LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Definition and measurement of service quality

Many scholars have contributed different viewpoints about service quality, however,
most of them, such as Dorosti, Haghighi, Rahnama, and Hoseinpour [12] proved that
service quality is benefactor of customer satisfaction. As a result, it means that service
quality also leads to customer loyalty and long-term retention [14]. On the other hand,
this construct is very abstract because of intangibility, inseparability, perishability, and
heterogeneity of service [19]. The most known definition is that service quality is the
result of comparison that is made between customer’s expectation from the service
provider and his/her perception of the service consumed [17,11,3].
Understanding of the characteristics of service is pivotal while selecting an
appropriate instrument to measure the service quality. An instrument should be such to
accommodate the difficulties mentioned above and recognize that the service quality is
more difficult for customers to evaluate rather than the quality of goods, because
service quality assessments are not made only on the outcome of the service but also
the service delivery process and result of customers` comparison of prior expectation
and perception of the service [3]. Indeed, Gronroos, Lehtinen and Lehtinen,
Parasuraman et al. all proved that service quality of certain industry can be measured
by comparing its customers’ expectation of the service with their perception of the
actual service provided [11,16,3]. And also, Gronroos, Parasuraman et al. developed
service quality measurement model based on the concept about comparing customer
expectation and the perception of the service performance [11,3].
2.2 Service quality dimensions – SERVQUAL instrument
One of the well-known tools available to measure service quality from the customers’
perspective is the SERVQUAL instrument by Parasuraman and developed later. In the
original SERVQUAL instrument, there were 10 categories proposed which the
researchers believed that this could capture the dimensions by which consumers assess
service quality [3].
Later certain categories were merged or reassigned and even eliminated because of
research and scale purification. The present SERVQUAL instrument is the final
product which was introduced by its developers. The instrument consists of five
service quality dimensions: Tangibility, Reliability, Responsiveness, Assurance and
Empathy with a couple sets of 22 item statements for the “expectation” and the
“perception” sections of the questionnaire. Following five dimensions are considered
distinct components of perceived service quality:
2.2.1 Tangibles- Which refers to physical facilities, equipment, and appearance of
personnel. Since customers do not receive only meals, aside from combined
component of service, they probably depend on other cues in the absence of tangible
evidence in order to assess service quality. Customers or diners can easily detect
tangible’s presence or absence [21].

28
2.2.2 Reliability- Which refers to the service providers` ability to perform the
promised service in any circumstance. In restaurant business, this may involve
reservation of tables, adherence to patron`s requests regarding the menu preparation
items and accurate billing. Among the dimensions of SERVQUAL model, reliability
has been classed as the first dimension [3].
2.2.3 Responsiveness-Which is defined as the service providers` willingness to help
customers and provide prompt service. According to Zeithaml & Bitner, efficiency of
serve can be improved, when employees meet appropriate prompt service
requirements [26]. Parasuraman et al. stated that responsiveness of restaurant
employees involves telling customers exactly how much time they are expected to
wait for being helped, and as well it means quick attention to problems [3].
2.2.4 Assurance- Which refers to the employees` mental strength and knowledge and
their ability persuade trust and confidence. For instance, customers should be able to
trust the recommendation of sommelier, feel secure that food is free from
contamination and be able to voice any consideration without fear of insult or
recrimination. In halal food restaurant service, assurance plays important role for
consumers to feel confident about the halal of the food ingredients. Assurance
demonstrates perspective of the employees and their ethics, and the staff`s
qualification to perform reliable, friendly, polite, and qualified services [3].
2.2.5 Empathy- Which refers to the caring and individual attention the service
provider does to the customers. This also giving personal attention to patron`s needs,
perhaps by adhering to special dietary inquiries, or by being sympathetic towards
customers` concerns. Customers want to feel sympathy by service providers, in the
restaurant case, it can be expressed by welcoming them by dignity, name and knowing
and noticing their taste and preferences as well as understanding and sympathizing
with the problems and needs [26].

