THE SERVICE INDUSTRIES JOURNAL, 2016

VOL. 36, NOS. 5–6, 239–260

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02642069.2016.1186657

Convenience and satisfaction: mediation of fairness and

quality
Sanjit Kumar Roya, Walfried M. Lassarb and Vaibhav Shekharc
a
Department of Marketing, The University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia; bDepartment of Marketing,
Florida International University, Miami, FL, USA; cDepartment of Marketing & Strategy, IBS Business School,
IFHE University, Hyderabad, India

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

This study investigates the role of service fairness and service quality Received 9 December 2014
in the relationship between service convenience types (decision, Accepted 19 February 2016
access, transaction, benefit and post-benefit) and customer
KEYWORDS
satisfaction. Results show that service convenience has a Convenience; convenience
significant positive impact on service fairness. Both service fairness types; fairness; customer
and service quality mediate the relationship between service satisfaction; equity theory
convenience and customer satisfaction. This study provides useful
insights to both researchers and practitioners on the role of
service convenience in improving service fairness, service quality
and customer satisfaction. Findings of this study contribute to the
literature by empirically investigating the impact of service
convenience types on service fairness, service quality and
customer satisfaction; and by examining the mediating role of
service fairness and service quality between convenience types
and customer satisfaction.

Introduction
Convenience has become an important topic in consumer behavior (Farquhar & Rowley,
2009) due to socio-economic changes, technological advancements and a hypercompeti-
tive marketplace (Seiders, Voss, Godfrey, & Grewal, 2007). Industry reports indicate that
customers are finding it difficult to manage their daily routines and have to exert moderate
to high levels of effort while resolving complaints with their service providers (Dixon,
Freeman, & Toman, 2010). Citing the above trend, researchers consider service conven-
ience as a potential source of sustainable competitive advantage, especially in services
where the core offering is perceived to be undifferentiated, such as banking (Kaura,
2013) and mobile phone services (Colwell, Aung, Kanetkar, & Holden, 2008). Firms have
also made significant investments in measures such as the launch of online channels,
ATMs and mobile commerce (Colwell et al., 2008). For example, the recent launches of
‘M-Pesa’ service jointly by ICICI bank and Vodafone provides customers with a convenient
way to bank, transfer funds and make payments in a secure environment. Such measures
enable consumers to extract value through convenience, to the extent that they are willing

CONTACT Sanjit Kumar Roy sanjit.roy@uwa.edu.au Department of Marketing, The University of Western Australia,
35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, Perth 6009, Australia
© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
240 S. K. ROY ET AL.

to pay a premium to retailers offering services in a way that is convenient for them. Despite
its demonstrated importance, researchers view service convenience as uncharted territory
and call for a better understanding of this phenomenon through further empirical inves-
tigations (Colwell et al., 2008; Berry, Seiders, & Grewal, 2002; Seiders et al., 2007).
Berry et al. (2002) state that perceived scarcity of disposable time and effort has raised
the opportunity costs for customers, which impacts their perception of fairness, service
quality and satisfaction while dealing with service providers. Researchers argue that con-
venience or lack of it (inconvenience) is an important component of customers’ overall
experience, which influences customers’ perception of fairness in situations where they
come across aggressive and unnecessary procedures, a plethora of options and goal
incongruence (Farquhar & Rowley, 2009). Similarly, Dixon et al. (2010) observe that redu-
cing customers’ time and effort expenditure during service acquisition and consumption
improves quality perceptions and customer satisfaction. Both service fairness (Loch, Sting,
Huchzermeier, & Decker, 2012) and service quality (Caruana, 2002; Zeithaml, Berry, & Para-
suraman, 1996) are recognized as significant determinants of firm performance and sus-
tainable competitive advantage. Given their importance, researchers urge future studies
to explicate the role of service fairness and service quality in the relationship between
service convenience and customer satisfaction (Berry et al., 2002; Colwell et al., 2008).
However, the extant literature examining the relationship between these managerially
important constructs is devoid of empirical investigations.
Moreover, scholarly work investigating service convenience urges firms to provide
service convenience across the stages of customer purchase behavior (Berry et al., 2002;
Colwell et al., 2008; Jiang, Yang, & Jun, 2013; Moeller, Fassnacht, & Ettinger, 2009;
Seiders et al., 2007; Seiders, Berry, & Gresham, 2000). In this regard, Berry et al. (2002)
propose five types of service convenience: decision convenience, access convenience,
transaction convenience, benefits convenience and post-benefit convenience. In order
to incorporate convenience in their overall marketing strategy, firms need a clearer
understanding of the extent to which each of the above service convenience types
impacts customers’ perceptions of service fairness, service quality and customer satisfac-
tion. Hence, there exists a critical research gap in marketing literature with respect to
empirical investigations of the differential impact of the service convenience types on
service fairness, service quality and customer satisfaction. Our study aims to fulfill the
above research gap in the existing services marketing literature. Hence, this study has
two objectives:

