Baweena Ruamchart
In years, mobile phone applications have become an intrinsic part of many people’s daily lives. For them, using a ride-hailing application creates a new solution for their urban transportation needs, replacing less inefficient traditional taxi services. However, ride-hailing services have only recently become available in Bangkok. Therefore, it is important to understand customer perceptions and expectations to evaluate the quality of the services offered. This research applied the original SERVQUAL scale in the context of transports service in Bangkok. The purposes of this study were to: 1) examine the service quality of ride-hailing services and 2) compare customer perceptions and expectations of ride-hailing services. A survey questionnaire was delivered to 563 respondents who had experienced Bangkok’s ridehailing services. Customer expectations and perceptions were measured using SERVQUAL instrument with 5 dimensions: including Tangibility, Reliability, Responsiveness, Assurance, and Empathy. This study provided evidence that customer expectations were higher than their perceptions for all five service attributes. The largest gap score was responsiveness, followed in order by empathy, tangibility, reliability, and assurance. Furthermore, the mean difference comparison between the expectations and perceptions were significant in all areas of service. It can be concluded that ride-hailing providers need to immediately improve their services in every aspect in order to satisfy their target customers.