Service Quality, Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty of Mobile Communication Industry in China

Abstract

Previous studies have shown that the most important factor affecting customer loyalty of service industry is service quality. However, on the part whether service quality has a direct or indirect affect on customer loyalty, the scholars’ views vary apparently. Some studies suggest that service quality has a direct and fundamental influence on customer loyalty (Bai Changhong and Liu Zhi, 2002) ; but some studies have shown that service quality not only directly affects customer loyalty, but also indirectly impacts customer loyalty by influencing customer satisfaction and perceived value(Cronin et al., 2000) .Currently, there are less domestic articles specifically on the relationship between service quality and customer loyalty of mobile communication industry. Besides, literatures studied customer loyalty as a whole variable, not further breaking down into multiple dimensions. Based on this, this paper summarized previous study results, established an effect mechanism model among service quality, customer satisfaction and customer loyalty of mobile communication industry, and did a statistical test on model assumptions by using customer investigation data of Heilongjiang Mobile Company, which provides theoretical guidance for mobile service management based on the discussion of the hypothesis test results. For data collection, the sample was comprised of Harbin city, and the targets are mobile users. The survey is taken by random sampling. A total of 300 questionnaires were delivered, and 276 questionnaires were recovered, with a recovery rate of 92.9%. Excluding invalid questionnaires, 249 questionnaires were valid, which means the effective rate was 82.6%. This study adapted Cronbach's α coefficient to assess the scale reliability. This study conducted validity test on the questionnaire from three aspects: content validity, construct validity and convergent validity. This study tested goodness of fit mainly from the absolute and relative fit indexes. The hypotheses testing results of the study are shown . Overall, four assumptions have not been supported .The ultimate affective relationship of service quality, customer satisfaction and customer loyalty is demonstrated on figure 2. On the whole, the service quality of communication Industry not only has a direct positive significant affect on customer loyalty, but also has an indirect positive significant affect on customer loyalty by service quality; the affective mechanism and extent of customer loyalty are different which is affected by each dimension of service quality. This paper uses the questionnaires of existing literature from home and abroad, which have been tested in empirical research. All questions adapted seven points Liker-type. This article made reference to PZB SERVQUAL scale. Service quality is divided into five projects: tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy, and questions are simplified into nineteen. The measurement of customer satisfaction mainly made reference to Fornell (1992) and Han Xiaoyun (2003) scale, and finally chose four questions. Based on the reference of Gronholdt (2000) and Wang Chunxiao (2004) scale, this paper chose three indicators such as price tolerance, first choice, and complaint reaction of to measure attitudinal loyalty, and chose three indicators such as repurchase intention, recommendation, and reputation to measure behavioral loyalty. Through collection and collation of literature data, this paper built a model of the relationship among service quality, customer satisfaction and customer loyalty of mobile communication, and took China Mobile in Harbin in Heilongjiang as conducting an empirical test on the model and obtaining some useful conclusions：First, service quality of mobile communication is formed by five factors: Tangibility, Reliability, Responsiveness, Assurance and Empathy. On the basis of the scale designed by PZB SERVQUAL, the paper designed a measurement scale of service quality for the mobile communications industry, and obtained five factors through the exploratory factor analysis. The five factors fit basically with the five elements, indicating the concept of five elements of service quality for mobile communications industry. Second, service quality of mobile communication has a direct and indirect positive effect on attitudinal loyalty, and indirect effect is produced through intermediary variable: customer satisfaction. Service quality has a direct and indirect positive effect on behavioral loyalty, and indirect effect is produced through two intermediary variables: customer satisfaction and attitudinal loyalty. This shows that better service quality of mobile communication and higher customer satisfaction will make the attitudinal to service providers more active and show loyalty to service providers much easier. In addition, the effect mechanism of all dimensions of service quality on all dimensions of customer loyalty is different. Third, customer satisfaction plays a significant intermediary role among service quality, attitudinal loyalty and behavioral loyalty of mobile communication, indicating the improvement of service quality can increase customer satisfaction, and it is more easier for satisfied customers to become loyal customers; and attitudinal loyalty plays a significant intermediary role between service quality and behavioral loyalty of mobile communication, indicating that only attitudinal and behavior loyal customers are truly loyal customers. The research conclusion has some reference on the Chinese telecom operators and others to upgrade their service quality. There are two limitation in this paper,: first, all data in this article is collected in Heilongjiang area，so there might be common method bias, therefore it will be disturb the result; secondly, this study discuss the relationship between service quality and customer loyalty, and set customer satisfaction as mediator, but we did not consider other factor, like customer value, customer Consumer Features, we will continue this research in the future.