Quantitative Research
The article chosen to be analyzed for this assignment is highly relevant to the topic on the relationship between customer service perception and customer satisfaction.
The most important thing to consider here is whether the title of the source serves its purpose. To answer it shortly, it does. The title gives the potential readers a clear and accurate idea of what the paper is all about and what type of methodology was going to be used.
The Problem
Customer service has long been identified and considered as one of the most important aspects of organizational management. Customer service can be defined as the process or act of delivering service to the customers in all three phases namely the pre-purchase, the actual purchase, and the post-purchase phases. In some literatures, pre-sales, sales, and post-sales services are used; they can nonetheless be used interchangeably. Despite the abundance of available literatures about the topic, a significant number of organizational managers still show a certain level of ignorance and indifference towards customer service. One possibility is that these are managers who fail to realize how important it is to actually care for the customers; another theory suggests that there are simply managers who are wired differently and so they tend to shy away from customer-centric strategies and methods of organizational management. One thing these managers do not realize is that customer service perception is but one component of a broader outcome or metric that is called customer satisfaction. What businesses should really aim for is a high level of customer satisfaction; customer service is just one of the components that contribute to the index-like characteristic of customer satisfaction. The main problem therefore is that most organizational management professional fail to see the potential disconnect between these two typically connected variables.
Design and Methodology
The purpose of the chosen quantitative study was to examine the relationship between service quality perception and customer satisfaction. Perception tends to be subjective because a person’s words or actions, even the ones that are directly related to service provision or product sales, are open to a lot of possible interpretations. A sales person or in this case a banking professional engaging in upselling practices may be perceived by the clients as rude, unethical, unprofessional, or even harassing. The same principle applies to all industries, be it related to the banking, educational, or any other industry. There were two variables measured for this study: the overall level of customer satisfaction (i.e. the dependent variable) and the service quality perception (i.e. the dependent variable). In order to make a viable quantitative analysis and came up with a valid and reliable answer to their research question, they had to come up with the sources of figures for these two variables. For the service quality perception, the researchers used the quota sampling technique to recruit respondents. The respondents were clients of Islamic banks who were aged 18 years and older. Personal interviews using a custom questionnaire aimed at obtaining information about their perceptions on their respective bank’s service quality were then conducted. It is important to note that the data gathering procedure for this variable was divided into two: the first part focused on the fully-fledged Islamic banking institutions. The second part focused on the dual-banking institutions. Out of the 660 questionnaires that were distributed, 440 were duly completed. This is equivalent to a 66.7% response rate. The data for service quality was also obtained from the interview (via questionnaire) process.
The questionnaire focused on obtaining information from the respondents for the following six dimensional structures: tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy, and the compliance dimensions to measure the perceived banking service quality. The use of the questionnaire was a good move for the researchers because they are dealing with hundreds of respondents and it would be difficult, time-consuming, and unreliable to use a non-questionnaire-based data gathering procedure. The respondents would also be the most credible source of information that the researchers can access because they are the ones who have a first-hand experience in dealing with the banks and receiving their service. Asking the bank managers and employees to answer the questionnaire would prove to be a wrong move here because that would incite bias and even a possible conflict of interest. This was a good job so far in minimizing the level of subjective bias. The only problem with the research design and methodology that was used is that it may be too focused on perception. Perception is a highly subjective variable. Therefore, if there is going to be one major weakness of this research design in terms of the four criteria for quantitative research, it would be on the objectivity part—because perceptions, regardless whether a number-based rating system was used, would always be subjective. In terms of the generalizability, the researchers did a good job because there recruited a large-enough sample population size.
Presentation and Analysis of Data
The results of the research showed that “the proportion of Malaysian Muslims’ awareness of the Islamic banking products and services were high compared to non-Muslim customers; the majority of the Islamic banking customers were satisfied with the overall service quality provided by their banks” . This indicates that the researchers were, in fact, able to identify and interpret the relevance of the perceived customer service quality on their clients’ actual level of customer satisfaction. This also confirms the presence of a directly proportional relationship between perceived service quality levels and the clients’ actual level of service satisfaction. In order to analyze the data, the researchers computed the average rating (from a scale of 1 to 7, in accordance with the questionnaire’s ratings legend) for all questions across the six dimensions. They also computed for the p value. The averaged values were then interpreted using the same legend with 1 being very unsatisfied and 7 being very satisfied. All the interpretations were based on the questionnaire’s scale. They also tested the reliability of the questionnaire using the Cronbach alpha coefficient. The results of which were unsatisfactory because the coefficient exceeded the minimum standard, although just minimally. Still, one cannot discount the fact that the research methodology that the researchers used enabled them to come up with a logical and systematic answer to their research question. In terms of the overall presentation and data analysis though, they were both easy to follow and understand—in fact, easy enough to be replicated in a future research.
Discussions and Conclusions
In conclusion, the researchers did a good job in coming up with a methodology that enabled them to answer their main question. The use of the quantitative approach was appropriate considering the nature of their research question—a closed ended one. The findings showed that there is indeed a direct correlation between perceived customer service quality and the actual level of customer satisfaction. Some of the major limitations of this study, however, is that its results and findings may only be applied to Islamic banks and that the researchers practically failed in addressing the objectivity aspect of conducting a quantitative research because they used a research instrument (i.e. a survey questionnaire) that relies on people’s perceptions—which is a highly subjective variable. In terms of the validity, generalizability, and reliability, however, they did an above average job.
References
Amin, M., and Z. Isa. "An Examination of the Relationship between Service Quality Perception and Customer Satisfaction: A SEM Approach towards Malaysian Islamic Banking." International Journal of Islamic and Middle Eastern Finance and Management, 2008: 191-209.
