Abstract

Service Quality as Affected by Demographic Variables: A Study of Private Sector Insurer in India

Author(s): Jitender Kumar Tiwari

The purpose of conducting this research was to explore how the customers of the private sector Insurer perceive the various dimensions of service quality. This research was based on primary data which had been collected through a well-structured questionnaire (adapted from the PZB model of service quality). The qualified questionnaire had been collected from 400 respondents. This paper makes a useful contribution as there are very low number of studies that have been conducted in India on such dimensions like tangibility, reliability, responsiveness assurance and empathy. This research showed that perception of service quality varies from person to person. The study concluded that female respondents had more positive perception for private sector insurer towards the professional appearance of their employees, the dependability of staff in handling customer’ service problems and the promptness in solving the queries as compared to their male counterparts. It was observed that the higher income group respondents had a more positive perception for the dimensions reliability, assurance and overall service quality but for tangibility, responsiveness and empathy dimensions no significant difference was observed. Post graduates and above educational group had a more positive perception towards dependability of staff in handling customers service problems, trust and confidence they have in employees and in overall service quality but when the tangibility, responsiveness and empathy dimensions were analyzed no significant difference was observed. For age, profession and marital status no significant difference in the perception of all the dimensions of service quality was observed.

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