Determinants of Client Expectations for Accounting Services

Abstract

As the market for accounting services becomes more competitive, accounting service providers must strive to continually improve service quality to attract new clients and retain existing clients. Client expectations provide a benchmark that must be met or exceeded for the client to perceive that high quality services have been delivered (Ades 1988; Aquila and Koltin 1992). Based on a review of accounting and service marketing literature, this paper developed a conceptual model that identified potential determinants of client expectations for accounting services. Hypotheses derived from this model were empirically tested using LISREL on survey data from 196 households.

The results of our analysis indicated that client satisfaction with prior services, prior service quality, word-of-mouth communication, and price were significantly related to accounting firm image. Firm image, in turn, was significantly related to client expectations for future accounting services. Importantly, several variables from the service marketing literature were not supported with our sample of accounting service clients. Hence, these results identify the critical determinants of client expectations for accounting services, provide insight into the expectation formulation process for accounting service clients, and offer guidance to accounting service providers who may wish to influence clients' expectations.     

The Role of Price in Consumer Quality Judgments for Professional Services

Abstract

Classifying services according to their level of search, experience and credence properties can help professional service providers better understand their customers. This research uses an experiment to study the influence of price information on consumer judgments of service quality and patronage intentions for professional services. The conceptual framework predicts that consumers believe in a price-quality relationship for search-based services but not necessarily for professional services that are high in credence properties. The study findings provide support for this proposition and suggest that professional service providers should carefully consider how consumers view their services when using price as a promotion tool.     

Investigating pharmaceutical logistics service quality with refined Kano's model

This study applies the refined Kano model and importance-satisfaction model to investigate medical institutions' satisfaction with and perceptions of importance of domestic pharmaceutical logistics services. Survey data involving 104 respondents from medical institutions are analyzed with importance-satisfaction and the refined Kano model. The results demonstrate that the refined Kano model will generate different classification of quality attributes for the pharmaceutical logistics industry, and medical institutions with different characteristics really have varying responses to quality attributes of pharmaceutical logistics services. The present research contributes to the literature by demonstrating that provision of high-value-added and crucial quality attributes by service providers can give them an edge in the market. In addition, when service providers understand their customers’ attitudes toward innovative service, it can enable them to strengthen their tactics in a competitive market.     

Service Quality Perceptions of Customers About Mobile Telecommunication Services: A Case of India

ABSTRACT

 Because of the intangible nature of services, there is always a challenge in front of service providers to find out which dimensions of service quality are more important for customers. The author presents the results of a study in India that assesses the service quality perceptions of customers about mobile telecommunication services. EFA explained 69.694% of variance and extracted eight service quality dimensions. The results of a multiple regression analysis show that customers attributed the highest importance to employee performance followed by transmission quality, competitiveness, support attributes, reliability, credibility, operational efficiency, and convenience. The sample consisted of 411 respondents.     

Customer Satisfaction with Consumption Systems

ABSTRACT

Purpose: This research examines how satisfaction toward a product and its associated services offered together by a single provider jointly affects behavioral intentions toward the provider.

Design/methodology/approach: In this study, empirical tests were conducted using longitudinal data spanning 5 years from a multinational company that offers both products and associated services as part of a consumption system to their customers.

Findings: Results show a joint congruent effect of product and services satisfaction on behavioral intentions is linear and positive. It appears that offering great service cannot compensate for less-than-adequate satisfaction toward the product. The results further highlight decreasing customer sensitivity to improvements in both sources of satisfaction and imply that focusing on too high levels of one type of satisfaction for their customers can actually be counterproductive for firms.

Research Limitations: Our model was tested using the data obtained from a single firm. Future research could test this model with data from multiple firms in various different industries and establish broader generalizability to the findings.

Practical Implications: Findings provide managers with insights on how to allocate resources across product and service spaces and to manage product and services revenues over time. Results also indicate that customer behavioral intention ratings are more weighted on product quality over the service received by them. However, mere improvements in the product cannot provide the highest desired results and therefore quality improvements in the product need to be complemented by improvements in service quality.

