THE INFLUENCE OF SERVICE ACCESSIBILITY ON CUSTOMER SATISFACTION IN COURIER SERVICES

Abstract

Background/Problem: The fast growth of e-commerce has made the courier services industry more competitive, forcing businesses to figure out which aspects of their service have the biggest impact on customer satisfaction. Compared to reliability and pricing factors, service accessibility—meaning the ways, places, and channels through which customers interact with courier providers—has not been studied enough. The existing literature does not provide a systematic breakdown of accessibility into specific, quantifiable sub-dimensions, which diminishes its practical applicability for service managers. The goal of this study is to look at how service accessibility, which is defined as the Place dimension in the 7P Marketing Mix framework, affects customer satisfaction in the courier services industry. It wants to turn accessibility into five measurable constructs and suggest a testable quantitative research framework based on well-known marketing and service quality theories. Methodology: This study uses a systematic literature synthesis approach, which combines results from previous empirical research on logistics service quality, the marketing mix, and customer satisfaction theory. For future empirical testing, a quantitative survey framework is suggested that uses a structured Likert-scale questionnaire and multiple linear regression analysis. The results shown here come from a synthesis of existing literature, not from primary statistical modeling. The descriptive data shown are examples of the proposed framework and are in line with patterns found in the literature that was reviewed. Results/Findings: By synthesizing existing empirical literature, the study determines that all five dimensions of service accessibility—geographic coverage, availability of pickup and drop-off points, accessibility of digital platforms, operating hours and flexibility, and efficiency of last-mile delivery—are both theoretically and empirically linked to customer satisfaction. Last-mile delivery efficiency and digital platform accessibility consistently emerge as the most significant contributors across the reviewed studies. Contribution/Implications: This study moves the Place dimension forward by breaking down service accessibility into five measurable spatial, temporal, and digital constructs that are specifically designed for courier services. It gives future empirical studies a theoretically sound conceptual framework and a replicable quantitative research design. It also gives courier service managers useful information on how to improve service delivery networks to make customers as happy as possible.