Measuring Customer Satisfaction with Logistics Services: An Investigation of the Motor Carrier Industry

Abstract

Business strategy has recently been focused on total quality management (TQM), customer satisfaction, and service quality (Byrne 1993). Quality relates to value and satisfaction (Innis and La Londe 1994). The more you compete on quality and value, the more important satisfaction becomes in finding out whether or not the firm is delivering what customers want (Marketing News, February 17, 1992, p. 5). As noted by Levitt (1965), keeping customers satisfied is a central part of all business activity. Once perceived as playing mainly a supporting role in a firm’s operations, customer satisfaction is now being used to strategically gain a competitive advantage. Consequently, many researchers have studied the importance of the satisfaction concept and sought to measure the firm’s performance of various facets of satisfaction.