The Effect of Medical Service Quality and Hospital's Reputation on Customer Satisfaction, Repurchase Intention, and Negative Word of Mouth as to Disease Severity

질병의 중증도에 따른 의료서비스 품질과 병원의 명성이 고객만족과 재구매의도, 그리고 부정적 구전에 미치는 영향

This model was empirically developed to test the effect of medical service quality and hospital's reputation on customer satisfaction, repurchase intention, and negative word of mouth as to disease severity. The model was tested in the context of the hospital industry. The findings are as follows. First, medical service provider's functional quality and technical service quality have significant effect on customer satisfaction. Second, hospital's reputation has positive(+) effect on customer satisfaction and significant negative effect on negative word of mouth. Third, customer satisfaction with medical service quality has significantly positive effect on customer's repurchase intention and has negative(-) effect on customer's negative word of mouth. Furthermore, customer's negative word of mouth has negative effect on their repurchase intention. Fourth, as to different disease severity, medical service quality and hospital's reputation have different effect on customer satisfaction, repurchase intention, and negative word of mouth. When patients get slightly ill, functional service quality and technical service quality have direct influence on customer satisfaction which has positive influence on repurchase intention and negative influence on negative word of mouth. Finally, negative word of mouth has negative effect on customer's repurchase intention. However, while hospital's reputation doesn't have effect on customer satisfaction, the reputation has significantly negative effect on negative word of mouth. When patients get seriously ill, only functional service quality has positive effect on customer satisfaction which influences on customer's repurchase intention and negatively influences on negative word of mouth. On the contrary, negative word of mouth doesn't influence on customer's repurchase intention as patients want to treat serious diseases in the large general hospitals even though negative word of mouth is known to them.