Kim and Choi’s article depicts that outcome, socialization, and even peer-to-peer quality are significant factors in determining customer satisfaction in the healthcare industry. The authors are erroneous in their reasoning that outcome quality influences client contentment only when sick people are conversant with the services offered in the healthcare facility. Choi and Kim define outcome quality as the client’s insight of the services provided at a particular health center (Choi & Kim, 2013). In the healthcare sector, patients can determine the outcome quality throughout their healing or treatment process. For example, ill individuals rate the services provided as of high-quality when they recover quickly regardless of whether they are familiar with them or not. Therefore, patients' familiarity with the services offered in a hospital cannot significantly affect customer satisfaction.
The authors did not have sufficient evidence to compare first-time patients to those who were familiar with the services offered at the hospital. In particular, that is a limiting factor that would affect the generalizability of the results obtained. First-time patients were supposed to be equal to those used with such services. Choi and Kim were biased in that they prioritized interaction quality over outcome quality. For example, the outcome quality was insignificant on customer satisfaction if the patients were not familiar with the service offered at the hospital (Choi & Kim, 2013).
Moreover, the authors’ perception was that some medical services such as performing a root canal were credence goods where patients cannot evaluate their outcome. In that case, the outcome quality was perceived insignificant. As such, these biases might affect the study where authors wanted to prove some hypotheses. Specifically, other researches about customer services must consider all the antecedents under the same gauge. The choice of my article was attributed to my interest in the healthcare sector.
Thus, the authors reasoning was biased since it factored out the outcome quality if patients were not used to the services provided in a hospital. All patients should have been analyzed equally regardless of whether they are used to the medical services or not.
Reference
Choi, B. J., & Kim, H. S. (2013). The impact of outcome quality, interaction quality, and peer-to-peer quality on customer satisfaction with a hospital service. Managing Service Quality, 23(3), 188-204.
