Factors influencing customer satisfaction with insurance companies: a case of Tanzania

The objective of the study was to investigate the factors influencing customer satisfaction with insurance companies. Professional services are credence products with very few tangible cues to signal quality. In developing a tool for the insurance context, the 2] attributes of service quality were operationalised generating five dimensions which were identified as Assurance, Tangibles, Reliability, Responsiveness and Empathy. A cross- section of 121 customers of insurance policies from different companies in Tanzania provided data on the way they rated their Insurance Companies in respect to the features and services they offer. Using these ratings, customer satisfaction levels were calculated. This study found that Assurance and Reliability dimensions have a significant influence on customer satisfaction with insurance companies, suggesting that these two dimensions were regarded by policyholders as the most crucial towards meeting customer satisfaction. Managers should look into the two dimensions very closely as they are important to customers. Improvement of service quality should be in this order Reliability, Assurance, Responsiveness, Empathy, Tangibles. Growing evidence that customer satisfaction drives organizations' economic health means that managers can no longer afford to ignore customers' feedback. Rather, organization- specific examination of dimensions is vital and useful so that managers are able to assess and determine the precise level of both customer satisfaction and its influencing factors. The proposed exploratory instrument used here to measure customer satisfaction with the insurance industry could serve as a starting point for other studies in the professional services domain.