SERVICE QUALITY AND WORD OF MOUTH IN QUICK SERVICE RESTAURANTS - CONSIDERING THE MEDIATING EFFECT OF CUSTOMER SATISFACTION

Abstract

The study examines the impact of service quality parameters and price fairness
on customer satisfaction and word of mouth generation for quick-service
restaurants (QSRs) for an emerging nation - Bangladesh. To add to this, the
author analyzes the effect of the mediating variable, customer satisfaction,
between service quality attributes and word of mouth generation. Through a
comprehensive literature review, a modified SERVQUAL model comprising of
tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, and convenience attributes was proposed
to evaluate the effect on Customer Satisfaction (CS) and Word of Mouth (WOM)
in the context of the QSRs. The study utilizes a structured questionnaire survey
targeting customers visiting selected quick-service restaurants in Dhaka,
Bangladesh. The study reveals that the SERVQUAL attributes- reliability,
responsiveness, tangibles, and convenience- have significant associations with
customer satisfaction and WOM. However, price fairness does not impact
customer satisfaction and WOM generation in the case of QSRs. Furthermore,
CS partially mediates the relationship between the modified SERVQUAL
parameters and WOM generation. To the best of the author’s knowledge, this
study extends previous research on using the SERVQUAL model to analyze the
impact of service quality on CS. Furthermore, the author believes this is one
of the pioneer studies that examines the adoption of a modified SERVQUAL
model to measure the effect on CS and WOM in the QSR setting in the context
of Bangladesh.