Title: Is logistics service quality a pathway to customer loyalty in the international freight forwarding industry?

Authors: G. Yoganandan; M. Vasan

Addresses: Department of Management Studies, Periyar University, Salem, 636-011, Tamil Nadu, India ' Department of Commerce, National College (Autonomous), Tiruchirappalli, 620-001, Tamil Nadu, India

Abstract: This study aims to examine the quality of services rendered by freight forwarders. The respondents of this study comprised 220 regular business to business (B2B) customers of freight forwarders in Chennai. The service quality measurement instrument developed by Parasuraman et al. (1988) was suitably modified and used in this study. The study proved that the dimensions such as tangibles and responsiveness highly influenced the perceived service quality (PeSQ). Also, an attempt was made to find out the inter-relation among the dimensions of PeSQ by using bivariate correlation. It was found that there existed a significant interlink between PeSQ, customer satisfaction (CSAT) and customer loyalty (CL). It indicated that the COVID-19 pandemic scenario and subsequent lockdowns did not affect the service rendered by the freight forwarders. Based on key study findings, we recommend the allocation of more funds for the improvement of logistics infrastructure to deliver enhanced quality services.

Keywords: customer satisfaction; freight forwarders; logistics services; loyalty; shipping agent; perceived service quality; PeSQ; service quality.

DOI: 10.1504/IJLSM.2024.138881

International Journal of Logistics Systems and Management, 2024 Vol.48 No.1, pp.1 - 16

Received: 06 Aug 2021
Accepted: 03 Oct 2021
Published online: 03 Jun 2024 *

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