Examining the Role of Service Quality in Relationship Quality Creation: Empirical Insights from Malaysia

Abstract

Building and maintaining successful relationships with customers have become the prime focus for many organizations. The ability of a brand to manage customer relationships in a favourable manner provides a strong platform for its continued success. This paper examines the effect of service quality on relationship quality in the Malaysian automobile market. The data was collected using systematic sampling from 287 passenger car users’ at shopping malls in Northern region of Malaysia. The data is analyzed using structural equation modeling on AMOS. The results revealed that service quality has significant positive effect on brand trust, brand commitment, and brand satisfaction. The results also indicated that service quality has significant positive effect on overall relationship quality. Because this study is limited only to individual customers in Northern region of Malaysia, future studies might apply this work to organizational level and expand it to other industry and country contexts for better understandings of how service quality can affect customer relationships. As a result of successful customer relationships, organizations would have greater opportunities to sustain their success and respond to competition.

DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n4p458