The Relationship Between Service Quality, Product Quality, Price Fairness and Customer Satisfaction of Retail Stores in Hatyai, Thailand

Customer satisfaction is an important strategic objective for retail industries. In order to survive and achieve profitability, retailers need to respond customer's requirement to satisfy them. Although there are many factors which relate to customer satisfaction, but most of previous empirical research in this field tended to emphasize on only service quality. Hence, this study investigates three important factors including service quality, product quality and price fairness which are critical relating to customer satisfaction. The purposes of this study are to examine the relationship between service
quality, product quality, price fairness and customer satisfaction in retail stores. The questionnaires were developed from many previous researches. The data was
collected from 399 customers of 3 hypermarkets and 3 department stores in Hatyai, Thailand. Pearson's correlation coefficient analysis was used to test the hypotheses. The result of this study shows that service quality of retail stores has positive relationship with customer satisfaction as hypothesized. Product quality and price fairness also have the significant and positive relationship with customer satisfaction. This study shows that perception of customers about service quality, product quality and price fairness are almost equally important to build up their satisfaction. Therefore, the retailers should consider product and price as the foundations to satisfy customer and to improve service quality as an add-on value to customer.