Reconciliating Literature About Client Satisfaction and Perceived Services Quality

The objective of this paper is to review the literature on client satisfaction and perceived quality of service in order: (1) to arrive at distinct definitions of both constructs, and, (2) to present a conciliatory model of the causal link between client satisfaction and perceived service quality. This will put an end to: (1) the confusion surrounding the conceptual definitions of satisfaction and perceived quality, and (2) contradictions in the conclusions about the causal link between these two constructs. KEYWORDS: Client satisfactionperceived service qualitycognitive/ affective natureexpectationsrelational vs. transactional dimensioncausal link