(1) To empirically test the relative impact of service convenience types on customers’ per-
ception of service fairness, service quality and customer satisfaction.
(2) To empirically examine the mediating role of service fairness and service quality in the
relationship between service convenience and customer satisfaction.

The results of this study will enhance the understanding of both researchers and prac-
tioners by providing insights into the role of service convenience in influencing quality and
fairness perceptions among customers and its impact on customer satisfaction. Given the
importance of service quality and service fairness, we aim to make a significant conceptual
as well as empirical contribution to the marketing knowledge surrounding the effects of
service convenience.
 THE SERVICE INDUSTRIES JOURNAL 241

Research framework
Service convenience
According to Berry et al. (2002), service convenience refers to ‘the perceived saving of
time and effort by customers related to purchase and usage of a service.’ Similarly, Far-
quhar and Rowley (2009) define service convenience as ‘a judgment made by customers
according to their sense of control over the management, utilization and conversion of
their time and effort in achieving their goals associated with access to and use of
service.’ These definitions underscore two dimensions of service convenience, that is,
time and effort. In the present marketing landscape time-poor consumers look favor-
ably toward firms that offer value by incorporating convenience during search,
access, purchase and use of services. Hence, prior studies consider service convenience
as a multi-dimensional construct (Berry et al., 2002; Colwell et al., 2008; Seiders et al.,
2000, 2007). Based on economic utility theory, Brown (1990) suggests five dimensions
of customer convenience, that is, time, place, acquisition, use and execution. Similarly,
Berry et al. (2002) propose following five types of service convenience: decision conven-
ience (perceived saving of time and effort while deciding upon whether to avail service
or not, and from which service provider), access convenience (perceived saving of time
and effort while establishing contact with the service provider), transaction conven-
ience (perceived saving of time and effort while concluding a transaction with a
service provider), benefit convenience (perceived saving of time and effort while receiv-
ing core benefits of a service) and post-benefit convenience (perceived saving of time
and effort while receiving after sales services or in case of a service failure). Although
this classical model of service convenience is critiqued by Farquhar and Rowley
(2009) on the basis that customers behave irrationally and unpredictably, we adopt
this in our study due to its widespread use and consideration (Chang & Polonsky,
2012; Dai & Salam, 2014).

Service fairness
Equity theory has been widely used in services marketing literature (Olson & Johnson,
2003; Palmer, Beggs, & Keown-McMullan, 2000) to investigate service fairness. Building
on equity theory, Seiders and Berry (1998) define service fairness as customers’ percep-
tion of the degree of justice in a service firm’s behavior. It indicates customers’ percep-
tion of rightness in their evaluation of the inputs and outcomes in the firm-customer
relational exchange (Han, Kwortnik, & Wang, 2008). Lemon, Rust, and Zeithaml (2001)
argue that customer equity is a function of value equity, brand equity and relationship
equity. They posit that a firm’s actions aimed at saving customers’ perceived non-mon-
etary costs (time and effort) create value equity. The authors define value equity as cus-
tomers’ overall subjective evaluation of the utility of a brand on the basis of what is given
up vis-à-vis what is received. Vogel, Evanschitzky, and Ramaseshan (2008) examine the
above proposition and find that value equity positively influences customer satisfaction.
In addition, service recovery literature also shows that promptness displayed by a firm in
handling service failure creates a positive impact on overall justice perceptions and cus-
tomer satisfaction (De Ruyter & Wetzel, 2000; Van Vaerenbergh, Orsingher, Vermeir, &
Larivière, 2014).
242 S. K. ROY ET AL.

