汽车品牌研究外文翻译及原文

 

在汽车修理和服务行业要检验客户对服务质量的总体评价和五因素间的关系。这五因素分别是：公平、共鸣、灵敏度、可靠性、方便。 具体来说,这项研究探讨保修是否影响对服务质量的评价。问卷调查显示,只有服务不在保修的情况下，服务供应商所表现出来的共鸣是重要的；在没有保修和超出保修范围的情况下，公平性和可靠性很重要；无论在有或者没有保修的情况下，灵敏度和方便的影响力是同样重要的。

近年来, 世界经济在服务业强劲增长。 这种趋势并将持续下去。提供服务通常需要大量接触客户和市场，在当今以顾客为导向的激烈竞争中，提供优质客户服务是迈向成功甚至保持生存的关键。

认识到这个重要性后,学术研究就开始探讨如何将服务质量概念化及应用化。 Parasuraman等人在1988年定义了服务质量的五个因素: 共鸣、灵敏度、可靠性、方便和有形,并建议在每个环节上衡量出顾客期望的优质服务和服务提供商具体在每个因素中做到的服务的差距。这种模式称为服务质量, 提供了一种评价服务质量的普遍方法,并且已经广泛运用于工业中。

后来的研究在原先的基础上更精细化，变更了原有的解释，甚至需要引入新的层面。变化可归纳如下:(1) 应当单独测量，而不是衡量预想的和可见质量的差距 (2)服务质量评价的组成要适应具体情况(3)新出台的成分要应用到特定环境中。

目前的研究重点是包含了上述建议,并集中在特定领域:美国汽车维修业。这个部门的服务范围可从简单的(如轮胎变化)到相当复杂(例如传送修理)程序。因此,服务成本差距很大。那些认为很难衡量出服务好坏的顾客感觉有点受到攻击。结果发现可见公平会影响对服务品质的评价,因此被引入作为一个新的层面。 为了抵制客户脆弱感,往往服务提供商提供保修服务。这个研究的目的就是要确定保修的存在与否是否会硬性规定对服务质量的评价。

该项初步研究采用小组集中访谈的方式，由美国东北部一所大学的工商管理硕士学生进行研究，证明了想要衡量在已选部门的服务质量，我们必须 ：(一) 在这篇文章中采用上面定义的服务质量的因素 (二)使用绝对分数理念，而不是使用顾客期望衡量的理想和事实间的服务质量的差距。在这试探性的研究中，以下的评估组成部分被确定为最重要的因素: (1)公平的服务提供者(2) 共鸣(3)反应(4)可靠性、(5)方便，这些因素在研究中都是独立的变量。对以下假设进行了检验。

假设我们的立场是，在一般情况下, 汽车服务质量的评估取决于顾客对客户服务商在之前定义的五个服务质量因素的评价。 这些因素的本质表明他们在任何一个方面的高分都将得到更高的总体服务质量评估。但是，我们认为这些因素的相对重要性取决于服务是否有保修。 具体来说,保修的存在与否从两方面影响服务质量评价：首先，交易将变得更加正规。其次，在有保修的情况下，顾客会觉得服务商有法律义务来提供优质服务。因此,顾客对关于服务质量本身的期盼将更高。

由于交易变得较正规和预期的优良服务, 我们认为在有保修的情况下，客户不会把服务商认为的共鸣放在重要位置。相反,如果没有保修，共鸣应该有利于提高服务的总体评价。因此，我们应确立以下方面：

H_1a:无保修，更高层次的共鸣将导致更高的服务质量总体评价。

H_1b:有保修，共鸣对于客户服务质量的评价就不那么重要了。

其他四个服务质量评价成分--公平、灵敏度、可靠性、方便—即使没有保修，各成分对服务质量评价都有积极的作用。此外，如果有保修，客户就会在各个服务方面有更高的期望,因为有了更高的参考标准，顾客就会要求得更多，然后很难取悦。因此，如果有保修，每个因素都将对服务质量的总体评价有更大的影响。因此，我们应确立以下方面:

H_2a:无保修,高层次的公平会导致更大的整体服务质量的评价.

