On- board rail catering service quality and customer satisfaction in madaraka express, Kenya

Abstract

Service quality result in higher levels of customer satisfaction increased patronage intentions and sales. There are myriad of passenger complaints on the quality of on- board rail catering services that affect customer satisfaction. The purpose of this study was to investigate on-board rail catering service quality effects on customer satisfaction in Madaraka express. The specific objective was to examine the effects of on-board rail catering service reliability, tangibility, assurance and responsiveness on customer satisfaction. The study was guided by SERVQUAL Model and employed both descriptive and explanatory research designs. The target population was 603 customers while the sample size was 235 customers. Purposive sampling technique was used to select passenger trains while simple random sampling was used to select customers. The instrument for collecting data was structured questionnaires. Multiple linear regression was used to analyze data and test the hypotheses. The regression model coefficient determination of R2=.547, indicates that on-board rail catering service quality explain 54.7% variation in customer satisfaction. Results revealed that reliability (β= .551,p=0.001), responsiveness (β= .207, p=0.004) and tangibility (β= .526, p=0.001) of on-board rail catering service had a positive significant effect on customer satisfaction (p<.05) while assurance (β= .107, p=0.117) of on-board rail catering service had a positive insignificant effect on customer satisfaction (p>.05). The study concludes that reliability, responsiveness and tangibility affect customer satisfaction while assurance does not affect. The study recommends improvement in customer satisfaction by focusing on strategies to enhance reliability, responsiveness and tangibility of services. Further recommendations include; monitoring systems regularly and proactively to enhance reliability; improvement of seat arrangement and spacing for better tangibility and dining experience especially in the economy class and improve responsiveness through introduction of a dining coach in the economy class for easy accessibility. The study is expected to benefit policy makers and stakeholders in rail transport.