Hypotheses development
Anderson and Srinivasan (2003) note the differences among consumers with respect to
their convenience orientation. According to them, some customers are driven by infor-
mation gathering and money, whereas the rest are driven by convenience. In this vein,
equity theory (Adams, 1965) postulates that perceived fairness is a function of both mon-
etary (money) as well as non-monetary (time and effort) costs that a consumer incurs while
dealing with a service provider (Seiders & Berry, 1998). Furthermore, researchers argue that
customers value convenience (saving time and effort costs) not only while making pur-
chase decisions, but also while accessing, receiving and completing a service (Lapierre,
2000; Ruiz, Gremler, Washburn, & Carrión, 2008). Therefore, we propose that convenience
provided by a firm at various stages of consumer behavior (i.e. decision, access, trans-
action, benefit and post-benefit) will influence perceived service fairness. The above
notion is corroborated by studies citing customer convenience as a driver of value
equity (Lemon et al., 2001; Vogel et al., 2008). In addition, the framework proposed by
Berry et al. (2002) conceptualizes service fairness as an outcome of service convenience.
Hence, we advance the following hypotheses:
H1 (a–e): Service convenience types (decision, access, transaction, benefit and post-benefit)
positively impact perceived service fairness.

The cue utilization theory postulates that customers use both extrinsic and intrinsic
cues to evaluate intangible service when faced with uncertainty (Dodds, Monroe, &
Grewal, 1991; Grewal, Krishnan, Baker, & Borin, 1998). Service convenience may be
treated as one potential intrinsic cue, which can be used by customers to evaluate
service quality. This is evident from Dixon et al. (2010), who argue that reducing customers’
time and effort expenditure during service acquisition and delivery improves service
quality perception and customer satisfaction. In addition, Jun and Cai (2001) find that
easy accessibility to banking services, and timeliness of service delivery significantly deter-
mine the overall service quality of banks. Prior studies also suggest that customers experi-
ence a greater level of satisfaction when they receive the benefits of a service easily (or
conveniently) (Chang & Polonsky, 2012; Hsu, Chen, Chang, & Chao, 2010). Besides, Berry
et al. (2002) hypothesize both service quality and customer satisfaction as consequences
of service convenience types. Based on the above evidence and theoretical support, we
advance the following hypotheses:
H2 (a–e): Service convenience types (decision, access, transaction, benefit and post-benefit)
positively impact service quality perceptions.
H3 (a–e): Service convenience types (decision, access, transaction, benefit and post-benefit)
positively impact customer satisfaction.

Building on equity theory, Seiders and Berry (1998) argue that both service quality per-
ceptions and customer satisfaction levels increase with the rise in perceived service fair-
ness. Researchers further observe that unfair service delivery is likely to lower the
service quality perceptions among customers (Cohen-Charash & Spector, 2001; Gebhardt,
2008). Carr (2007) concurs that service fairness is one way to provide desired service
quality to customers and improve customer satisfaction. Chen, Liu, Sheu, and Yang
(2012) observe that service fairness plays a key role in influencing customer satisfaction.
Moreover, numerous studies empirically demonstrate a significant positive impact of
 THE SERVICE INDUSTRIES JOURNAL 243

service fairness on customer satisfaction (Smith & Bolton, 2002; Smith, Bolton, & Wagner,
1999; Tax, Brown, & Chandrashekaran, 1998). Service quality studies also find a positive
correlation between perceived service quality and customer satisfaction, suggesting
that service quality is a determinant of customer satisfaction (Caruana, 2002; Spreng &
Mackoy, 1996; Sureshchandar, Rajendran, & Anantharaman, 2002). Based on the above dis-
cussion, we propose the following hypotheses:
H4: Customers’ perceptions of service fairness positively impact perceived service quality.
R5: Customers’ perceptions of service fairness positively impact customer satisfaction.
R6: Customers’ perceptions of service quality positively impact customer satisfaction.

