The influence of food trucks' service quality on customer satisfaction and its impact toward customer loyalty

Purpose Service quality has been highlighted as the vital element in fulfilling customers' needs, which contributes to the customers' evaluation on the services given. As food truck business is increasingly popular in Malaysia, it is important for the food trucks' service provider to ensure that their service quality meets the standard to satisfy the customers in order to build customer loyalty. Therefore, the aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between food trucks' service quality with customer satisfaction and its impact toward customer loyalty. The customer service was measured using service quality (SERVQUAL) attributes (tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy). Design/methodology/approach A quantitative study was conducted to examine the influence of food trucks' service quality on customer satisfaction and its impact toward customer loyalty. A total of 100 food truck customers have been randomly selected to answer the self-administered questionnaire. Data collected were analyzed using frequency, descriptive, reliability, Pearson correlation and regression analysis. Findings Findings indicated that three out of five attributes of service quality have significant relationships toward customer satisfaction. They are tangibles (beta = 0.225,p < 0.05), reliability (beta = 0.349,p < 0.05) and assurance (beta = 0.311,p < 0.05). Moreover, the customer loyalty (beta = 0.643,p < 0.01) has a significant relationship with customer satisfaction. Originality/value Service quality can be characterized as the discrepancy between customer service standards and actual service. When expectations are higher than performance, perceived quality is less than acceptable and therefore consumer disappointment exists which eventually decreases customer loyalty toward a product or services. The study suggested that physical image of the food trucks' service like physical facilities, how the service being performed and also courtesy and knowledge of the food trucks' employees are very important to transfer confidence and trust to customers, which then will influence them to be loyal.