QUALITY OF MEDICAL SERVICES AND ITS IMPACT ON CUSTOMER SATISFACTION. DIAGNOSING THE ZONE OF TOLERANCE

Abstract

The purpose of the present research consists in diagnosing the zone of tolerance for the medical services provided by an organic health center (OHC) of Brasov, in order to improve the quality of its services and customer satisfaction. Thus, SERVQUAL was employed as an instrument of service quality assessment, as well as the zone of tolerance, through the assessment of desired and adequate expectations, and their comparison with the customer perceptions. The results revealed that respondents' perceptions related to the quality of services provided by OHC exceeded the desired expectations. Moreover, the level of upgrade and enhancement in terms of center's medical equipment represented the single variable which failed to exceed the top level of expectations. Consequently, the organic health center considered for this research should use its best efforts in order to enhance its medical equipment to increase the customer satisfaction.