Measuring logistics service quality and customer satisfaction: A study in industrial business

The aim of this thesis is to test the importance and sufficiency customer service, customer satisfaction and service quality in the logistics function of the industrial companies. These issues represent ongoing challenges in the logistics discipline and are under-researched in this industry sector that is primarily affected by customer expectations and satisfaction. Logistics and customer service are linked through the concept of process and the outcome of meeting customer needs. Customer service as a process provides features or variables to meet customer needs, and customers who perceive a successful outcome of a service event achieve a state of customer satisfaction. The premise that customer satisfaction is also an outcome of service quality provides a point of departure for understanding customer service and satisfaction in logistics. The customer-supplier dyadic exchange among industrial companies is the focus of study. There has been little programmatic and integrative study or empirical research of these activities in logistics. Additionally, some existing studies suffer from a general lack of rigor that pervades the logistics discipline and has prevented meaningful development of research validity and reliability. Finally, existing research into these activities from the marketing discipline is under-utilized in these investigations. Indeed, there has been limited inter-disciplinary research in logistics notwithstanding the genesis of both logistics and marketing as a single discipline at the beginning of the 20th century. This study uses a rigorous two-stage methodology. This methodology comprises generating variables for enquiry from a literature review, collecting and analysing data in a pilot survey to purify variables, and conducting a second survey to assess reliability and validity of pilot study findings. Models used for this research are adapted from existing studies in marketing service quality by Mentzer, et.al. (1989), and Parasuraman, et.al. (1985,1988). A survey was administered to 197 companies in Adana. Respondent data was analyzed using exploratory factor analysis, regression analysis and t-test analysis. The results of this thesis indicate that industrial companies should consider all phases of pre-transaction, transaction and post-transaction events when facilitating operations design and customer service planning.Keywords: Logistics, Service Quality, Relationship Quality, Logistics Service Quality