The Effect Of Customer Participation On Service Quality In Hotel Industry

In the field of service management the study on service quality has been paid much attention, because both the operators of the enterprises and researchers have clearly realized the impact of service quality on enterprise performance. At present how to measure service quality mainly depends on the gap between customer expectation and perception, here, we should notice that both the two factors determine the"gap"come from the customer. Thus, the standard of service quality measurement is a customer standard. In addition, there is a remarkable characteristic of service, which customers will participate in the whole service process more or less. In this process the attitude and behavior of the customer will also decide the service quality. So when we refer to service quality, customer participation as an important influence factor on it cannot be ignored. Nonetheless, throughout the 20-year evolution of service management literature, the research about customer participation is actually rare.It is the first time to discuss the effect of customer participation on service quality, and the first empirical research to investigate the relationship between service quality and customer participation as well.This paper makes use of the confirmatory study to establish the theory construct, and confirms it in the empirical study. In theory part, according to analyzing customers behaviors during their consumption process customer participation can be divided into four dimensions. They are preparation (information collection), joining in service design and standard building up, interaction with the employees of the enterprise, and"word of mouth"delivery. Through discussing the relationship between these four dimensions and the"gap"analyze the effect of customer participation on service quality.In empirical part, the questionnaire is divided into 3 parts. They are SERVQUAL, customer participation questionnaire, and personal basic information. Using SPSS11.0 is to test the reliability of the first two parts of the questionnaire and the construct validity of customer participation questionnaire. SERVQUAL is used in measuring service quality ("gap"); customer participation questionnaire is used to test the effort extent of the customer when they were involved in the service. The tested path analysis model showed direct positive effects for preparation, joining in service design and standard building up, interaction with the employees of the enterprise, and"word of mouth"delivery on the"gap", indicating that the more participation of customer in the service process, the shorter the gap between customer expectation and perception, namely the more participation of customer will lead to higher service quality.This research shows that the effect of customer participation on service quality in both theoretic and practical aspects, which provides a new way for improving service quality.