Title
Handle With Care: Examining the Relationship Between Empathy and Customer Satisfaction In Retail Clinics
Abstract
Since the turn of the 21st century, retail clinics (or colloquially, “quick clinics,”) have become an
increasingly popular alternative to primary health care providers. However, there is limited
quantitative research on factors that affect retail clinics and their operations. The well-known
SERVQUAL model is a generally accepted framework in determining the elements of service
quality that lead to customer satisfaction, and consists of a set of five different traits, one of them
being empathy, or individualized attention (Parasuraman, et al., 1988). This thesis analyzes
whether or not empathy has a significant impact on retail clinics’ perceived ability to provide
quality care to its patients, as determined by a scenario-based role-playing experiment focusing
on these areas. The findings from this research determined that while empathy impacts customer
satisfaction from the patient perspective, it has a more complicated effect on the managerial
perspective.
Suggested Citation
Wagner, Samantha.
(2016).
Handle With Care: Examining the Relationship Between Empathy and Customer Satisfaction In Retail Clinics.
Retrieved from the University of Minnesota Digital Conservancy,
https://hdl.handle.net/11299/181404.