2.3 Application of SERVQUAL instrument in hospitality industry

Not many SERVQUAL instrument applications have been documented in hospitality

industry. One application is by Fick and Ritchie measured perceived quality of airline,
hotel, restaurant, and ski area services [10]. The result demonstrated the usefulness of
the instrument in indicating the relative importance of customer expectations of
different service dimensions across different industry sectors, in comparison various
dimensions of service quality within different sectors and by offering insights into the
nature of service quality differences across firms within industry sectors. Meanwhile,
Bojanic and Rosen applied the SERVQUAL instrument to a restaurant chain and the
studies showed that the three most important expectations of restaurant customers
were assurance, reliability, and tangibles, respectively [4].
Because of the SERVQUAL instrument's extensive development and testing, as well
as its broad use in a wide range of industries, its use in this study is considered
appropriate.
2.4 Satisfaction

So many authors emphasized that customer satisfaction is an essential and

comprehensive concept. According to Hill and Alexander customer satisfaction is an
indicator of how an organization’s total product performs in relation to a set of
customers’ inquiries [13]. By another author customer satisfaction is defined as
customer`s fulfillment response, and it is a judgment made about a product or service
feature [24]. Furthermore, in the restaurant business, customer satisfaction has become
a critical topic that has a strong influence on business performance and customer
retention [9]. Because the average business loses somewhere about 10 to 30 percent of
its customers each year, unfortunately, sometimes they do not even know which
customers they have lost, when they were lost, why they lost those customers, how
much sales revenue and profit this customer loss has cost them and the reason behind
this scenario is the fact that majority of those service providers have traditionally
placed more emphasis on attracting new customers than worrying about the customers
decaying.
Moreover, customer satisfaction can be distinguished based on two different
conceptualizations: transaction specific and cumulative [5,1]. By comparison,
aggregate customer satisfaction is an overall evaluation of total purchase and
consumption experience with a tangible or intangible goods over time [1].
Thus, from 1) transaction-specific satisfaction, 2) cumulative satisfaction:
Transaction-specific satisfaction is the assessment by the customer of his or her
experience and reactions to a particular service encounter and cumulative satisfaction
refers to the overall consumer assessment of current consumption experience
[5,15,25,8,6,1]. Based on this conceptual study of customer satisfaction, customer
satisfaction was defined in this study as a cognitive assessment of service quality and
effective aspects originating from the consumer experience.

2.4.1 Relationship between customer satisfaction and service quality

(SERVQUAL dimensions)
Many potential researchers try to examine the relationship between customer
satisfaction and service quality. Restaurant service quality is influenced by various
restaurant attributes such as the physical environment, employee services, ambiance,
location, menu type and price and combination of these vital attributes should result in
visitor’s perceptions of appropriate restaurant service quality, which in return enhance
their satisfaction and revisit intention [18]. According to this statement, service quality
also has a relationship with customer loyalty.
Let us try to put the order of service quality – customer satisfaction order inversely.
Some researchers also mentioned the work of other authors who propose satisfaction
as an antecedent of service quality. However, their analysis result shows that this may
not be the case. Thus, it provides support for the notion that perceived service quality
leads to customer satisfaction as proposed by Parasuraman et al [3,8]. Moreover,
another study was conducted by Sureshchandar et al. to examine the relationship and
distinctiveness of customer satisfaction and service quality [22]. By taking different
approach, customer satisfaction was viewed as multidimensional construct. Still,
underlying factor/items of customer satisfaction are the same which service quality is
measured (i.e., SERVQUAL). In other words, above studies argues that customer
satisfaction should be operationalized along the same dimensions that makes service
quality by the same items but spanning different dimensions. Then it was postulated
that following five factors makes customer satisfaction:

Table 1: Factors that make up customer satisfaction

Customer satisfaction Description

1 Core service or service product Inseparability of service
2 Human element of service Humans are involved in service
delivery delivery
3 Systematization of service Which is the non-human element
delivery
4 Tangibles of service Servicescape / the physical
environment
5 Social responsibility Ethics involved in service delivery

In general, above results revels that service quality and customer satisfaction are
indeed different constructs from customers’ point of view. And these two constructs
are closely related with respect to five factors. Thus, there is positive and significant
relationship between service quality and customer satisfaction. And following
hypothesizes are proposed:
Hypothesis 1: Tangible attribute of service quality has a positive and
significant influence on customer satisfaction.
Hypothesis 2: Reliability attribute of service quality has a positive and
significant influence on customer satisfaction.
Hypothesis 3: Responsiveness attribute of service quality has a positive and
significant influence on customer satisfaction.
Hypothesis 4: Assurance attribute of service quality has a positive and
significant influence on customer satisfaction.
Hypothesis 5: Empathy attribute of service quality has a positive and
significant influence on customer satisfaction.
Hypothesis 3: Customer satisfaction has a significant positive impact on
customer loyalty.
2.5 Loyalty

Customer loyalty is reflected as a form of behavioral intention, defined the degree of

conscious plan formulated by individuals to perform or not perform specified future
behavior [24]. Benefits of loyal customers coming from their recommending the
service to friends, relatives, and other potential customers. Four stages of customer
loyalty were proposed by Oliver which consisting of cognitive loyalty, affective
loyalty, conative loyalty, action loyalty [20]. In this research customer loyalty refers to
customers’ future intention, saying positive things about the restaurant, positive WOM
and revisiting intention.
Many studies of customer satisfaction have shown positive relationship between
customer loyalty or future behavioral intention [8,2,23,7].
H3: Customer satisfaction positively influence customer loyalty.
2.3 Research framework

Figure 1 Research framework

Source: Yap, S. F., & Kew, M. L. (2007). Service quality and customer satisfaction: antecedents of
customer’s re-patronage intentions. Sunway Academic Journal,
4, 59- 73.

