The Empirical Research On The Impacts Of Service Quality On Word-of-Mouth

The researches about Word-of-Mouth (WOM) can be traced back to the fifties of last century. In 1955, Katz and Lazarsfeld found WOM seven times more effective than newspaper and magazine advertising, four times more effective than personal selling, and twice as effective as radio advertising in influencing consumers to switch brands. From then on, many scholars dedicated to the study of WOM, Chinese scholars Huang Xiaojun and Xu Weiqing (2004) analyzed the researches of these scholars, built an applicable model of WOM, which summarized the existing researches as four aspects: WOM antecedent, WOM contents and effects, WOM outcomes and the factors that affect communication. However, the majority of studies have focused on WOM contents and effects, WOM outcomes and the factors that affect communication, WOM antecedents receive less direct attention (Anderson, 1998; Harrison-walker, 2001; Matos, Rossi, 2008; Huang Xiaojun and Xu Weiqing, 2004).Because of the intangible property and experiential nature of service, consumers tend to search useful information from others who have the purchase experience, so scholars believe that WOM is more important and more impactive in the service industry than the product market (Matos, Rossi, 2008; Huang Xiaojun, Xu Weiqing, 2004), and some scholars even described WOM as the "dominant force" in services marketing(Mangold et al., 1990).Therefore, studying WOM in the service context has its unique meaning(Bristor, 1990). Previous researchers found that the service quality is an important antecedent variable which affects WOM communication. Boulding et al (1993) stated that they"strongly believe that service quality positively affects important behavioral outcomes such as loyalty and positive word-of-mouth". They empirically demonstrated that"the greater customers'perceptions of a firm's overall service quality, the more likely the customers are to engage in behaviors beneficial to the strategic health of the firm (e.g., generate positive word-of-mouth, recommend the service, etc.)"Hartline and Jones (1996) took hotels as study subjects and proved that service quality is positively related to word-of-mouth. Some scholars also believe that the higher customer'evaluation of service quality, the more active customer'intent in the form of recommendation, thereby strengthening the relationship between customers and businesses (Parasuraman et al.1988; Zeithaml et al. 1996). However, these studies only show that service quality has an impact on the intention of word-of-mouth or the potential of word-of-mouth, and in fact, intentions at best are imperfect representatives of actual behaviors (Mittal, Kamakura, 2001). So these studies did not fully reveal the actual effect of service quality on word-of-mouth. In 2001, Harrison-walker had an empirical study which paid direct attention to service quality'impact on word-of-mouth communication, but she did not receive a coherent conclusion in the two selected industries. Therefore, further study about service quality'effect on word-of-mouth communication are still needed in the form of empirical research.In service marketing, researches on service quality are close to maturity. The concept of service quality and measurement tools developed by Parasuraman, Zeithmal and Berry et al (1988) has also been widespread acceptance of academia. They divided service quality into five measurements: the tangible, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy dimension. I believe that each of the five different dimensions will has a different influence on word-of-mouth, so managers could adjust standards and requirements of each aspect of service quality to achieve a higher level of word-of-mouth. But so far, few researches can be seen both at home and abroad from the perspective of the five dimensions'influence on word-of-mouth communication.Based on a large number literatures reviewed, this study built a theoretical model which states service quality'influence on word-of-mouth. In this model, I propose hypotheses that service quality has a significant positive impact on word-of-mouth, and each of the five dimensions of service quality has a significant positive impact on word-of-mouth. In order to test those hypotheses, our study takes training industry (which is at a higher level of intangibility) for example, and obtains data from 178 consumers in Changchun City with a method of convenient sampling for further analysis. The descriptive statistics analysis and tests of reliability and validity for all scales that we use, show that all scales have certain reliability and validity, as well as overall good representation of population, so the data is suitable for regression analysis. The results of regression analysis verify all the assumptions each at a high level of significance. Therefore, this study reaches the following conclusions:Firstly, the multidimensional scale of word-of-mouth developed by Harrison-Walker (2001) has a good applicability. Previous researches use relatively simple methods to measure word-of-mouth, which contain only one item or two items, concerning only one matter, such as one of positive/negative word-of-mouth, word-of-mouth intention, the number of receivers, and so on. In this study, I choose Harrison-Walker (2001)'multidimensional scale to measure word-of-mouth, it contains two dimensions of word-of-mouth activities and word-of-mouth praise, in which the dimension of WOM Activities involves the frequency of word-of-mouth, the width and depth of word-of-mouth; the dimension of WOM Praise refers to the positive or negative information concerning word-of-mouth. From the data analysis results, it is notes that the scale has good reliability and validity, indicating that the scale has good applicability in the training industry of Changchun, so scholars can consider using it in the future research.Secondly, service quality has a significant positive effect on word-of-mouth. In this study, the results of regression analysis verify the hypothesis H0, in which service quality as independent variable, word-of-mouth as the dependent variable. The path coefficient is 0.637. This shows that quality of service is indeed an important antecedent variable affecting word-of-mouth, like the relationship between service quality and word-of-mouth intention. Based on this conclusion, the service companies who plan to reach higher level of word-of-mouth, must pay attention improving service quality.Thirdly, in the training industry, empathy dimension of service quality has the greatest influence on word-of-mouth, followed by reliability and responsiveness dimension, tangibles dimension has the smallest impact on word-of-mouth. In this study, we choose SERVQUAL developed by Parasuraman, Zeithmal and Berry (1988) to measure service quality, the scale includes five dimensions: reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy and tangibles. In the regression analysis (in which the five dimensions as independent variable separately, word-of-mouth as the dependent variable), we find the five dimensions has different impact on word-of-mouth, empathy are most affected, followed by reliability and responsiveness have the same degree of influence, tangibles dimension has the smallest effect. This shows that, to improve the level of word-of-mouth, the training industry enterprises should first consider improving empathy of service quality. In other words, the training industry enterprises should concern for customers sincerely, care the customer's needs and interests as a priority, given different customers with individual service and care, pay attention to the feelings of the students or trainees at first.Second, the training services enterprises should strengthen the quality and capacity of service personnel, regulate the punctuality of services, and develop appropriate requirements and standards in order to make customers feel secure and at ease in this business, so the enterprise can make a positive, broad word-of-mouth. For the training industry, consumers have greater tolerance about the facilities of training enterprises and the appearance of service personnel, so that in the five dimensions of service quality, the tangibles'influence on word-of-mouth is the smallest.Fourthly, service quality has a significant positive impact on each dimension of word-of-mouth (WOM activities, WOM praise) respectively. The results of regression analysis, in which service quality as the independent variable and each dimension of word-of-mouth as the dependent variable, show that the higher customer perceived service quality, the more actively will spread word-of-mouth, as well as the more positive word-of-mouth information is.