Search results

Notes that the establishment and maintenance of long‐term relationships with consumers is an important focus of marketing activities in many organizations. Examines gender differences in satisfaction and loyalty as influenced by the passage of time in a high‐involvement service setting. The study was based on a survey of 150 women and 133 men at two separate time periods – immediately after receiving a health care service and again two years later. The results indicate that overall satisfaction and behavioral intentions declined between the initial time of the service encounter and the time of the follow‐up survey for both men and women. However, women also experienced a decrease in composite satisfaction, as well as satisfaction with the physician, nursing staff, privacy and pain control, room, and surgery, whereas men only reported a decline in satisfaction with the physician and nursing staff.

This paper reports research on the impact of mass communication and the passage of time on consumer satisfaction and loyalty in a high‐involvement service setting. The study was based on a survey of two groups of individuals. A short‐time lag group consisted of individuals who were surveyed immediately after receiving a service and one year later. A long‐time lag group consisted of individuals who were surveyed immediately after they received a service and two years later. Satisfaction and loyalty decreased from the initial time of the service encounter for both the short‐time and long‐time groups. While satisfaction and loyalty declined over time for both groups, the results revealed no difference in the change in satisfaction between the two groups. In addition, exposure to mass communication did not influence the change in satisfaction and intention to return over time.

This paper develops a framework that links satisfaction with structure and process attributes to global satisfaction and behavioral intentions. The authors develop and present a structural equation model that encompasses these relationships based on a survey of 635 consumers of healthcare services. The results indicate that satisfaction with both structure and process attributes have a significant impact on global satisfaction. Global satisfaction was found to directly influence both intention to recommend and intention to return to the healthcare service provider.

This paper examined engineers’ satisfaction with services of a building permission unit at a local municipality using a focus group, a questionnaire and follow‐up interviews. Obtained satisfaction indexes are reported. Differences in satisfaction levels were tested using parametric t‐tests and Kruskal‐Wallis non‐parametric tests according to engineer’s specialization, size of office and number of building projects submitted to the building permission unit. The results indicate no significant statistical differences in satisfaction levels based on specialization (civil engineers versus architectural engineers), size of the consulting office, or the number of projects submitted. However, satisfaction indexes were not high. They were about 60 per cent.