Optimizing customer satisfaction for four-wheeled vehicle automobile service in rural areas of Sri Lanka:

Abstract

Customer satisfaction is the ability to provide and deliver services so that they match the expectations of the customer to help him develop confidence. Thus, despite the continuous growth of car owners, rural areas experience many constraints, such as the low supply of services, low-quality facilities in service centers, and inadequate, unqualified workers to offer these services. From this study, major issues concerning service delivery and customer satisfaction in rural automobile service centers will be highlighted, and suggestions on service quality, customer relations, and service infrastructure will be provided, with an understanding that better service experiences happen in rural Sri Lanka in the Pallepola area, Matale district. The research design that was done in the study called for the conduct of a quantitative cross-sectional survey. The data was collected from pre-tested structured questionnaires on 120 four-wheeled vehicles in the Pallepola area. Thus, descriptive statistics, correlation, and multiple regression analysis were carried out on the data collected using the Statistical SPSS software. The research focuses on examining the effect of service quality, customer service, and spare parts availability on customer satisfaction, customer retention. The Vehicle type distribution reveals that the majority of the vehicles are buses, then cars, and trucks/lorries respectively. The regression analysis results show a positive correlation between service quality and customer service, availability of spare parts, and customer satisfaction. The results also show that service quality harms customer satisfaction; however, customer service and availability of spare parts also had a positive impact on customer satisfaction. For customer retention, the results show that while service quality is significantly and negatively associated with retention, customer service was positively associated with retention. Nevertheless, service quality and its accessibility did not have a direct impact on the scope of service usage. The findings highlight the need to focus the improving and delivering resources and better customer services, and parts accessibility to increase customer loyalty in rural customers, such as that of Pallepola.