Provider–Recipient Dyadic Interactions: Impact of Service Quality on Customer Behaviours Using a Multi-Modelling Approach

Abstract

Service-oriented industries now focus on capturing the encounter behaviours of both service providers and service recipients. It depends on the conditions of assessing the psychological needs of both parties in which the service provider provides services to the recipient and the recipient reciprocates service provider, in turn, to their services. Drawing from service encounter needs theory, this research has conducted two studies based on exploring the service provider–recipient dyadic encounter relationships between service quality and customer behaviours. By collecting data from 403 respondents from a broad range of service industries, study 1 found that service quality dimensions—reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy—were found to have a significant impact on customer satisfaction, but tangibility did not affect customer satisfaction. Interestingly, customer satisfaction is a psychological indicator of enhancing customer loyalty behaviours (Zhang & Bloemer, 2008). So by surveying 361 respondents from different industries, study 2 was proposed to examine the notion that customer satisfaction mediates the relationship between service quality and customer loyalty behaviours—repurchase intention, word of mouth and willingness to pay more and to extend the literature of loyalty behaviours. Study 2 results show that there are significant mediating relationships between service quality and repurchase intention, words of mouth and willingness to pay more. Moreover, the research provides the guidelines, limitations and future directions.