Mediating role of perceived service fairness

Marketing literature considers service as a need-satisfying process that involves a con-
siderable amount of customer time and effort expenditure (Grönroos, 2001; Zeithaml,
1988). Given the paucity of disposable time and effort, we propose that customers
expect firms to deliver convenient services. Equity theory (Adams, 1965) posits that
service fairness is a function of equitable balance between outputs and inputs (monetary,
time and effort expenditure) between a firm and its customers (Berry et al., 2002; Oliver &
Swan, 1989). Seiders and Berry (1998) state that wasting customers’ time indicates a lack of
accountability on the part of the service provider. They further argue that this lack of
accountability reduces the overall service fairness perceptions among customers. Further-
more, Tax et al. (1998) identify the perceived amount of time taken by service providers to
resolve customer complaints as a key factor that determines overall service fairness per-
ceived by customers. We expect service convenience to reduce the perceptions of sacrifice
(time and effort expenditure) made by customers while dealing with a service firm,
thereby improving their service fairness perception. According to justice theory, custo-
mers’ perception of service fairness leads to customer satisfaction (Gelbrich & Roschk,
2010; Maxham & Netemeyer, 2002; Smith et al., 1999). Besides, prior research also indicates
that consumers’ convenience perceptions are influenced by high time-and-effort costs,
which in turn impacts customers’ perceived service fairness (Berry et al., 2002; Bitner,
1992). Moreover, recent convenience studies find a positive direct impact of service con-
venience types on customer satisfaction (Seiders et al., 2000, 2007). Hence, we conclude
that customers’ perceptions of service convenience types provide a sense of fairness to
the customers, which in turn enhance their level of satisfaction.
H7 (a–e): Customers’ perceptions of service fairness mediate the relationship between five
types of service convenience (decision, access, transaction, benefit and post-benefit) and cus-
tomer satisfaction.

Services marketing researchers suggest that customers find it difficult to evaluate a

service prior to consumption, and sometimes even after consumption due to its intangible
nature. Based on cue utilization theory, we posit that services provided by a firm can be
used as intrinsic cues by customers to evaluate service quality of an intangible service.
Building on the field theory, studies posit that an increase in waiting time reduce
service quality perceptions among customers (Dabholkar, 1996; Houston, Bettencourt, &
Wenger, 1998; Johnston, 1995). Research also shows that delays in service encounters
undermine the efficiency of service systems used by firms, which in turn negatively
244 S. K. ROY ET AL.

influences perceived service quality among customers (Dube-Rioux, Schmitt, & Leclerc,
1989). In a similar vein, Carr (2007) argues that customers focus on service fairness
while determining the overall quality of service delivery. Chen et al. (2012) find that cus-
tomers perceive unbiased and consistent service provided by a firm as an indicator of
service quality. Thus, we conclude that service convenience across various stages of con-
sumer behavior is an indicator of unbiased and fair service provision, which in turn is used
by customers as an intrinsic cue to determine the overall service quality. Based on the
above discussion, we advance the following hypotheses:
H8 (a–e): Customers’ perceptions of service fairness mediate the relationship between five
types of service convenience (decision, access, transaction, benefit and post-benefit) and per-
ceived service quality.

The research model as represented by H1–H8 is shown in Figure 1.

Research methodology
Research instrument
The measurement items for service convenience types were adopted from Colwell et al.
(2008) and Seiders et al. (2007). Perceived service fairness measurement items were
adopted from Han et al. (2008); perceived service quality items from Aydin and Ozer
(2005) and Bayol, Foye, Tellier, and Tenenhaus (2000); and customer satisfaction from
Bayol et al. (2000) and Fornell, Johnson, Anderson, Cha, and Bryant (1996). The measure-
ment instrument is shown in Table 1.

Pilot study
A pilot study was conducted to (i) refine the structured questionnaire; and (ii) to under-
stand the applicability of the various constructs in the Indian context. Fifty academicians
were contacted and asked to respond to our questionnaires (in the context of both mobile
phone and banking services) on the basis of prior experience with their respective service
providers. These academicians were teaching various management related courses at a

Figure 1. Conceptual framework and direct effects hypotheses.

Note: R5 and R6 represent the replication hypotheses.
 THE SERVICE INDUSTRIES JOURNAL 245

Table 1. Measurement items.

