Investigation of service quality and customer satisfaction in the logistics sector: The example of Western-Mediterranean cities

In the information age, with globalization and technological developments, service quality and customer satisfaction are increasingly gaining importance. Service quality and customer satisfaction, for a business, play a significant role in customer relations, surpassing the rivals and gaining competitive strength. At the forefront of the issues the businesses, which conduct service industry, emphasize are the quality of service and customer satisfaction. In the scope of the study, the effect of the service quality dimensions of the business that carries out logistic activities on customer satisfaction has been examined. For this purpose, a survey has been carried out for the workers and customers of Burdur, Antalya, and Isparta branches of the public enterprise business, which is one of the leading actors in cargo and transportation. In the light of the survey results, to test the availability of the dimensions for factor structures, Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) has been applied and to observe the causative processes, Structural Equation Modeling has been utilized. Then, CFA fit indices have been considered as criteria, and Entropy and CRITIC (The CRiteria Importance Through Intercriteria Correlation) techniques and the weight of these techniques have been determined. Finally, by utilizing the determined severities, service quality dimensions have been put into order by following the effects on customer satisfaction. The results obtained for the workers reveal that the most effective service quality dimension for customer satisfaction is "accessibility" and the least effective one is "concrete properties". On the other hand, the results obtained for the customers reveal that the most effective service quality dimension for customer satisfaction is "the scope of service" and the least effective one is "reliability". Keywords: CRITIC, CFA, Entropi, GİA, Service Quality, Customer Satisfaction, and SEM.