Title: Prioritising the service quality factors affecting customer satisfaction in life insurance industry: an application of fuzzy AHP

Authors: Preeti; Manju Mittal; Sanjay Gupta

Addresses: Shree Atam Vallabh Jain College, Ludhiana, India ' GSSDGS Khalsa College, Patiala, India ' Sri Aurobindo College of Commerce and Management, Ludhiana, Panjab University, Chandigarh, India

Abstract: As the insurance sector plays a big role in the economic development of a nation, therefore, the present research aims at prioritising the service quality factors, which affect customer satisfaction in the case of the life insurance industry. The data were accumulated from 557 policyholders holding life insurance policies in north India. A fuzzy analytical hierarchy process (fuzzy-AHP) was employed to prioritise the factors that influence customers' selection of life insurance partners. The key factors considered for the study were assurance, reliability, empathy, responsiveness, and tangibles. Findings of the study revealed Assurance as the top-ranked and prioritised factor influencing customers' selection of life insurance partners, whereas tangibles appeared as the least important factor. Data were gathered from the north Indian life insurance policyholders and only a few factors that form part of the SERVQUAL model were considered for analysis, which has been considered as limitation of the study.

Keywords: customer satisfaction; service quality; SERVQUAL; insurance; fuzzy-AHP.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPQM.2024.140602

International Journal of Productivity and Quality Management, 2024 Vol.42 No.4, pp.519 - 535

Received: 13 Mar 2022
Accepted: 06 Aug 2022
Published online: 28 Aug 2024 *

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