A Study On The Impact Of Perceived Quality Of Express Delivery Enterprise On Brand Image

In the past 3 decades,service quality has been considered as a key factor for an enterprise to succeed in differentiating. Therefore, many scholars has focused on it and studied it from different perspectives. Meanwhile, the coming of the brand economy era make both the business world and the academia become increasingly interested in the research on brand.Brand image is just one of them. With the development of service and its growing contribution to the economy, the academia begin to focus on service brand image. So this paper explored the impact of perceived service quality on brand image in express service industry. In the study, the existed research on perceived service quality, brand image and the relationship between them are firstly reviewed.Based on this, the research model and assumptions of the study were proposed combining with the interviews with experts and consumers of express service.Finally, the proposed model and assumptions were verified through data collection and a series of statistical analysis .To test the effect of perceived service quality on brand image effectively,the study developed a measurement scale of perceived service quality for domestic express service industry,referring to the well-known SERVQUAL scale.Then a number of amendments was conducted according to experts'opinions and the result of factor analysis on the data of small-sample market survey . The questionnaire of the study was formed and used in a large-scale market survey .Afte that, this paper adapted SPSS16.0 to conduct a series of statistical analysis,including testing the reliability and validity of the collected data,correlation analysis and multiple regression analysis. The results showed that the revised scales were reliable and valid,suggesting that the measurement scale of perceived service quality for domestic express service developed in this study was feasible. However,the results did not support all of the six assumptions proposed in the study.The findings were as follows:the reliability, responsiveness, assurance,convenience and economical efficiency of perceived service quality of express service has a significantly positive impact on brand image, supportting the original hypothesis; the physical attributes are not relevant to brand image,not supportting the original hypothesis. In addition, this paper also compared the actual scores of service quality and brand image of EMS with SF and STO.The results showed that: in consumers'eyes,the importance of the dimensions of perceived service quality are reliability , convenience, assurance and responsiveness in descending order;and the average scores of every dimension of the three companies are convenience, responsiveness, reliability and assurance in descending order; the brand image scores of EMS are less than SFand higher than STO.This study further extends the use of SERVQUAL scale ,develops a new perspective on the study of express delivery industry and has some theoretical significance for domestic express delivery business to improve the service quality in a targeted manner and thus enhance the brand image.