Measuring service quality and a comparative analysis in the passenger carriage of airline industry

Abstract

Acquiring new customers and retaining existing customers have long been two important subjects for service organizations. Creating difference in every section of the service is a key factor to success on realization of these purposes. When service quality is thought as an important factor for creating difference in service industry, the importance of estimating service quality provided to customers comes out. Estimating service quality is a hard issue for service firms because services are intangible, heterogeneous, perishable, and inseparable. Estimating service quality provides service firms how to manage their marketing operations appropriately. Therefore, this estimation should be performed with right measurement scales. In this study, first, service marketing literature was reviewed and then data were gathered via questionnaire forms. Lastly exploratory factor analysis was conducted and two scales which estimate service quality were compared in the research. The findings reveal that the weighted Servperf scale has explained perceived service quality more much than the weighted Servqual scale did in the research.