Customer Satisfaction in Indian Hospitals: Moderators and Mediators

Abstract

While underscoring the importance of customer (patient) satisfaction in fostering efficient delivery of healthcare services, researchers from the developed world explored the whole gamut of influencing factors, ranging from empathy of physicians and hospital infrastructure to courtesy of paramedical staff and hospital image. The hospitals in the developing world present distinct business models and service quality variations that warrant context-specific examination. In the Indian healthcare system, patients are always accompanied by their attendants who perform a plethora of functions, including facilitating the execution of physicians' recommendations. In many Indian hospitals the presence of an attendant is perceived more as an institutional norm than a personal convenience. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the moderators and mediators in the context of healthcare service quality from the perspectives of patients and their attendants in India. The study employs a questionnaire-survey approach to obtain the perceptions of patients and attendants. The study reveals that attendants play an indispensable role in Indian context. Attendants provide physical and mental support to patients, which result in patients' satisfaction with the hospital's services. Further, attendants, by supplementing hospital activities, serve as a bridge between service providers and patients. The attendants have been found to subordinate their own personal comfort levels to the care provided by the hospital to the patients. The current research is the earliest study that explicitly addresses the role of attendants in the context of healthcare service delivery in India.

• adaptation theory
• attendants
• customer satisfaction
• hospitals
• India
• mediator
• moderator
• patients
• service quality
• theory of personal control
• theory of planned behavior

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Padma Panchapakesan

Padma Panchapakesan is an assistant researcher at the Business Research Unit, ISCTE-University Institute of Lisbon. She teaches services marketing and her primary research interests include service quality, service recovery, service branding, and customer satisfaction. She previously worked with Fortune 500 companies in financial and IT sectors in various research and analytical roles. She can be reached by email at [email protected].

L. Prakash Sai

L. Prakash Sai is a professor of strategy with the Department of Management Studies, IIT Madras, India. He specializes in the broad areas of technology management, innovation, and business excellence. He previously served Tata Consultancy Services as director (strategic planning), North America. Fortune 500 firms availed of his expertise in global IT outsourcing, business process improvement, and program management.

Chandrasekharan Rajendran

Chandrasekharan Rajendran has a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering, and master's and doctorate degrees in industrial engineering. He has been on the faculty of IIT Madras for more than 25 years. His research interests are in operations and supply chain management, and quality management in manufacturing and service industries. He has published in many international journals. He is a recipient of Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship of Germany.