Customer service attributes and customer satisfaction in Taiwanese rural hotels.

Tourism and Hospitality is a service-intensive industry that is dependent on the quality of customers' service experiences and their consequent assessments of satisfaction or dissatisfaction and behavioural intentions. The management of services and measurement of customer satisfaction is thus of crucial importance to the tourism industry and is becoming increasingly important as a result of the growing tourism and hospitality industry in Taiwan. This especially applies to the phenomenon of Taiwanese small rural hotels, which have been growing substantially from 65 hotels in 2003 to 3,407 hotels in 2012 and which present an area so far untapped by researchers.This study approaches customer satisfaction in Taiwanese rural hotels from a pragmatist perspective and using multi strategy research. First, the qualitative part of the study employs 13 semi structured interviews with hotel owners, experts, and customers in order to define the Taiwanese rural hotel product and to identify 21 customer service attributes. These attributes are then tested in a quantitative study by using self-administered two-part (before and after the service experience) questionnaires in 38 rural hotels in the three counties of Taiwan with the highest population of rural hotels. Results from 1,161 returned questionnaires (77.4 percent response rate) are then analysed using four popular conceptualisations of customer satisfaction: Expectancy Disconfirmation Paradigm (EDP), Perceived Performance Only (PPO), Importance Performance Analysis (IPA), and Revised Importance Performance Analysis (RIPA). In addition questionnaire data are quantitatively analysed using a variety of multivariate analysis techniques and results are computed against customers' overall satisfaction and return intentions. Overall customers currently appear to be neither satisfied nor unsatisfied with the rural hotel experience.This study provides empirical evidence that the methodological approach chosen for this study is adequate for conceptualising the Taiwanese rural hotel product and identifying its inherent customer service attributes. The proposed 21 service attributes present a framework that subsequent researchers in hospitality and tourism studies in the Taiwanese rural hotel context may want to consider when structuring their enquiries. Furthermore this study finds that all of the four tested approaches EDP, PPO, IPA, and RIPA are applicable for measuring customer satisfaction in a Taiwanese rural hotel context. However, they turn out differing results and findings indicate a superiority of process oriented approaches over the outcome oriented approach. This study emphasises the need for more research in this subject area and rethinking current approaches to measuring customer satisfaction.