| To remain viable, every company must be able to satisfy and retain customers. In the 1970's, it was argued that the best way to achieve this was to produce a quality product. In the 1980's, many organizations moved beyond quality to focus directly on increasing customer satisfaction, as it was believed that it was cheaper to satisfy a customer than to replace one. Recently, quality and satisfaction have been identified as parts of a larger system that focuses on customer loyalty as the key to profitability. In fact, many studies have established the tangible links between customer satisfaction and business outcomes such as market share, revenue, and profitability. Understanding these links can help a company understand where quality needs to be improved to increase satisfaction and loyalty, and how those improvements will pay off. These links may also provide insight into some unexpected relationships that are significantly impacting desired outcomes.;Many firms are realizing the complementary role of product and service subsystems in structuring customer experiences. However, in the commercial software environment, little is currently known about the interdependencies between these subsystems, the impact of these on perceived value, and the associated behavioral outcomes on customer loyalty. Better understanding of these relationships can provide strategic insight regarding both product and service investments. While the software quality attributes provide some insight into the customer's perception of software quality, there are other dimensions, which are not currently part of software quality evaluations, which are critically important in the customer's assessment. Understanding and incorporating these will facilitate a more complete assessment of software product quality from the perspective of the customer.;This research evaluated software product and service quality, their influence on each other, and the impact of both on customer loyalty. The assessment of software quality utilized in this research is different from traditional measures that focus on indicators such as defect reduction. The findings indicate that the customers' perceptions of the service quality directly influenced not only their service satisfaction, but their perception of product quality. Furthermore, both software and service quality drive the customer's assessment of the solution value, which shows that the assessment of solution value is dependent on experience quality. As a result, effective management of software quality requires extensions to the current measurement paradigms to evaluate overall experience quality and its impact on loyalty. |
