Mean Scores (N=128) Dimension Importance (I) X SD Item-total Correlation Performance/ Expectations (P/E) X SD Item-total Correlation (S) X Gap Scores SD Item-total (P/E-4)*I Correlation A. Tangibles a. = 0.59 a = 0.82 a = Condition of equipment Appearance of physical facilities Appearance of staff Ambience in the computer centre B. Reliability a = 0.73 a = 0.88 a = Staff's sincerity in serving you Staff's problemsolving ability Performance of service correctly Service provision in time Record keeping accuracy C. Responsiveness a = 0.78 a = 0.86 a = Waiting time for service Promptness in following requests Staffs willingness to help you Staff's availability to respond D. Assurance a = 0.53 a = 0.79 a = Trustworthiness of staff Ease in interacting with staff Courtesy shown by staff Staff's knowledge in answering E. Empathy a = 0.73 a = 0.88 a = Individual attention paid to you Personal attention paid to you Vol. 25, No. 3, July-September (Exhibit 1 Contd.) Vikalpa

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