Impact of Service Quality and Patient’s Satisfaction on Patient Loyalty

Literature Review

Customer satisfaction is the sole purpose of every organization, as it is the basic foundation of every mission statement of an organization. It is the ultimate goal of every organization to achieve maximum customer satisfaction. Customer satisfaction is termed as the feeling of pleasure or disappointment caused from comparing a product’s real performance with the expected performance.

In this section we will explain the definitions and concepts that are related to the research questions mentioned in the introduction. We explain them with the help of research work that is already done by the researchers. The researchers have already worked to explore different dimensions that can increase the satisfaction level of a patient and hence increase patient loyalty. Based on the literature, research gaps and theoretical framework is described in this section and proposed research model is represented that consist of one dependent, one independent and one mediator.

Service Quality

Service quality is termed as the measurement of gap between the perceptions and expectations of customers about the service. Most of the companies measure the quality of their services as feedback and make corrective measures in order to provide best quality services (Parasuraman et al., 1985). Service and quality are two different things to gain commitment and satisfaction. The main goal of any company or organization doing business in the market is to make its customer satisfied and the customer who is satisfied by your services will automatically become the loyal one. Therefore, while expecting satisfied and loyal customer, providing high quality service and facility is mandatory (Richard, 2002). Service is an activity or task that is used to benefit customer by making some adjustments accepted by the customer (Piercy et al., 2002). Customer service is raised to support the core product of the company (Zeithaml, 2000). The comparison between the expectations and performance experience in using the service will result in the assessment of the consumer and is highly important (Gronroos, 1990). User’s experience can be differentiated into three categories, that are technical quality, functional quality, and corporate image. Technical quality is the quality which can be felt, service delivery is referred to as functional quality and the image of the company is referred to as corporate image. If the expectations of the consumer are according to what he actually felt after taking benefit from the services, it means that the quality of services is good. In other words, we can say that if the consumer’s impression is positive, it means that customer is satisfied by the service provided. If the perceived quality is below the expectations of the consumer than the quality of services must be low.

Satisfaction

Customer satisfaction is referred to as a specific evaluation of the services provided by the company, it is assessed by the experience of the consumer during the process of service delivery. Satisfaction involves feeling of happiness or disappointment which is derived from the comparison of impression between the actual service delivery and the expected service delivery (Kotler, 2003). Many researchers have found that the patient satisfaction cannot be equated with the customer satisfaction or consumer satisfaction. The marketing conceptual models do not easily fit for many common medical situations and scenarios (Newsome and Wright, 1999). There is a difference between a consumer’s expectations and a patient’s expectations. The role played by the patient’s expectations, perceptions and disconfirmations are not yet understood. There are many authors who claim that the patients’ feel or experience themselves as a part of the healthcare system, and it is possible that the patient may act silent and do not evaluate the provided service during the treatment. The patient may have some complex relevant and important beliefs that cannot be expressed in terms of satisfaction or dissatisfaction (Williams, 1994). William stated that the results to assess a patient’s satisfaction should be interpreted in the context of the total number of assumptions or expectations the patient possess, by which the patient actually means satisfied. It is explored that patient satisfaction acts as a health indicator by comparing the patient satisfaction with the general health status, it is assumed that the patient satisfaction may benefit as a health indicator (Mpinga, Chastonay, 2011). Further it was concluded that, to indicate a patient’s health status patient’s satisfaction can be used.