H_2b:有保修，逐渐增长的公平对整体服务质量的评价将比没有保修

H_3a:无保修,高层次的反应将有更高的总体服务质量评价。

H_3b:有保修，反应速度快对服务质量总体评价的影响将比没有保修更大。

H_4a:无保修,高层次的可靠性将有更高的总体服务质量评价。

H_4b:有保修，可靠性的提升对整体服务质量评价的影响比无保修

H_5a:无保修,更高层次的便利将导致更高的总体评价服务质量。

H_5b:有保修，增加便利服务对总体质量评价的作用与没保修相比将更大。

最后,一个简单的事实是应该有保修来安抚客户. 这样,我们认为应确立:

H6:其他每件事情都相同, 仅仅有保修就会提升服务质量的整体评价。

正如前面所说,根据深入的小组集中讨论确定了五种服务质量元素评定。为了衡量这些元素，人们利用Churchill推荐的方法发展了标度项目，还发展了对质量服务直接评估的方法。最初的测试方法用在25辆当时需要维修或服务的汽车上。根据他们的反馈，问卷修改后再次对另一组25个人进行更清晰的测试。最后来衡量服务质量五个元素的范围由27个项目组成。四个标度项目直接用来评估服务质量。我们可以看到在这次研究中用到的数据同时也在之前的研究中为检验不同的研究问题使用过。

Churchill的方法是用来确保多范围的财产测量的。为了评估内部性能，Cronbach的阿尔发理论价值被用来计算之前讨论的5种可解释的变化因素和服务质量的总体评估。考虑到后者，我们发现这一等级的第一、二个方面评估了行为意图，后两者衡量总体满意度。两事物的四个可变因素关系都在0.876到0.946间，并且使用两方面的标度项目和使用四方面的得出的结果相一致。因此，利用四方面的方法在此比较适用。用阿尔发价值理论来衡量四方面的总体评估为0.973。

阿尔发理论的可解释因素列在了表1的斜体部分。阿尔发价值在五个案例中有四个超过了0.9并且总是超过0.75。这些结果表明了衡量方法和内部性能的相当一致性。

为了评估判别式的有效性，Gaski和Nevin建议说如果一个标度和另一个标度的关系不到各个标度和阿尔发的系数，那么判别式的有效性是正确的。表1列举了五种构造，阿尔发价值指数总是很高。然而，标度也同样紧密相连，表明构造有重叠的领域。最后结果是，27个标度项目是交替着分析的。五个解释了75。8%变化的重大因素被确认了，同时每个因素与每个标度紧密相关。因此，我们利用标准交替因素作为对可见公平，共鸣，灵敏度，可靠性和方便性。通过建造，这些因素将标准化和互相改进。

数据是通过美国东北部两个中等大小城市的电话号码本上的受访者随机抽样调查收集的。利用一份邮件调查来获取合理的样本是低成本的。选择的人口是18岁以上的有车族并且有过修车经历。总共550份邮件发了出去，收回133份，回收率为24%。

利用多种反复分析是为了检验服务的总体质量是否可由5种评估元素（公平、共鸣、灵敏度、可靠性和方便性）和当前的保修期解释。假设W为可变因素，定义如下：如果保修期有用，W=1，如果没用W=0。以下的整个模型是首先估计的：

整个模型解释了变量的79。2%。接下来，设阿尔发等于0。05，W，W*CONV为不变量（R平方等于0。792），控制不变量的模型就能测试了。使用F测试方法，即无效假设——没一个简化变量能被当成是重要的指数y——不能在阿尔发为0。05的水平上被反对。因此我们得出公平、共鸣、灵敏度、可靠性、方便性，W*FAIR，W*EMPATHY和W*REL是我们模型里唯一重要的指数。结果显示在表2中。最终模型有R平方等于0。789。为了简化转换，被测回归等式也被分开罗列出来：W=0，没有保修，W=1则有。（注意这些不是新的测法而是判断等式的一种重申。）

从表2中我们可以反对零假设：在α＝0.01时β2<＝0。因此，我们得出当有保修时，共鸣对总体评估起绝对重要影响。当有保修（W=1）时，EMPATHY的回头客系数由(β2 +βs)表示。在当前情况下(β2＋β8)= 2.57 - 2.11 = 0.46。限定要素来进行协方差矩阵测试，可以表示为(β2 +β8) 是 0.4298 (p > 0.50).因此，我们发现在保修一定时共鸣不是一个重要指标。因此，设H1a和H1b。