Item
Construct name code Items
Factor
Service convenience dimensions – adapted from Colwell et al. (2008) and Seiders et al. (2007) loadings
Decision DC1 Information received from the service provider made it easy to choose 0.654
what to buy
DC2 Making up my mind about what to buy was quick and easy 0.815
DC3 Information that I received was very clear and easy to read 0.843
DC4 Service provider let me know exact cost or special offers. 0.813
Access AC1 Service provider was available when I needed them. 0.737
AC2 Service provider is accessible through various ways (online, telephone, 0.768
and in person).
AC3 Hours of operation were convenient. 0.824
AC4 It is easy for me to contact an employee of the provider. 0.803
AC5 Service provider offers convenient locations. 0.749
Transaction TC1 I found it easy to complete my purchase with my service provider. 0.826
TC2 I was able to complete my purchase quickly. 0.826
TC3 It takes little time to pay for my purchase. 0.501
TC4 My service provider offers convenient payment options. 0.806
Benefit BC1 I was able to get the benefits from the service provider with little effort. 0.808
BC2 The time required to receive the benefits was reasonable. 0.714
BC3 The service provider solved my needs without creating other problems. 0.774
Post-benefit PBC1 My service provider quickly resolved any problems I had with the service. 0.867
PBC2 It was easy for me to obtain after sale service. 0.848
PBC3 When I had questions about my service, my service provider is able to 0.885
resolve my problems.
Customer CS1 Overall I am satisfied with my service provider. 0.838
satisfaction CS2 I am delighted with the service provided. 0.826
CS3 I am pleased with the overall service of my service provider. 0.861
Perceived SQ1 My service provider always delivers excellent service. 0.891
Service SQ2 The service provided is reliable, consistent and dependable. 0.882
Quality SQ3 I believe the general quality of my service provider is high 0.894
Perceived PF1 Overall my service provider treats me fairly. 0.792
Service PF2 My service provider keeps its promises. 0.805
Fairness PF3 My service provider treats me with courtesy and respect. 0.786
PF4 My service provider treats all customers equally. 0.781

business school and were regular customers of banking and mobile phone services. The
responses were obtained on a five-point Likert scale ranging from ‘strongly disagree’ to
‘strongly agree.’ In addition, the above questionnaire also allowed a ‘not applicable’
response for each of the measurement items. The respondents were asked to tick this
option if they did not experience the underlying phenomenon while dealing with their
service providers. Consistent with Seiders et al. (2007), this was done to check the appli-
cability of the underlying constructs in the Indian context. Respondents who chose the
‘not applicable’ response were requested to elaborate on the possible reasons for their
observations. The respondents were also asked to indicate the level of importance that
they attached to convenience while dealing with their service providers (mobile phone
and banking services). Only five respondents chose the ‘not applicable’ option for the
item ‘Service provider is accessible through ways’ in the context of mobile phone services
since such respondents use only one channel to interact with their mobile phone service
provider, though they were aware of the different channels through which they could
access mobile phone services. The findings also showed that most (60% in banking ser-
vices and 94% in mobile phone services) of the respondents normally use electronic chan-
nels while dealing with their service providers. However, they preferred to have a direct
246 S. K. ROY ET AL.

contact (face-to-face or customer care executive via toll free number) whenever they
encountered a problem. The respondents state that service convenience played an impor-
tant role in their decision making process in both the above contexts. Major reasons cited
were: dual income family, giving more time to families/leisure/self-advancement activities,
tedious work timings and advent of online services (e-recharge/e-banking). Minor changes
were also made in the wording of some measurement items.

Sample and data collection

Farquhar and Rowley (2009) state that service convenience should be examined in a range
of service sectors to explicate its importance in these sectors. Prior studies emphasize the
importance of convenience in services where the core offering is perceived to be undiffer-
entiated, such as mobile phone services (Colwell et al., 2008) and retail banking (Kaura,
2013). Hence, our study was conducted in mobile phone services and retail banking ser-
vices. According to the latest report (Census, 2011), 63% of Indian households have a
mobile phone and 59% have access to banking facilities. In addition, our preliminary inter-
views and pilot tests showed that consumers of these services experience every stage of
the decision making process, which indicates that convenience might be important in the
decision making process (Engel & Blackwell, 1982).
The final version of the questionnaire was distributed among university students,
faculty and staff who were current users of retail banking and mobile phone services.
This sampling method has been widely used in the literature (Hur, Park, & Kim, 2010;
Taylor & Bearden, 2002). Respondents were asked to use their most frequently used
mobile phone service provider and their main bank as a reference while responding to
the survey questions. A five-point Likert type scale anchored at ‘strongly disagree’ and
‘strongly agree’ was used. The total usable sample sizes were 391 for the mobile survey
and 309 for the retail banking survey. The sample consisted of 60% males for mobile
phone services and 65% males for banking services. Most of the respondents were
dealing with their main service provider for more than three years (59% in the case of
mobile phone service and 63% for banking services).
We assessed the non-response bias by comparing early versus late respondents (Arm-
strong & Overton, 1977). Our results didn’t show any significant differences between the
early and late respondents, which shows that there is no significant impact of the non-
response bias on our findings. We also conducted Harman’s single factor test (Podsakoff
& Organ, 1986) to assess the potential for common method bias in the data. Results
showed that the first factor only accounted for 41% of the variance in the data, indicating
that common method variance was not a significant issue.

