Measuring customer satisfaction of FM service in housing sector : A structural equation model approach

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to identify and analyze crucial variables of customer satisfaction towards residential facility management (FM) service, and to enable FM companies to deliver high quality services.

Design/methodology/approach

The research is based on a survey of customer satisfaction of one residential property in Hong Kong. FM service is divided into two interrelated clusters which are denoted by two latent variables, and then a specific structural equation model is developed for identifying and quantifying the influence of service and management quality on customer satisfaction and clarifying the causal relationships between these latent and observed variables.

Findings

The research reveals that: both service and management quality have significant positive effect on customer satisfaction, and the effect of service quality is larger than that of management quality when the indirect effect is taken into account; service quality is a crucial latent variable influencing customer satisfaction and it has a significant direct effect on management quality; how the individual observed variables work together to characterize the corresponding latent variables from an empirical point of view, and some key variables that should be focused on by facility managers in the housing sector are also identified.

Practical implications

Structural equation models are advocated for evaluating customer satisfaction in the housing property sector of facility management service. It can also be used in other sectors of facility management, such as office, retail property or some public property management like hospitals and schools. It has implications for facility management managers in how to improve residential customers' satisfaction level.

Originality/value

This paper presents a quantitative model of characterizing the degree of customer satisfaction.