THE MODERATING EFFECT OF CUSTOMER EXPECTATIONS ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SERVICE ENCOUNTER QUALITY AND SATISFACTION OF HOTEL GUESTS IN KENYA

Consumers have expectations of what they will receive from the service delivered to

them. These beliefs about future events are compared with the perceived service

delivered, and are assumed to influence customer satisfaction and service quality. The

main objective of this study was to determine the moderating effect of customer

expectations on service encounter quality and guest satisfaction. The study was guided

by the service encounter needs theory, the expectancy disconfirmation theory and the

three factor theory of customer satisfaction. A descriptive cross sectional research design

was used in this study and the unit of analysis was resident guests at four star and five

star rated town hotels in Kenya. The Tourism Regulatory Authority identifies 9 five- star

rated town hotels and 12 four-star town hotels in Kenya. 18 of these hotels are located in

Nairobi, 2 in Nyeri and 1 in Uasin Gishu. The study targeted 376 hotel guests who were

randomly selected. A total of 350 responded which was a 95% response rate. Descriptive

analysis as well as factor analysis, and regression analysis were used to analyze the data.

The results show that when the interaction term was included there was an R² change of

.0260, p < 0.05, showing presence of significant moderating effect. This implies that

customer expectations moderate the relationship between service encounter quality and

satisfaction. Hotels in Kenya need to actively pay attention to guests’ expectations in

terms of their desires at the point of encounter. These can be through ensuring staff are

courteous, trustworthy and are equipped with information to assist the guests.

Additionally, customers expect that a service is performed right without errors the very

first time, therefore, the hotel management must ensure their staff are competent and

that other services that enhance guests experience like neatness, timely service, modern

fixtures meet guest expectations. Since this study was focused on top tier hotels, further

research can be conducted on the lower tier hotels which are not featured in this study.

More research is needed to compare the levels of guest satisfaction with other regions as

well as doing studies with a different methodology like using longitudinal study design.