考虑到公平和可靠性的效果，我们发现在没有保修的前提下，这些因素都很重要，如零假设在β1<＝0β4<=0时都能被否决。我们也发现在零假设β7 及（β1＋β7) <＝0 ；β10 及(β4 + β10) <＝0下有保修这些因素的作用将更大。因此，继续假设H2a H2b H4a H4b。

关于灵敏度和方便性的结果混在了一起。发现在零假设β3<=0和β5<=0时能被否决。这样，H3a和H5a被支持。然而，H3b和H5b不被支持。因此，当我们发现灵敏度和方便性对总体服务质量有巨大影响时，保修与否并不会影响效果。

最后，结果不证明H6，我们发现即使它减弱了其他因素的影响W没有主要影响。这可能由于保修的存在意味着服务的高成本。这代表了顾客不得不做出牺牲，满意度就相当于0了。

 说到公平可靠，我们假定当服务是在有保修下进行时，他们的效果和在没保修情况下比起来会提升，因为保修会提高顾客对这两项指标的期望值。结果支持这一结论。

我们的研究建立在汽车维修和服务部门的基础上。我们感到在这提出的5个因素的重要性不应该为这一行业独有。例如：这些因素可能会对诸如健康，金融，教育部门都有重要意义。我们希望未来的研究会探索到这些重要领域。

 

 

作者：Syed Saad Andaleeb，Amiya K Basu

文章名：Do warranties influence perceptions of service quality?

A study of the automobile repair and service industry

来源：Journal of Retailing and Comsumer Scrvices, Vol. 5, No. 2, pp. 87-91, 1998

 

 

 

 

In automobile repair and service industry, to inspect the customers’ overall evaluation of the quality of the service, and the relationship between five factors (fairness, resonance and sensitivity and reliability, convenience) is essential. Specifically, this study discusses whether the warranty affects assessments of the quality of service. Questionnaire survey showed that only when the service is under the situation of no warranty, service suppliers' resonance is important. Under the circumstance of no warranty or one beyond the scope of the warranty, fairness and reliability is very important. With or without the warranty, the sensitivity and the convenience affect equally in importance.

Keywords: BYD Auto, brand, development environment, business strategy

In recent years, the world economy is in strong growth in the service industry, which will last a very long time. To provide services usually requires a lot of contact with customers and markets. Nowadays, in the fierce customer-oriented competition, providing superb service for the customers is the right to success and even the key to survive, which prompts academic research on the conceptualization and application of service quality. Parasuraman etc, in 1988, defined five factors of the service quality: resonance, sensitivity, reliability, convenience and materiality, and suggested measuring customers’ expectations of quality services in every link and the gap of service providers in each factor of the service. This model, which is called service quality, provides a universal evaluation method of service quality, and has been widely used in industry.

Later studies, in the original basis, are refined, the original explanation is rectified and even a new level is introduced. Change can be summarized as follows: (1) the measure shall be separated, and should not aim at the preconceived gaps and those of the visible quality. (2) The component s of the service quality evaluation must be adapted to specific situations. (3) The new components is to be applied to particular environment.

The key of current research is to contain the suggestions above, and to focus on a specific field: U.S. car maintenance. The service of this department ranges from simple procedure (such as tyre changes) to complex procedure (such as transmission repair), which results in the magnificent difference in the service cost. Those who think it is hard to measure the quality service feel being attacked. It is found that the visible fairness will affect evaluation of service's quality, and so a new level was introduced. In order to resist customers' fragility, service providers often offer warranty service. The goal of this study was to determine whether the existence of warranty will result in mandatory assessments of the quality of service.

The preliminary research, studied by MBA students of a university in the northeast of U.S. on interviews by group, proved that if service quality of the chosen department want measuring, we have to (1) in this article, adopt the elements of the service quality defined above (2) use absolute fraction concept, rather than using customers' expectation to measure the gaps between the ideal quality of service and real one. In this tentative study, the following components of the assessment were identified as the most important factors: (1) the fair service providers (2) resonance (3) response (4) reliability (5) convenience. These factors in the study were independent variables. The following assumption is inspected.

