ANALYSING THE RELATIONSHIPS AMONG SERVICE QUALITY AND OTHER VARIABLES WITH STRUCTURAL EQUATION MODELLING ON GSM SECTOR

Öz

The main factor in ensuring customer satisfaction is customer loyalty (Oliver, 1999). Dissatisfied customers with a company will not use the service of that company anymore. Therefore companies try to satisfy existing customers using different methods. However, customer loyalty does not depend only customer satisfaction (Fornell, 1992). As a result of many studies carried out about customer loyalty, on different service sectors, it has been found that service quality, perceived value, image, price, switching costs and other marketing variables also affect customer loyalty. These variables have direct or indirect effect on customer loyalty. This study was performed in the GSM sector. The reason for this is that the industry is growing and is still an emerging sector in Turkey and only a few studies were conducted in this sector about the relationships among marketing variables. Therefore the aim of this study is to find out the direct and indirect relationships among service quality, price, image, perceived value, switching cost, satisfaction and loyalty by using structural equation modelling. To the best of our knowledge, no previous study has used these variables at the same time in the GSM sector. However some of these variables were used on some studies on GSM sector. It has been reported that service quality, image, switching cost, perceived value and satisfaction affect customer loyalty (Aydın and Özer, 2005; Aydın et al. 2007; Chadha and Kapoor, 2009; Deng et al. 2009; Lim et al. 2006; Kim et al. 2004; Seth et al. 2005). In order to measure service quality, image, switching cost, perceived value, satisfaction and customer loyalty, related literature was extensively reviewed. The items used in service quality scale were adopted from the Parasuraman et al. (1988, 1991), Carvalho and Leite (1999), Gagliano and Hathcote (1994), Markoulidakis et al. (2000) and Naghshineh and Schwartz (1996) studies. Customer satisfaction scale was adopted from Oliver (1980), Yi (1991) and Feick (2001). The customer loyalty scale was adopted from Narayandas (1996). The perceived value scale was adopted from Cronin et al. (2000) and Sweeney and Soutar (2001). Switching cost, image and price scales were adopted from Guiltinan (1989), Bayol et al. (2001) and Shin and Kim (2008), respectively. A questionnaire was prepared with these items, which includes 21 items for service quality scale, 4 items for each customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, switching costs and perceived value scales. Image scale includes 5 and price scale includes 3 items. Survey data were obtained from Usak University, Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences' students. 623 usable questionnaires were obtained. The data were analyzed by using SPSS 18.0 and LISREL 8.51 software. Reliability analysis, exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling techniques were used. Reliability of the each scale was measured by using Cronbach’s alpha coefficient. It has been found that each scale’s coefficient is greater than 0.60, therefore the scales were reliable. Exploratory factor analysis was employed to identify the dimensionality of the service quality scale. It has been found out that service quality is a multi-dimensional construct and these dimensions are responsiveness, assurance, empathy, tangibles and network quality. Exploratory factor analysis was also employed for customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, switching costs and perceived value scales and it has been found that these scales are uni-dimensional. After employing exploratory factor analysis, a confirmatory factor analysis was employed to confirm the factor structure extracted in the exploratory factor analysis. Goodness of fit measures obtained from confirmatory factor analysis show that the items used for the scales are consistent and the model is valid and reliable. Then, in order to find out the relationships among service quality, price, image, perceived value, switching cost, satisfaction and loyalty structural equation modelling was employed. It was hypothesized that service quality has positive effect on perceived value, customer loyalty, customer satisfaction and image; price has effect on perceived value, customer loyalty and customer satisfaction; image has positive effect on perceived value, customer loyalty and customer satisfaction; perceived value has positive effect on customer loyalty and customer satisfaction; customer satisfaction has positive effect on customer loyalty; switching cost has positive effect on customer loyalty. Goodness of fit measures obtained from structural equation model show that the model is valid and reliable. According to structural equation model results, service quality has a positive direct effect on the image. Service quality has significant direct and indirect (mediating role of image and perceived value) influences on customer satisfaction. Service quality has no direct effect on customer loyalty, however it has on indirect effect on customer loyalty by mediating role of image, customer satisfaction and perceived value. Perceived value was significantly affected from service quality both directly and indirectly by mediating role of image. Image has an indirect effect on customer satisfaction by mediating role of perceived value and it has both direct and indirect effect on customer loyalty. Price has no direct effect on customer loyalty and customer satisfaction, however price affects customer satisfaction by mediating role of perceived value and it affects customer loyalty by mediating role of perceived value and customer satisfaction. Perceived value has a significant indirect effect on customer loyalty by mediating role of customer satisfaction. Switching cost has no effect on customer loyalty. Study results show that, the most influential variable on loyalty is satisfaction, followed by service quality, perceived value, image and price respectively. Satisfaction was affected by service quality, perceived value, price and image respectively. The most influential variable on perceived value is price, followed by service quality and image respectively. According to these findings, in order to have loyal customers, GSM operators should improve primarily their service quality and price.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• Structural Equation Model, GSM Operators, Service Quality, Loyalty, Satisfaction

GSM SEKTÖRÜNDE HİZMET KALİTESİ VE DİĞER DEĞİŞKENLER ARASINDAKİ İLİŞKİLERİN YAPISAL EŞİTLİK MODELİ İLE ANALİZİ

Öz

Bu çalışmada, hizmet kalitesi, fiyat, imaj, algılanan değer, değiştirme maliyeti, memnuniyet ve bağlılık arasındaki doğrudan ve dolaylı ilişkiler yapısal eşitlik modeli kullanılarak analiz edilmiştir. Çalışma GSM sektöründe uygulanmıştır. Bunun nedeni bu sektörün büyümekte ve halen gelişmekte olan bir sektör olması ve daha önceden bu sektörde yapılan benzer çalışmaların sayısının az olmasıdır. Çalışmanın verileri Uşak Üniversitesi İktisadi ve İdari Bilimler Fakültesi öğrencilerinden elde edilmiştir. GSM operatörlerinde algılanan hizmet kalitesinin çok boyutlu bir yapıya sahip olduğu ve bu boyutların Tepkisellik, İnandırıcılık, Duygudaşlık, Somutluk ve Şebeke Kalitesi olduğu bulunmuştur. Çalışmanın sonucunda, müşteri bağlılığına en fazla etkiyi memnuniyetin yaptığı, bunu sırasıyla hizmet kalitesi, algılanan değer, imaj ve fiyatın izlediği görülmüştür. Memnuniyete en fazla etkiyi sırasıyla hizmet kalitesi, algılanan değer, fiyat ve imaj yapar. Algılanan değer üzerinde en yüksek etki fiyatındır, bunu hizmet kalitesi ve imaj izler. Bu bulgulara göre, GSM operatörlerinin sadık müşterilere sahip olabilmesi için, öncelikle hizmet kalitesi ve fiyatlarında iyileştirme yapması gerekir.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• Yapısal Eşitlik Modeli, GSM Operatörleri, Hizmet Kalitesi, Bağlılık, Memnuniyet