Chapter 11 Developing a Service Culture
DOI: 10.23912/978-1-910158-39-5-2737 | ISBN: 978-1-910158-39-5 |
Published: September 2015 | Component type: chapter |
Published in: Winter Sport Tourism | Parent DOI: 10.23912/978-1-910158-39-5-2687 |
Abstract
Service quality has been increasingly identified as a key factor in differentiating service products and building a competitive advantage in tourism. The process by which customers evaluate a purchase, thereby determining satisfaction and likelihood of repurchase, is important to all marketers, but especially to services marketers because, unlike their manufacturing counterparts, they have fewer objective measures of quality by which to judge their production. Service quality can be defined as customers’ perceptions of the service component of a product, and these perceptions are said to be based on five dimensions: reliability, assurance, empathy, responsiveness, and tangibles (Parasuraman et al., 1988). Many researchers believe that an outgrowth of service quality is customer satisfaction, measured as the difference between the service that a customer expects and the perceived quality of what is actually delivered (Reichheld & Sasser, 1990). Satisfying customers has always been a key component of the tourism industry, but never before has it been so critical. In these uncertain times, and with increased competition, knowing how to win and keep customers is the single most important business skill that anyone can learn. Customer satisfaction and loyalty are the keys to long-term profitability, and keeping the customer happy is everybody’s business. Becoming customer-centered and exceeding customer expectations are requirements for business success. Well-publicized research shows that companies can increase profits from 25 to 85 per cent by retaining just five per cent more of their customers (Reichheld & Sasser, 1990), and research indicates that merely ‘satisfying’ customers is no longer enough to ensure loyalty (Heskett et al., 1997). This means that it is not enough just to please customers. Each customer should become so delighted with all elements of their association with an organization that buying from someone else is unthinkable.
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Contributors
- Dr. Simon Hudson, University of South Carolina (Author)
- Louise Hudson, Freelance researcher, and writer (Author)
For the source title:
- Dr. Simon Hudson, University of South Carolina (Author)
- Louise Hudson, Freelance researcher, and writer (Author)
Cite as
Hudson & Hudson, 2015
Hudson, D.S. & Hudson, L. (2015) "Chapter 11 Developing a Service Culture" In: Hudson, D.S. & Hudson, L. (ed) . Oxford: Goodfellow Publishers http://dx.doi.org/10.23912/978-1-910158-39-5-2737
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