Asian J Beauty Cosmetol. 2005; 3(2): 165-185.
A Study on the Influence of the Esthetic Salons' Service Quality upon
the Customers' Satisfaction
ABSTRACT
This is a study on examining the service quality determinants and on finding of the influence of
the service quality upon the customers' satisfaction. For such purposes, the author has derived determinants
appropriate for the characteristics of services provided in the esthetic salons, set up the
study models and study hypotheses showing the influence paths between the service quality, customers'
satisfaction and repurchase intention, and testified the established hypotheses through the
statistical analysis of the collected data. Referring to the precedent studies of Grőnroos and KS-SQI
about the determinants of the service quality, the author has accepted, to construct the study model,
the technical quality and the functional quality as the service quality dimension.
For this study, questionnaires have been collected through on-line from 230 netizens who have
experienced the skin care service in esthetic salons, as well as through off-line from 233 of those
who have received the skin care service in esthetic salons from Seoul, Daejeon, Daegu, Gumi and
Jinhae and used for the statistical analysis. The author used the SAS version 8.1 and LISREL version
8.53 for the frequency analysis, the factors analysis, the reliability analysis, the variance analysis,
the regression analysis, the correlation analysis and the covariance structural analysis.
The result of the corroborative study shows that the skin care service's quality comprises three
determinants: "expert skill" belonging to the technical quality, "customers reception service" belonging
to the functional quality, and "physical environment". What more positively influenced on the
overall service quality was revealed in the order of the physical environment, the customers reception
service and the 'expert skill', which shows that we could enhance the quality of incorporeal
service with the strategy of differentiating the corporeal "physical environment". Also, as the 'expert
skill' was found to be one of the main determinants of the service quality, it should be stated that
we must not overlook the technical quality in the skin care services and we could enhance the
service quality with the enhancement of the professional skills.
The result of the test of the study hypotheses reveals that the indirect influence of the service
quality upon the repurchase intention through the customers' satisfaction is bigger than the direct influence of the service quality upon it. This result well explains the study intention and the role of
the parameters and means that the high service quality is not directly related with the repurchase
intention. It also shows that the service quality and the customers' satisfaction should be taken into
account with the concept of the price considered and a strategy as to the quality enhancement
from service providers as well as the satisfaction of service consumers is needed.
