Angelos Pantouvakis and Konstantinos Lymperopoulos
The purpose of this paper is to attempt to explore the relative importance of the physical and interactive elements of service on overall satisfaction, particularly when these…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to attempt to explore the relative importance of the physical and interactive elements of service on overall satisfaction, particularly when these elements are moderated by the point‐of‐view of repeat and new customers. Evidence is drawn from the transport sector industry.
Design/methodology/approach
The data for this study come from 388 ferry passengers. Regression analysis was used to test the influence of each parameter and SEM employed to assess the moderating effects of repeat patronage on satisfaction.
Findings
The results suggest that the physical elements of the service are of greater importance in determining customer evaluations on overall satisfaction than interactive features of service. The results also suggest that these effects are not just direct but also moderated by the repeat use of the service. Finally, both elements are very good predictors of overall satisfaction.
Research limitations/implications
As results are obtained from only one industry, generalisations should be drawn with care.
Practical implications
The presumption of managers when looking at satisfaction as the primary, even sole, gauge of customer loyalty appears to be erroneous. The consequence is potential misallocations of resources due to myopic focus on customers' satisfaction increase. The findings suggest that attention should be given to increasing the loyalty of passengers/customers.
Originality/value
This study suggests a moderating role for repeat and new customers in the satisfaction‐loyalty relationship and implies that to maximise investments in service improvements based on a focus on increasing physical satisfaction rather than seeking to develop an interactive “delight” to the customer.
Details
Keywords
Constantine Lymperopoulos, Ioannis E. Chaniotakis and Magdalini Soureli
This project aims to offer an in‐depth understanding of bank customers' buying behaviour in relation to the selection process, and provide bank managers with useful insight into…
Abstract
Purpose
This project aims to offer an in‐depth understanding of bank customers' buying behaviour in relation to the selection process, and provide bank managers with useful insight into the development of high quality relationships with customers.
Design/methodology/approach
The research involved a review of available literature on bank choice criteria, the fieldwork, the identification of factors that affect customers' choice, and the development of related managerial implications. A research questionnaire was administered by personal interviews to 1,092 bank customers in the greater area of Athens.
Findings
Four distinct factors were identified as the main choice criteria that influence consumers' bank choice. Bank service quality is the most important element that customers consider in order to select their mortgage providers and establish a long‐term relationship with them. The other three refer to product attributes, access, and communication.
Research limitations/implications
Limitations relate to the use of non‐probability sample and the restricted geographical area of the field research. This study contributes to the body of academic knowledge by shedding more light into the role of service quality in the selection process of mortgage provider.
Practical implications
An understanding of consumer buying behaviour with respect to mortgage loans is important to bank managers for the attainment of organisational objectives that are focused on building beneficial customer relationships. Management guidelines for improving service quality are presented.
Originality/value
The paper manages to identify the perceived important characteristics of banks and particularly highlight the role of service quality in bank selection for mortgages and further development of long‐term relationships.
Details
Keywords
Jiuai Sun, Xiaoping Xu, Abdul Rehman Farooq, Lyndon Neal Smith and Melvyn Lionel Smith
This paper aims to review state of the art of techniques for dimensioning chronic wounds, and validate the possibilities of employing a new proposed optical imaging approach for…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to review state of the art of techniques for dimensioning chronic wounds, and validate the possibilities of employing a new proposed optical imaging approach for general task of wound assessment.
Design/methodology/approach
Current techniques used for quantifying wound surface are reviewed and evaluated from various perspectives to exam their usability in wound care clinical settings. A photometric stereo (PS) approach will be identified and verified to work as an alternative solution to better satisfy practical requirements on quantifying the dimension of real and mocked wounds.
Findings
Both contact and contactless approaches provide some useful functions for wound management; however, new imaging modalities are still required for achieving good portability, affordability and applicability in assisting decision-making in clinical settings. The PS approach can work as a potential solution to provide these functionalities as well as dense geometrical and color texture information of measured areas. The experiments demonstrate that the new approach is able to conveniently produce comparable results to those from latest stereo vision-based techniques.
Research limitations/implications
This work proposed and initially verified the potential of PS technique for the task of wound measurement. Substantial improvements on the prototype and more clinical trials are still required to validate the new technique before it is accepted as a tool for practical wound measurement.
Originality/value
This new PS approach has good potential to reliably measure the dimension of wounds as well as recover their color texture which could contain additional valuable information for predicting a healing procedure for those wound occurring deeper underneath the skin surface.