Data analysis and results

Our study tests the hypotheses by employing partial least squares–structural equation
modeling (PLS–SEM), using Smart PLS 3. We selected PLS as the appropriate method for
this study as PLS is similar to regression but it simultaneously models the structural
paths. Another advantage is its flexibility in distributional assumptions and its strength
in handling complex predictive models and constructs with few items (Hair, Ringle, &
Sarstedt, 2011). Further, rather than assume equal weights for all indicators of a scale,
 THE SERVICE INDUSTRIES JOURNAL 247

the PLS algorithm allows each indicator to vary in how much it contributes to the compo-
site score of the latent variable. Consistent with the literature (Navarro, Losada, Ruzo, &
Diez, 2010), we analyzed and interpreted the PLS model in two stages. First we evaluated
the validity and reliability of the measurement model and then we evaluated the hypoth-
eses in the structural model.

Measurement model results

Table 1 indicates that all measurement items loaded on the respective constructs with
factor loadings greater than .70 (Carmines & Zeller, 1979). All constructs in this study
exceed this threshold value for composite reliability (ρc), that is, .70 (Anderson &
Gerbing, 1988). The AVE (average variance extracted) of all the constructs is greater
than .50 which shows the convergent validity of the measurement model (Fornell &
Larcker, 1981). Finally, discriminant validity was evident in that all square root AVEs
were higher than the phi-correlations for all pairs of constructs (Fornell & Larcker, 1981).
In addition, internally consistent measurements have coefficient alphas (α) larger than
.60 (Nunnally & Bernstein, 1994). Construct correlations, together with validity and
reliability metrics, are presented in Table 2.

Test of hypotheses
In the second stage we tested the proposed hypotheses. Data collected were analyzed
separately for banking and mobile phone services due to differences in the level of
contact between a firm and its customers. On one hand, customers receive banking ser-
vices through multiple channels both face-to-face (branch banking) and online, thereby
indicating moderate to high levels of contact (Dash, Bruning, & Acharya, 2009; Kaura,
2013). On the other hand, customers receive most of the service offerings from mobile
phone service providers beyond the presence of its employees thereby indicating low
contact levels (Colwell et al., 2008). Table 3 presents the results of our data analysis. We
follow recommendations by Henseler, Ringle, and Sinkovics (2009) and Hair, Sarstedt,
Ringle, and Mena (2012) in our analysis using partial least square path modeling. For
our banking data the key target constructs exhibit relatively high R 2 values of above
.70. The R 2 values, which represent a measure of the variance explained in a variable by
a model, indicated that the hypothesized model accounted for 82% of customer satisfac-
tion, 81% of service quality and 73% of perception of fairness. Our results for the mobile

Table 2. Reliability and correlations among latent variables.

AVE ρc α 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
1. Access 0.60 0.88 0.84 0.78
2. Benefit 0.59 0.81 0.65 0.60 0.77
3. Decision 0.62 0.86 0.80 0.67 0.50 0.79
4. Fairness 0.63 0.87 0.80 0.61 0.64 0.52 0.79
5. Post-benefit 0.75 0.90 0.84 0.56 0.67 0.51 0.64 0.87
6. Quality 0.79 0.92 0.87 0.50 0.56 0.46 0.70 0.68 0.89
7. Satisfaction 0.71 0.88 0.80 0.51 0.59 0.50 0.67 0.71 0.68 0.84
8. Transaction 0.57 0.84 0.74 0.64 0.62 0.53 0.57 0.52 0.53 0.53 0.75
Note: The square root of the AVE for each construct is reported in bold italics along the diagonal; n = 700; all correlations are
significant at p < .01.
248 S. K. ROY ET AL.