Originality/Value: There is a rapid emergence of the phenomenon of manufacturers providing both products and services as an integrated consumption system to their customers. While the provision of both product and service subsystems by the same firm leads to certain synergies, there are obvious costs to the development of new service capabilities and coordination with existing product capabilities. Our research intends to address this issue.     

How professional service firms compete in the market: an exploratory study

Abstract

This study investigates how professional service firms (PSFs) compete in the market. Drawing on strategic marketing literature, a managerial rather than customer perspective is adopted. The study investigates the competitive positions sought by professional service providers and the specific marketing activities actually undertaken to achieve these positions. Thirty-seven depth interviews with senior management from a range of PSFs indicate that firms seek to differentiate themselves by developing long-term relationships, providing better service quality and greater value, and developing brands with strong reputations. Organisations typically seek such interrelated competitive positions simultaneously. A list of marketing activities used by the PSFs to achieve these competitive positions offers practical insights into the specific activities needed to achieve the various competitive positions sought.     

Boundary Spanners' Satisfaction with Organizational Support Services

SUMMARY

Internal services (i.e., support services) are an important form of organizational support for external boundary spanners (e.g., salespeople, customer service representatives). Internal services such as information systems, market research, training, accounting, and facilities support are intended to allow boundary spanners to better serve the firm's customer. Little research, however, has addressed factors that influence a boundary spanner's satisfaction with such services. The research presented here offers insight into how internal communication by both managers and service providers impacts a boundary spanner's satisfaction with support services. Results indicate that service provider and manager communications are largely complementary and that satisfaction with service outcomes, rather than service quality, appears to have an enduring impact upon a boundary spanner's overall job satisfaction. Implications for future research are addressed.     

Validating Restaurant Service Quality Dimensions

Abstract

Service-based industries such as hotels and restaurants are spending a tremendous effort to measure and improve the service quality of their businesses. Service quality is one of the key factors in achieving competitive advantages in the restaurant industry since high service quality presumably results in increased customer satisfaction, and thus increased future patronage. The purpose of this study was to examine the two generic service-quality dimensions: physical quality and staff behavior/attitude in restaurants by employing the confirmatory factor analysis approach. The findings indicated that the two-factor model of restaurant service quality was successfully validated and also, the predictive accuracy of the model was established.     

Improving Customer Service

Abstract

The article presents a framework for implementing a TQM-oriented management process that can enable an organization to achieve continuous quality enhancements at minimal cost while simultaneously increasing the marketability of the service. The modeled framework demonstrates how such quality improvements can be made possible by heightening employees' sensitivity towards details pertaining to the many aspects of the service delivery process. The incidence of customer dissatisfaction resulting from sheer insensitivity towards detail during the delivery of service is established through real-world examples of actual customer experiences with numerous services. The severity of the implications of customer dissatisfaction and defection on a firm's bottom line are highlighted. The role of nonverbal communication and the many relevant forms of such communication are examined. A nonverbal communication feedback-response process model is presented that can help align the service with the expectations of the customer in high-contact services. Finally, a comprehensive set of managerial requisites for the creation of an enabling service quality culture is also identified. The framework presented also shows how performance can be enhanced, and competitive advantage gained, by effectively shaping and servicing the customer satisfaction plane.     

The Effect of Buyer Participation on Repurchase Intentions in Professional Service Relationships

Abstract

While there is a broad consensus that certain buyer attitudes are associated with the repurchase of professional services, comparatively little attention has been devoted to identifying the behaviors associated with such a repurchase. This study contrasts the predictive power of behaviors with those of attitudes for both established and new professional service relationships among 471 affluent customers. Behaviors, specifically behaviors which heighten participation in the service delivery process, are associated with positive repurchase intentions in new relationships. This study shows that professional service providers should encourage new buyers of their services to become involved in the specification and delivery of the service in order to increase positive repurchase intentions.     

