Determinants of Customer Satisfaction on Service Quality: A Study of Railway Platforms in India

Service quality has been viewed as a determinant of customer satisfaction. Different dimensions of service quality have been considered by various researchers. This study identifies components of service quality of Indian Railways at railway platforms. The study is exploratory in nature and uses factor analysis to identify the most important factors of customer satisfaction with service quality. The research methodology is empirical, and a survey of passengers (customers) was conducted. The findings reveal that five factors are considered important for determining satisfaction with railway platforms, the most important of which are refreshments and behavioral factors. Managerial and theoretical implications are drawn and discussed in the paper, and a model is proposed. Introduction Satisfaction from service quality is usually evaluated in terms of technical quality and functional quality (Gronroos 1984). Usually, customers do not have much information about the technical aspects of a service; therefore, functional quality becomes the major factor from which to form perceptions of service quality Journal of Public Transportation, Vol. 13, No. 1, 2010 98 (Donabedian 1980, 1982). Service quality may be defined as customer perception of how well a service meets or exceeds their expectations (Czepiel 1990). Service quality can be measured in terms of customer perception, customer expectation, customer satisfaction, and customer attitude (Sachdev and Verma 2004). Ekinci (2003) indicates that the evaluation of service quality leads to customer satisfaction. Rust and Oliver (1994) define satisfaction as the “customer fulfillment response,” which is an evaluation as well as an emotion-based response to a service. This paper is an attempt to put forth the role of service quality in affecting customer satisfaction in the context of railway services, with special reference to platforms in the North Central Zone of Indian Railways. Literature Review Various scholars have considered different dimensions of service quality. Gronoos (1884) considers technical, functional, and reputational quality; Lehtinen and Lehtinen (1982) consider interactive, physical, and corporate quality; and Hedvall and Paltschik (1989) focus on willingness and ability to serve and the physical and psychological access to the service. In conceptualizing the basic service quality model, Parasuraman et al. (1985) identified 10 key determinants of service quality as perceived by the service provider and the consumer, namely, reliability, responsiveness, competence, access, courtesy, communication, credibility, security, understanding/ knowing the customer, and tangibility to formulate a service quality framework, SERVQUAL. Later (in 1988), they modified the framework to five determinants: reliability, assurance, tangibles, empathy, and responsiveness, or RATER. The techniques of customer satisfaction analysis allow the critical aspects of the supplied services to be identified and customer satisfaction to be increased (Cuomo 2000). Table 1 summarizes the findings in the literature consulted to understand various determinants of basic service quality. Table 1. Determinants of Quality Quality Determinants Authors Technical aspects, functional aspects Gronroos (1984) Functional aspects Donabedian (1982, 1980) Gronroos (1984) Customer perception, customer expectation Czepiel (1990) Sachdev and Verma (2004) TCRP Report 100 Customer expectation, customer satisfaction and customer attitude Sachdev and Verma (2004)