Perceived Quality of Card Companies' Attributes: the Case of Diners Club and Merchant Card

Abstract

The study reported in this project sought to investigate the perceived quality of Merchant Card and Diners Club's attributes, as seen by retail establishments. The basic premise of the study was that the success of any service firm depends mainly on the extent to which customer expectations are met. Customers perceptions were measured using a modified scale. likert Mean scores and proportions ~ere calculated and graphs were draw for comparison purposes. The study revealed the following; (i ) Merchant Card's overall performance fell below customers' expectations, significantly. This is evidenced by the 7 out of 9 attributes that lie in the average or below average area in figure 1. ii) Diners Clup's overall performance was not significantly different from customers' expectations as evidenced by 7 out of 9 attributes that lie in the above average area,in the same figure. On the basis of these findings, the recommendations were that Merchant Card should improve its performance on the attributes that are very important to customers, namely prompt payment, timeliness of information of lost cards/suspended persons, and speed of authorization.