1. THE EFFECT OF CUSTOMER SATISFACTION ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PERCEIVED SERVICE QUALITY AND CUSTOMER LOYALTY AMONG PASSENGERS OF RAILWAY TRANSPORT SERVICES IN KENYA.
- Author
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King'ola, Amos, Kibera, Francis, and Musyoka, Raymond
- Subjects
CUSTOMER satisfaction ,QUALITY of service ,PERCEIVED quality ,REGRESSION analysis ,STATISTICAL sampling ,CUSTOMER loyalty - Abstract
The purpose of this study was to find the effect of customer satisfaction on the relationship between perceived service quality and customer loyalty among passengers of railway transport services in Kenya. A descriptive cross-sectional survey design and a pragmatism paradigm were used. Proportionate stratified random sampling technique was used to pick samples from each railway service provider. Simple random sampling was used to select a representative sample size of 357 respondents for the study. The study population comprised all railway customers who had frequently used Madaraka Express, Nairobi Commuter Rail, Kisumu Safari Train and Nairobi-Nanyuki Train passenger services in Kenya. Primary data was collected by a selfadministered semi-structured questionnaire. Data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Stepwise regression analysis was carried out to test the research hypothesis. The results showed that customer satisfaction significantly and partially mediated the relationship between perceived service quality and customer loyalty (p-value<0.05, ß= 0.400). The study contributes to the existing literature by revealing the partial mediating influence of customer satisfaction on the relationship between perceived service quality and customer loyalty. The study recommends that policy makers should embrace perceived service quality to enhance customer loyalty and gain competitive advantage. Managers should use the study results to establish perceived service quality dimensions and customer satisfaction attributes for customer loyalty realization. Future studies may use longitudinal research design to establish causal relationship between perceived service quality and customer loyalty over a period of time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2024