【正文】 ? The answer is very clear: without question, it is hospital “A” – the one with a loyal patient following. This is because finding new customers and doing business with them takes time, effort, and money. Hospital “B” for example, has to invest heavily in advertising to consumers and in personal selling to physicians, so as to attract new patients. Then, it has to spend the effort and precious employee time in setting up new patient records, for explaining the hospital procedures, and for understanding each patient’s individual needs,and guiding them through the treatment procedures. The same is true for other service businesses. Insurance agents know, for example, how cumbersome it is to obtain new customers and to set up their policies. Car mechanics who have handled a particular car in the past bee more efficient in diagnosing new problems. Stockbrokers understand their established clients’ financial goals better. And repeat guests in a hotel are familiar with the hotel facilities and will not call uponemployee time to seek information. Although panies are realizing the value of keeping customers loyal, no one knows for sure how to do it. Companies measure customer satisfaction, and hope that if the satisfaction scores are good, the customers will stay with the firm. But even satisfied customers leave for the lure of a petitor’s offer. Companies such as airlines and hotels offer frequent guest rewards, yet consumers will still shop around and switch panies from transaction to transaction. According to some observers, customer defection runs as high as 50 percent in many industries (Cannie, 1992). We explore the problem of customer defection in service industries. Service industries present a more difficult setting for understanding customer disloyalty as opposed to manufactured goods industries. This is because, for service firms, the basis of consumer choice and continued patronage are less obvious. Services are intangible, and they cannot be pletely standardized. At the minimum, they vary according to the mood of the service provider and service customer at the moment of service delivery. Thus, in service businesses, what is given and received is relatively intangible. Consequently, customer evaluative criteria are less well articulated, and the appraisal of the value received is much more subjective (Berry, 1980。 Keaveney, 1995。 Zeithaml et al., 1993). It would be of interest, therefore, to understand customer disloyalty for service businesses. The second conception and measure of service quality is SERVQUAL. Proposed by researchers Parasuraman et al. (1988), SERVQUAL measures service quality as five dimensions: reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy, and tangibles. These dimensions are defined as follows: (1) Reliability: Ability to perform the promised service dependably and accurately。 (3) Assurance: Knowledge and courtesy of employees and their ability to inspire trust and confidence。 (5) Tangibles: Physical facilities, equipment, and appearance of personnel. In most research studies done by SERVQUAL’s authors, Reliability has been found to be the most influential determinant of overall service quality or of customer satisfaction with the service. But an important question remains unanswered. This question is: Are the dimensions of SERVQUAL that influence satisfaction also the ones that influence loyalty? We examine this question here. We collected consumer responses on their experience with either of these two services. Our respondents answered a questionnaire either for a health clinic or a car repair service facility. Respondents were recruited from PT