Impact Of Perceived Service Quality On Customer Satisfaction And Brand Loyalty
[A CASE STUDY OF HONEYWELL FLOUR MILLS PLC]

Bloch & Richens (1993) proposed the definitions of product importance as the extent to which a consumer links a product to salient enduring situation specific goals. Product importance may be understood better by looking at it from the instrumental and enduring concept dimensions.
An instrumental importance may emanate from the product achieving temporary heightened importance as a means to a salient short-term goal. Such goods may be purchase related or usage related.
An enduring importance results from perceiving the goals as having a long lasting importance when a specific purchase or usage goal is not operative. The perception of importance here is used on the product's ability to satisfy intrinsically consumers enduring needs.
Product importance can be determined by these variables and consumer characteristics.
The nature of the product itself plays an important role in determining perception of product importance. In line with this, Bloch and Richens proposed that the product importance is positively related to the product cost, product's potential to do harm to the consumers and others. Consumers are likely to attach enduring importance to those products that are highly valued parts of their lifestyle and help to project a positive image for others to see.
Structural variables affecting both the purchases situation and the intended consumption situation do affect the product importance. Consumer characteristics that can affect product importance include personality traits, the self concept, consumer needs and social roles among others
2.5    Clarification of Concepts
Communication: Isabout keeping people informed, listening to them-their suggestions, frustrations, fears, complaints etc using the appropriate language for them.
Ehigie & Babalola (1999) found out in their research that ethnicity and language influence buyer and seller behaviour in the market place. There is often a tendency for a buyer to want to patronize a seller who is of his/her ethnic origin or speak the same language. Similarly, a seller will be soft on a buyer who speaks same language or is of the same ethnic origin. Abramovitch (2006) said "if your market speaks a language other than Spanish, you can make a bilingual site or use more languages to make you customers happy.
Needs Satisfaction
The need to satisfy customers is fundamental to all businesses. Departmental stores ensure that their shelves are invariably always full to provide shoppers with the widest choice of goods. Airlines on long routes kill boredom for passengers by providing in flight entertainment - meals, drinks, films, and music or computer games. Parets (2006) observed that the airlines are always looking for new ways to make travel more enjoyable for their flights, provide in-flight shopping channel, video games and reservation services. Passengers can wager, black jack or roulette or recorded horse races, using credit cards to process transactions.
Credit Offer
American, European and Japanese customers want to transact most forms of businesses using credit cards. Use of credit cards has become standard practice in their countries. This implies low use of cash. Nigerian companies also appreciate and expect to be given credit, 2-4 weeks, for their purchases from suppliers. Payment should be in cash although bank or credited cheques are gaining currency.
Timeliness
Business people say time is money. Travelers want timely departures and arrivals. Manufacturers and merchants want timely delivery of stock, timely booking of orders, timely payment for orders. Lateness is frowned upon and it creates dissatisfaction, which can lead to defection or disloyalty.