An integrative model of customers' perceptions of health care services in Taiwan

As the health care service gets more competitive, health care practitioners and academic researchers are increasingly interested in exploring how patients perceive the quality and value of their care before building up their satisfaction levels and generating behavioural intentions. Drawing some theories from marketing and health care service literature, this study tries to propose an integrative model of customers' perceptions of health care services based on the established relationship among four key constructs (service quality, perceived value, satisfaction, and behavioural intentions). Structural equation modelling is then used to validate the model. As Taiwan's universal health insurance offers every citizen equal financial access to all health care providers, Taiwan offers a good opportunity to study how the patients' perception model is structured. The findings reveal both perceived quality and value as antecedent variables in this model illustrating direct and indirect paths from perceived quality and value to patient satisfaction and behavioural intentions.     

Conceptual underpinnings for transformative research in a service ecosystems context to resolve social issues – framework foundations and extensions

ABSTRACT

A number of services within society are designed to improve the well-being of its members and transform lives. Some services focus on the protection and support of vulnerable members of society, for example, those suffering the effects of drug use, mental health conditions, violence or poverty. Clients of such social services may also come from minority or marginalised cultural backgrounds. Typically, social services aim to reduce disparities and enhance individual and population well-being. A major challenge for social policy-makers and social service providers is to establish and maintain constructive engagement between the social services and those they are intended to serve. Some of these vulnerable clients are deemed ‘hard-to-reach’ (HTR) by policy-makers and service providers. Yet, the transformation of lives requires the involvement of the focal actor (client) and their service or activity system, as well as the engagement of other actors, such as the social worker embedded in their service or activity system. This paper aims to further unpack a novel approach, called integrative transformative service framework. This contribution extends its conceptualisation which fuses mainly three different approaches, namely Transformative Service Research (TSR), (Cultural-Historical) Activity Theory (CHAT) and (Regulatory) Engagement Theory (RET).     

Relational Perspectives of Perceived Service Quality in the Online and Offline Environments: A Meta-Analysis

Abstract

Today, service quality is a major driver enhancing and consolidating the relationship between consumers and their service providers. The diversity of research in this context revealed a gap between empirical results which investigated the relational consequences of service quality, and showed missing studies that allowed generalizing and specifying the perspectives of the service quality in the relational domain. So, this research suggests a Meta-Analytic Structural Equation Modeling (MASEM) to validate a synthetic model integrating perceived quality, satisfaction and loyalty. It is based on 43 recent academic research derived from 22 countries. The results validated the meta-analytic structural model and showed that the service environment moderates causal links between perceived quality, satisfaction and loyalty.     

The Influence of Selected Factors on the Perceptions of Managers of Small Business Firms Regarding Legal Firms

Abstract

The South African service provider is faced with an increasingly turbulent and complex competitive environment (Griffith & Rust, 1997:109-116). Factors that impact specifically on the environment of service firms (such as the providers of legal services) include the growing importance of consumerism and a drastic increase in competition (Harrel & Fors, 1992:299-306).

The latter factor has a number of causes, amongst others, a stagnating economy (Griffith & Rust, 1997:109-116). A factor that impacts directly on the growing competition amongst providers of legal services is the increase in law graduates and commensurate increase in qualified attorneys and advocates entering the market. Figures supplied by the Law Society of the Cape of Good Hope and the Law Society of the Transvaal indicate an increase in excess of 50% in the number of practising attorneys in both the former provinces of the Cape and Transvaal between the years 1990 and 1997.

This article presents an exploratory study establishing the relative value attached by small business in South Africa to certain factors, inter alia advertising and location, pertaining to firms providing legal services. A better understanding of the importance of these factors will assist legal firms to improve service delivery thereby improving profitability.     