Table 3. Results.
Model 1: Banking services Model 2: Mobile services Intergroup
Hypotheses Direct effects β t-value Confirmed β t-value Confirmed |Δ| β
1 (a) Decision → Fairness 0.157 2.250** Yes −0.009 0.155 No 0.165**
1 (b) Access → Fairness 0.136 1.597 No 0.258 3.794*** Yes 0.122*
1 (c) Transaction → Fairness 0.062 1.036 No 0.157 2.584** Yes 0.095
1 (d) Benefit → Fairness 0.289 4.829*** Yes 0.148 2.707** Yes 0.141*
1 (e) Post-benefit → 0.299 4.651*** Yes 0.244 4.664*** Yes 0.055
Fairness
2 (a) Decision → Quality 0.162 2.774** Yes 0.012 0.224 No 0.150**
2 (b) Access → Quality −0.148 1.874* No −0.055 1.041 No 0.093
2 (c) Transaction → Quality 0.384 6.251*** Yes 0.037 0.649 No 0.347***
2 (d) Benefit → Quality −0.244 4.859*** No 0.069 1.338 No 0.313***
2 (e) Post-benefit → Quality 0.420 6.505*** Yes 0.321 5.896*** Yes 0.099
3 (a) Decision → Satisfaction 0.126 2.211** Yes 0.060 1.444 No 0.065
3 (b) Access → Satisfaction 0.033 0.593 No −0.098 1.883* No 0.131*
3 (c) Transaction → −0.043 0.607 No 0.093 2.064** Yes 0.137**
Satisfaction
3 (d) Benefit → Satisfaction −0.028 0.431 No 0.086 1.613 No 0.114*
3 (e) Post-benefit → 0.517 8.112*** Yes 0.251 4.008*** Yes 0.267***
Satisfaction
4 Fairness → Quality 0.400 6.229*** Yes 0.394 7.236*** Yes 0.006
5 Fairness → Satisfaction −0.042 0.718 No 0.290 5.454*** Yes 0.332***
6 Quality → Satisfaction 0.396 6.115*** Yes 0.195 3.002** Yes 0.202**
*p < .01.
**p < .05.
***p < .001.

phone service data were lower. The R 2 values indicated that the hypothesized model
accounted for 47% of customer satisfaction, 42% of service quality and 37% of perception
of fairness. The relative importance of relationships in our model is assessed through stan-
dardized path coefficients (β). To test whether β’s are significantly different from zero, we
calculated t-values using a bootstrapping routine with 309 resamples for our banking and
391 for our mobile data respectively (Henseler et al., 2009). The results are presented in
Table 3.

Banking data
Direct effects
The results in Table 3 show that decision, benefit and post-benefit convenience have
significant and positive relationships with perceived fairness. Therefore, hypotheses 1(a),
1(d) and 1(e) are supported. However, access and transaction convenience, while posi-
tively related, are not significant. Hypotheses 1(b) and 1 (c) are not supported. For
service quality, all convenience dimensions have statistically significant relationships.
However, while decision, transaction and post-benefit have positive path coefficients, sur-
prisingly, access and benefit conveniences have negative relationships. Therefore, only
hypotheses 2(a), 2(c) and 2(e) are confirmed. For the direct relationship between service
convenience and customer satisfaction, only decision and post-benefit convenience are
positively and significantly related, supporting hypotheses 3(a) and 3(e). As expected, fair-
ness has a positive and significant impact on quality, confirming H4. Results show that H5
is not supported. H6 is supported as perceived quality is positively related to satisfaction at
a high significance level.
 THE SERVICE INDUSTRIES JOURNAL 249

Mediation analysis
We tested the mediating effects of fairness and quality on the relationship between service
convenience and satisfaction through a multiple mediation design (see Figure 2).
Mediation exists when a predictor affects the dependent variable indirectly through a
mediator that, as an intervening variable, accounts for a relationship between predictor
and criterion. The research model in Figure 2 is a multiple mediator model since two
mediators (fairness and service quality) are considered in the relationship between
service convenience dimensions and satisfaction. In addition, one mediator (fairness) is
allowed to causally affect another mediator (service quality). In this context, the Sobel
test (Sobel, 1986) has been used to statistically test for the relevant mediation effects fol-
lowing the procedures advocated by Preacher and Hayes (2008) and Shrout and Bolger
(2002). This procedure has also been adopted in other studies (Santos-Vijande, Díaz-
Martín, Suárez-Álvarez, & del Río-Lanza, 2013). To assess the indirect effects, we applied
the bootstrapping bias-corrected confidence interval procedure to our mediation model
(Preacher & Hayes, 2008; Zhao, Lyn ch, & Chen, 2010). The bootstrapping procedure
allows us to evaluate significance and compare different mediators in the model. The
advantage of the bootstrap method is a stronger accuracy of confidence intervals and
no normality assumptions (Preacher & Hayes, 2008). We used this method to test the sig-
nificance of the mediating effects as proposed above. In the following sections the med-
iating effects are discussed and results for our mediation analysis are shown in Table 4.
Our mediation results in Table 4 reveal that the total (c) and direct (c’) effects of decision
convenience on satisfaction are .73, p < .001 and .23, p < .001, respectively. The difference
between the total and the direct effect is .50% and a 95% bias corrected and accelerated
bootstrap confidence interval of .41 to .60 that does not include zero. Since the confidence
interval of the mediator ‘quality’ is different from zero (.09 to .23), quality is a significant
mediator. The confidence interval of the mediator ‘fairness,’ on the other hand, includes
the value of zero (−.04 to .15) indicating that fairness is not a significant mediator.
Finally, the multi-step mediation through ‘fairness’ and ‘quality’ is a significant mediating
path as its confidence interval (.21 to .36) does not include zero. Repeating the analysis for
the other four convenience constructs we find that all four have significant indirect effects.
Fairness mediates only transaction convenience on satisfaction, while quality and the