Suppose, under normal circumstances, the automobile service quality evaluation depends on customers’ evaluation of five factors of service quality defined by service providers before. The essence of these factors indicate that the high score at any aspect will help them get higher scores of overall service quality evaluation. However, we believe the relative importance of these factors depends on the existence of the warranty. Specifically, the existence of the warranty affects the service quality evaluation from two aspects: firstly, trade will become more formal. Secondly, in the circumstances with the warranty, customers think they have a legal obligation to get quality services. Therefore, the customers’ expectation on service quality itself will be higher.

  Due to the more regular deal and the expected quality service, we believe, in the circumstances with the warranty, that customers would not put resonance on the important position. Conversely, if no warranty, resonance is helpful to improve the overall service evaluation. Therefore, we should establish the followings:

  H1a: No warranty, higher levels of resonance will lead to higher overall quality service evaluation.

  H1b: Having a warranty, resonance for customer service quality assessment is not that important any more.

The other four service quality evaluation components -- fairness, sensitivity reliability and convenience. Even if without warranty, each component on service quality evaluation has positive function. In addition, if there is a warranty, customers will have higher expectations in various services, because they have higher reference standards, the customer will want more, and then become harder to please. Therefore, each factor for the overall service quality evaluation has greater influence under the circumstance with warranty. Therefore, we should establish the followings:

H2a: No warranty, high level of fairness will lead to greater overall service quality evaluation.

H2b: Having a warranty, the increasing fairness has greater influence on overall service quality evaluation than the one without warranty.

H3a: No warranty, high level of response will have higher overall service quality evaluation.

H3b: Having a warranty, quick response has greater influence on overall evaluation of service quality than the one without warranty.

H4a: No warranty, high level of reliability will have higher overall service quality evaluation.

H4b: Having a warranty, the improved reliability has greater influence on overall evaluation of service quality than the one without warranty.

H5a: No warranty, higher level of convenience will cause the higher overall service quality evaluation.

H5b: Having a warranty, increasing the convenient services has greater influence on overall evaluation of service quality than the one without warranty.

Finally, a simple fact is that there should be a warranty to appease customers. So, we should establish:

H6: The same to every other thing, just having a warranty will enhance the overall evaluation of service quality.

As mentioned above, according to further intensive group discussion five kinds of service quality evaluation elements are identified. In order to measure these elements, people use the method recommended by Churchill and develop scale project, also develop direct method of the quality service evaluation. Initial test method was used 25 cars in need of repair or service. According to their feedback, after the modification of questionnaire, another 25 people undergo more clear tests again. Finally the scope to measure five elements of service quality is composed of 27 projects. Four scale projects are directly used to evaluate the quality of service. We can see that the data used in this study is also used in a previous study for the inspection of different research problems.

Churchill's method is to guarantee multirange in property measurement. In order to evaluate the internal performance, Cronbach's alpha value theory was used to calculate the 5 definable factors of change discussed before and overall evaluation of quality service. Considering the latter, we found that the first two aspects of this level evaluated the behavioral intention and the latter measured overall satisfaction. the relationship of the four variables of two things are between 0.876 in 0.946 and the results obtained by using scale projects with two aspects was consistent to those obtained by using scale projects with four aspects. Therefore, using the method with four aspects is more applicable. With alpha value theory, the overall assessment of the four aspects is 0.973.

definable factors in Alfa theory are listed in italics in table 1. The alpha values of five cases are all over 0.75, and four of them are over 0.9. These results indicate considerable consistency between the method of measure and internal performance.

Afterwards, to scale projects, the measure of structural factors is analyzed separately. In all cases, the slope test and the characteristics standard indicated a single but basic factor, and explained the part’s alternating overall change, showed the infinite outspread.

In order to evaluate the effectiveness of discriminant, Gaski and Nevin suggested that if the relationship between one scale and another scale is below coefficient of all the scales and alpha, the effectiveness of discriminent is correct. Table 1 lists five kinds of, alpha value index is always high. However, the scale is also closely connected, which these structures have overlapping field. Final result is that 27 scale projects are analyzed by turns. Five major factors which explained 75. 8% of changes were confirmed, and each factor is closely related with each scale. Therefore, we take standard of alternating factors as fairness, sensitivity, visible, reliability and convenience. Through construction, these factors will be standardized and mutually improved.

Data is collected through taking random samples of respondents of telephone directory of two medium-sized cities in the northeastern U.S. Using a mail investigation to obtain reasonable samples is costless. Selected population is those who are above the age of 18 and have their own cars and experience of car repair. 550 letters were sent out, and 133 are recovered.

