Marketing Services: Competing Through Quality, Essay Example

Customer satisfaction is related to service quality because good service contributes to increased customer satisfaction (Brooks International, n.d.). However in some cases, customer satisfaction can lead to a feeling of increased service quality, independently of whether the product is effective. In a majority of cases, a customer’s bias can persuade him or her reporting that the quality of a product is positive. For example, if a customer enjoys a certain type of beauty product that has not been available for some time, he or she will want it more. When the product is released, the customer will become excited over it. Even if the quality is less than that of the previous product, it is likely that the customer will be satisfied due to the want for the item.

Customer satisfaction and service quality are both important and one is not more important than the other. Marketing teams can use both of these factors to sell products. Most of the time, increased service quality contributes to enhanced customer satisfaction (Berry et al., 1991). This is advantageous because businesses can use this increase in customer satisfaction in order to continue to make sales. On the other hand, customer satisfaction contributes to service quality, because it occasionally pressures these same companies to continue to enhance their products in order to further increase their profitability (Sureshchandar et al., 2002). While this method is dependent on the particular product, the role between customer satisfaction and service quality is cyclical in the majority of situations.

In conclusion, customer satisfaction and service quality are related because one contributes to the increase of the other in both directions. It is important for marketing teams to understand this relationship and to take advantage of it in practice, which will ultimately generate a greater degree of profit for their organization (Gitman et al., 2005).

References

Berry LL, Parasuraman A. (1991). Marketing Services: Competing Through Quality. New York: Free Press.

Brooks International. (n.d.). Quality and Customer Satisfaction. Retrieved from http://www.brooksint.com/core-competencies/quality-a-customer-satisfaction

Gitman LJ, McDaniel CD. (2005). The Future of Business: The Essentials. Mason, Ohio: South-Western.

Sureshchandar GS, Rajendran C. Anantharaman. (2002). The relationship between service quality and customer satisfaction – a factor specific approach.Journal of Services Marketing,16(4): 363 – 379.