Examining the Relationship between Service Environment and Customer Satisfaction in Service Encounters in Selected Superstores in Enugu, South East Nigeria

Abstract

The development of services as part of marketing activities began a few years ago when scholars began to treat services no longer as physical product appendages but as marketing activities on their own. Services thus metamorphosed from being “product marketing carriers” or product augmenter to being “self-carriers”. That is, services that used to be the final pack by which products were delivered to customers and were not seen as a process or marketing activities on their own now became self-asserting. Thus, if services have fully become distinctive marketing activities that couldoffer customer satisfaction, how about the environment where these services are performed – whether as service offering or product carrier or augmenter? What contribution does the service environment make in order to enhance customer satisfaction from service offering? In other words, how does superior service delivery depend on the environment where such service is delivered in order to produce customer satisfaction? That is, what is the correlation between strong service environment and superior service delivery? This is what this study examined and found that the service environment, to a large extent, determines the mode and manner of satisfactory service delivery. The mode and manner of service delivery determine customers’ satisfaction.

Keywords: Service Environment, Satisfaction, Superior Service, Service Delivery, Quality Service