Towards an Improved Understanding of Industrial Services: Quality Dimensions and Their Impact on Buyer-Seller Relationships

ABSTRACT

The rapidly growing field of services marketing has had a strong focus on consumer services. This article deals with industrial services, i.e., services provided by a manufacturing company to organizational customers. The authors suggest a triangular model of industrial service quality involving a distinction between structural, process-related, and outcome-related aspects. These three quality dimensions are shown to have strong impacts on the customer's trust, satisfaction, and commitment. The authors discuss theoretical and managerial implications of their findings.     

The customer wants service: Why technology is no longer enough

In today's marketplace, the customer is presented with a myriad of products and services of greater variety and value than ever before. As competition becomes more intense, product and service providers are increasingly turning towards “service” or “service quality” as a means of achieving competitive advantage. Even in industries such as telecommunications, where significant technological advances have characterized the industry, companies are realizing that the best product no longer guarantees an advantage over the competition. The key ingredient in the formulation of a competitive service strategy is the proper measurement of service quality dimensions, as defined by the customer, and the continual monitoring of company performance along those dimensions. This article describes the process of identifying service quality dimensions as applied in two telecommunications network providers, one in Canada and one in Ireland. Results are compared and contrasted between the two countries.     

Determining Relationship Quality in the Development of Business-to-Business Financial Services

ABSTRACT

The quality of relationships built with customers during the New Service Development (NSD) process is a current concern of researchers in relationship marketing (and NSD) and is particularly important in a highly competitive environment characterised by rapidly changing customer needs like the one of financial services. The primary relationship analyzed in relationship marketing is the one between seller and buyer, but the focal type of relationship for new product and service development is the one termed “the knowledge relationship” (Gummesson 2002), a relationship used to create knowledge. This paper reports the results of in depth qualitative research on the factors that impact on the quality of such relationships developed between new service developers and their customers during the NSD process of business-to-business financial services. Results show that the most important factors that affect relationship quality are: communication quality of the relationship; the development of strong relationship bonds; the quality of relationship partners; a strong customer orientation in NSD based on a proactive approach of relationship partners during the NSD process, and proficiency in knowledge brokering.     

Big content providers weighing on non-neutrality?

There is a trend for big content providers such as Netflix and YouTube to give grades to Internet Service Providers (ISPs), to incentivize those ISPs to improve at least the quality offered to their service. We design in this paper a model analyzing ISPs’ optimal allocation strategies in a competitive context and in front of quality-sensitive users. We show that the optimal strategy is non-neutral, that is, it does not allocate bandwidth proportionally to the traffic share of content providers. On the other hand, we show that non-neutrality does not benefit ISPs but is surprisingly favorable to the perceived quality for users.

     

“Standards” as a Service Marketing Tool

Abstract

Standards have the potential to be a significant tool in the marketing of services, just as they have been in the marketing of products. Ranging from regulatory to voluntary, product-based to producer-based, standards can increase the competitive position of a product by reducing customer uncertainty. However, the lack of a framework for understanding and designing standards has limited their application in service industries.

Examination of existing standards suggests a framework of five key dimensions. Through the example of chemical management services (CMS) we show how this can be done, resulting in three options for the CMS industry. Using this framework as a guide, other service industries can determine if a standard would provide significant competitive advantage and, if so, design the optimal standard for their market conditions.     

Measuring Service Quality in IT Services: Using Service Encounters to Elicit Quality Dimensions

ABSTRACT

Recent growth of personal computing and networked systems have resulted in Information Systems (IS) departments facing a heavy demand on their services. Based on internal marketing concepts, IS services need to use a measure of service quality for their internal customers. Studies carried out recently, suggest SERVQUAL as a possible measure of IS service quality. However, there are some issues that relate to their discriminant validity and appropriateness. A bottom-up approach to elicit service quality dimensions is explored using service encounters in a health organization. The results indicate that while the dimensions of responsiveness and assurance seem to be important, there is a need to re-look at these broad dimensions as more specific dimensions may be more appropriate for IS settings.