Moderating the Role of a Car in the Customer’s Life.The Relationship between Expectation, Perceived Quality, and Customer Satisfaction An Empirical Study in the Automotive Industry

Many empirical studies in the field of customer satisfaction revolve around the effect of the principal factors that include the product, sale and after-sale services on the level of the customer satisfaction. Customer satisfaction is embedded in the system of cause and effect relationships, which makes it the centerpiece in a chain of relationships running from the antecedents to the consequences. Also, the influence of well-known moderators like age, gender and education in this framework are frequently considered.In this paper, we used the gap analysis after measuring the satisfaction level with the three above-mentioned factors, as well as adding car accessories as the fourth dimension. This analysis was used to compute the level of overall customer satisfaction. We investigated the impact of expectations and perceived performance of the experience’s factors on the level of customer satisfaction with both the experience and the factors involved. We also investigated the overall level of satisfaction using linear regression. We conducted the study using the Iranian automotive industry for our analysis.Results indicate a high correlation between customer expectations and perceived quality of the products and services, as well as the level of customer satisfaction. Moreover, the customer satisfaction with the product, sale and after-sale services is highly correlated with overall satisfaction in the automotive industry. This shows the necessity of considering car accessories as the distinctive factor, in addition to the three other traditional factors. This finding is one of our main contributions and lack of its consideration as a separate factor is observed in the literature.The role of a car in the customer’s life serves as a moderator that influences the relationships between the customer’s expectations and the perceived quality of factors, such as product, sale and after-sale services, with the overall level of satisfaction is also investigated in this study. This finding was obtained by using a large sample of customers of IKCO (Iran Khodro Company). The results were analyzed by applying a hierarchical regression analysis and a conditional correlation. This new moderator significantly influenced the relationships between the expectation and customer satisfaction, as well as the perceived quality and customer satisfaction with the technical and physical aspects of the car. With regards to the other factors involved, no evidence of correlation was observed.

Keywords:

Expectation , Perceived Quality , Customer Satisfaction , Moderating , Conditional CorrelationIntroduction