Figure 1 is the visualization of the theoretical framework that studies on the customer
loyalty (re-patronage intention) antecedents which includes service quality and
customer satisfaction in restaurant industry context in South Korea.

2.3.1 Proposed research hypothesis:

Hypothesis 1: Tangible attribute of service quality has a positive and

significant influence on customer satisfaction.
Hypothesis 2: Reliability attribute of service quality has a positive and
significant influence on customer satisfaction.
Hypothesis 3: Responsiveness attribute of service quality has a positive and
significant influence on customer satisfaction.
Hypothesis 4: Assurance attribute of service quality has a positive and
significant influence on customer satisfaction.
Hypothesis 5: Empathy attribute of service quality has a positive and
significant influence on customer satisfaction.
Hypothesis 3: Customer satisfaction has a significant positive impact on
customer loyalty.

2.7 Hypothetical research model

Feagure 2: Hypothetical research model

METHODOLOGY

3.1 Research site

In this study, quantitative research was conducted to analyze the relationship patterns
pattern between service quality dimensions and customer satisfaction during the
outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic. An online survey was distributed to Kervan
restaurant customers who had visited within a last year period in Seoul and other
neighboring cities in South Korea. Moreover, in store survey was also conducted in
Kervan restaurant Seoul branches: Kervan Itaewon, Kervan GFC, Kervan Café.

3.2 Survey design and measures

Questions used in the questionnaire are SERVQUAL which was originated in 1988
and developed by Parasuraman et al. [3]. The early of the research was based on the
comparison of the service performance against expectation. So, the difference between
customer expectation and perception is considered the perceived service quality.
Despite the recent multi-expectation approaches advocated by several researchers, the
work presented in this paper is solely based on the perception standards of
SERVQUAL instrument of Parasuraman [3]. The instrument includes 5 dimension of
service quality (Zeithaml et al, 1990) [26]. To measure the quality of service provided
by a service provider, the following 22 items were considered within these
dimensions:
Tangibles (four items)
1. Restaurant has equipment that is modern
2. The restaurant has visually appealing physical facilities
3. Employees are neat in their appearing
4. Service materials are visually appealing
Reliability (five items)
5. When the restaurant performs service within promised time
3. When diner has a problem, the restaurant demonstrates a sincere interest in solving
it
7. The restaurant service performance is done right the first time
8. Services are provided within the time the restaurant promises to do
9. The records are free from error
Responsiveness (four items)
10. Employees tell customers exact time of service performance
11. Employees give prompt service to diners
12. Employees show willingness to help customers
13. Employees are never too busy to respond to requests of customers
Assurance (four items)
14. Employee behavior instills confidence in customers
15. Customers feel safe dealing with their transactions
13. Employees are always courteous
17. Employees are knowledgeable enough to respond to customer inquiries.
Empathy (five items)
18. The restaurant pays special attention to each customer.
19. Customers are given particular attention by employees.
20. The restaurant is aware of the needs of its clients.
21. The restaurant prioritizes the needs of its customers.
22. All customers will find the operating hours convenient.
3.3 Data collection

SurveyMonkey questionnaires was created and distributed online via social media
sites: Facebook, telegram, Instagram and was sent to friends to share the link within
social groups in South Korea. Due to pandemic situation, it was unrealistic for the
author to take survey individually at the Kervan restaurant branches. The self-
administrated service quality questionnaire that consists of 5 point-Likert scale
questions were distributed, and to determine the level of agreement, the choices to
evaluate the service range from Strongly agree (5) to Strongly disagree (1). The
targeted sample of this study was diners at Turkish ethnic restaurants situated in Seoul
and other neighbouring cities. The survey respondents were informed that the survey
was anonymous and would be used for only academic purpose and they should answer
based on their actual restaurant experience. Moreover, to avoid unengaged responses,
the participant could stop the filling the survey at any time. The data collection process
was conducted using convenience sampling. Data collection process started in late
April 2021 and finished in May 2021. A total number of 233 respondents participated
in this survey. SPSS software was used for analyzing the data. Before the actual
survey, Pilot-test was conducted to test our research approach with a small number of
test participants.

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