Exploring Study on the Effect of Perceived Port Service Quality on Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty

Chang, Jae-Gon; Lee, Hong Girl; Lee, Cheol-Yeong

Journal of Navigation and Port Research 2008;32(7):561-568.
Published online September 30, 2008.

Exploring Study on the Effect of Perceived Port Service Quality on Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty

Jae-Gon Chang, Hong Girl Lee, Cheol-Yeong Lee

Abstract

Due to the rapid changes in world trade and shipping environment, today's ports face ever-increasing competition, from adjacent competing ports. To this reason, port service quality has been recognized as an important strategy to take competitive advantage for those competition In general, service quality has effect on customer loyalty, and customer loyalty is the resource to sustain competitive advantage which service providers or service producers. By improving customer loyalty, companies can get more benefits and added value. However, this causality of port service quality has not been clearly identified Thus, various empirical studies in relation to port service quality are needed The aim of this study is to analyze the effect of perceived port service quality on customer satisfaction and loyalty. To achieve this aim, we established 8 hypotheses based on SERVPERF in order to test correlations of 5 dimensions of port service, port service quality, customer satisfaction, and customer loyalty. From the result of the hypothesis testing, we found that customer satisfaction and port service quality do not effect customer loyalty in spite of high effect of port service on customer satisfaction.

Key Words: Port service quality;Customer satisfaction;Customer loyalty;SERVPERF; Structural equation modeling