The use of repeated analysis is to examine whether the overall quality of service is explained by 5 kinds of assessment elements (fairness, resonance and sensitivity, reliability and convenience) and the current warranty. Suppose W as variables, the definition is as follows: if the warranty is useful, W=1, or W=0. The whole model below is firstly estimated:

The whole model explained 79.2% of variables. Next, assume alpha is equal to 0.05, W, W*CONV are invariables (=0.792), the model to control invariables can be tested. Using F test method, namely the invalid assumptions -- not a simplified variable can be taken as the important index y – no objection over the alpha 0.05. Therefore we conclude that fairness, resonance and sensitivity and reliability, convenience, W*FAIR, W*EMPATHY and W*REL is our only important index of the model. Results are shown in table 2. Final model’s  equals 0. 789. In order to simplify transition, the tested equations are also listed separately: W=0, no warranty, W=1, having a warranty. (Note: these are not new measurement methods, but a ingemination of the judge equation.)

From table 2 we can oppose zero hypothesis: whenα=0.01, β2<=0. Thus, we concluded that when there is a warranty, resonance has absolutely important influence on overall evaluation. When W equals 1, EMPATHY’s coefficient of stickers is indicated by(β2+βs). In the present circumstances, (β2+β8)=257-2.11=0.46. Restricted factor will undergo covariance matrix test. (β2+β88) is 0.4298 (p>0.50). Therefore, we found under a certain warranty, resonance is not an important index. Therefore, suppose H1a and H1b.

Considering the effect of fairness and reliability, we found that under no warranty, these factors are all very important, such as the fact that zero hypothesis can be rejected when β1<=0 and β4<=0. We also found that under zero hypothesis [β and (β1+β7)<=0; β10 and (β4+β10)<=0 ], these factors of warranty will be more important. Therefore, keep supposing H2a H2b H4a H4b.

The results about sensitivity and convenience are mixed together. We found that in zero hypothesis (β3<=0 andβ5<=0) can be discarded. So, H3a and H5a are supported. However, H3b and H5b are not supported. Therefore, when we discovered that the sensitivity and convenience have a huge impact on overall service quality, whether the warranty exists or not will not affects.

Finally, the result does not prove H6, we found that even though it weakens the other factors’ influence, W won’t be affected. This may be due to that the existence of warranty means high cost of service. It represents that the customers have to make sacrifices, that is, satisfaction is equivalent to 0.

Five factors affect customers’ evaluation of auto maintenance and service. Although as a whole, each factor is positively relative with the standard of changes, but customers’ overall assessments of quality service differ because the affection of the existence of the factor Warranty in service. For example, if a service has no warranty, resonance becomes as important as fairness and reliability. However, with warranty, resonance won’t matter greatly an more when fairness and reliability are emphasized. Obviously, resonance appears insignificant before the warranty, so trades become formal, in other words, the trades are guaranteed. Therefore, if something goes wrong, customers can seek legal means to get compensation or correct the work. Conversely, if without warranty, when service personnel is warm, friendly, helpful and careful, customers will feel infinite satisfaction.

When it comes to the fairness and reliability, we assume that the service is under warranty, it effect ascend compared with the circumstances with warranty, because this warranty will improve customers’ expectations of the two indexes. Results support the conclusion.

With regard to sensitivity and convenience, we found that when these are important indexes of service quality evaluation, their effect did not depend on the insurance. Reliable explanation to this phenomenon is that customer s thought that sensitive and convenient is the only less important aspect in core service. Results show that, the importance in this two aspects does not depend on the warranty relative to the core service.

Our study is very important to the suppliers of automotive service and repairing service, they must be fair and reliable, sensitive to ensure customers and the stickers. Also they must show sincere emotion and provide convenience for the customers to achieve high satisfaction. This is especially important, because when the customer experience bad quality service, they will be picky. In this paper, we can find that keeping stickers is more favorable than attracting new customers. Therefore, the focus on five elements conformed here will bring about positive influence on customers’ overall evaluation of service suppliers, and profit follows as well.

Our research is based on automobile maintenance and service department. We feel that the importance of this five factors proposed here should not be exclusive only in this industry. For example: these factors have important significance in health, financial department, education department and the like. We hope the future research will explore these important areas.