• Korean Business Review
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.193-221
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• 2006

Customer Contact, defined as "the extent of interpersonal interaction between customer and service provider", is recognized as an important contributor to the perception of service quality, which in turn brings positive impacts on customer satisfaction, customer retention and loyalty especially in service contexts. The major purposes of this study are to explore the dimensionality of customer contact construct, to access the influences of customer contact dimensions on service quality dimensions, and to evaluate the relative importance of customer contact dimensions on service quality. Data from 388 customers of hotels at youngdong area in Kangwon-do were analyzed with major findings and their implications for service companies including hotels are as follows. First of all, the results of factor analysis show that customer contact is constructed with two dimensions, namely communication time and contact proximity. Secondly, overall customer contact is found to have positive effects on customers' perception of overall service quality and each dimension of customer contact has significant effects on overall service quality. Third, contact proximity dimension has relatively more important contributors than communication time has on overall service quality and four dimensions of service quality.