Evaluation And Empirical Study Of Railway Freight Customer Satisfaction

In recent years, the adjustment of industrial layout, competition from other modes of transport as well as changes in customers’demand and other factors lead to a decline in railway freight market share year by year. However, there are some external reasons hard to work out temporarily. In order to expand market share, customer is the aspect that should be first started with, and then the key factors that affect customer satisfaction can be fully mastered which can improve railway freight customer satisfaction and provide implementation references for the freight reform and improve the competitiveness of railway freight. Therefore, the study on railway freight customer satisfaction is very essential.Theoretical model and empirical research are combined to study railway freight customer satisfaction. The characteristics of railway freight service and four commonly used customer satisfaction evaluation models taken as theoretical basis are combined to build the railway freight customer satisfaction evaluation conceptual model and evaluation system with three-level indices. The freight customer satisfaction questionnaire and importance degree questionnaire are designed to be issued to the freight customers via Chengdu Railway Administration. And the sample characteristics and descriptive statistics of questionnaire data collected are analyzed. SEM structural equation modeling method is adopted to verify the railway freight customer satisfaction evaluation conceptual model. After modified, the structural model with six latent variables and eight causation is finally obtained and the correlation coefficients between each latent variable are gained. Based on the modified model, the freight customer overall satisfaction and each index’s satisfaction of Chengdu Railway Administration are calculated. Each index is set into satisfaction-importance matrix according to the satisfaction and weight of each index. Different measures are taken to improve indices located in different areas. A series of proposals and marketing strategies are proposed to enhance freight customer satisfaction of Chengdu Railway Administration based on the results of the study.Rail freight customer satisfaction evaluation conceptual model is constructed aiming to the status situation of China’s rail freight and an empirical analysis of Chengdu Railway Administration is conducted. Methods of customer satisfaction research used in the empirical analysis can be generally applied, providing templates and reference for the freight customer satisfaction evaluation of other railway administration.