Figure 2. Mediation model and hypotheses.

 250
S. K. ROY ET AL.
Table 4. Multiple mediation regression results.
Decision Access Transaction Benefit Post-benefit
Banking industry β T p β t p β t p β t p β t p
Direct effects
IV → MV [a]
Fairness .73 18.52 *** .76 20.65 *** .72 18.04 *** .79 22.59 *** .79 22.44 ***
Quality .26 5.67 *** .23 4.68 *** .38 8.94 *** .16 3.02 ** .48 10.33 ***
MV Fair → MV Quality [d] .64 13.84 *** .64 13.09 *** .55 13.05 *** .69 13.08 *** .44 9.64 ***
MV → DV Satisfaction [b]
Fairness .08 1.49 .14 .07 1.19 .24 .16 3.03 ** .06 .94 .35 −.01 −.24 .81
Quality .62 5.28 *** .64 12.46 *** .67 11.63 *** .67 13.12 *** .41 8.20 ***
IV on DV satisfaction [c’] .23 5.3 *** .21 4.58 *** .06 1.22 .22 .19 3.93 *** .55 11.73 ***
Total Effect
IV on DV satisfaction [c] .73 18.8 *** .72 18.39 *** .69 16.75 *** .70 17.46 *** .87 31.43 ***
Model fit
R2 .53 .52 .48 .50 .76
F 352.29*** 338.14*** 280.49*** 304.79 987.98

Indirect effect(s) of IV on DV satisfaction (bootstrapping)

Decision Access Transaction Benefit Post-benefit
β SE L-CI U-CI β SE L-CI U-CI β SE L-CI U-CI β SE L-CI U-CI β SE L-CI U-CI
Total indirect .50 .05 .41 .60 .51 .04 .44 .59 .63 .05 .54 .73 .51 .05 .42 .61 .33 .06 .22 .44
Fairness .06 .04 −.04 .15 .05 .44 −.04 .13 .12 .04 .02 .20 .04 .05 −.05 .14 −.01 .05 −.11 .08
Fair. → Quality .28 .04 .21 .36 .32 .04 .26 .40 .26 .04 .20 .34 .37 .05 .28 .47 .14 .03 .09 .21
Quality .16 .03 .09 .23 .15 .04 .08 .22 .25 .04 .18 .34 .11 .04 .03 .19 .19 .04 .12 .28
*p < .01.
**p < .05.
***p < .001.
Table 4. Continued
Decision Access Transaction Benefit Post-benefit
Mobile industry β t p β t p β t p β t p β t p
Direct effects
IV → MV [a]
Fairness .33 7.00 *** .47 10.56 *** .42 9.22 *** .46 10.10 *** .46 1.23 ***
Quality .07 1.61 .11 .03 .68 .49 .09 1.98 ** .21 4.61 *** .35 8.05 ***
MV Fair → MV Quality [d] .54 12.27 *** .55 11.62 *** .53 11.49 *** .47 10.28 *** .40 9.28 ***
MV → DV Satisfaction [b]
Fairness .35 7.21 *** .37 7.11 *** .33 6.68 *** .32 6.53 *** .31 6.71 ***
Quality .32 6.73 *** .33 6.88 *** .31 6.64 *** .28 5.87 *** .21 .4.28 ***
IV on DV satisfaction [c’] .10 2.39 ** .03 .56 .58 .13 3.08 ** .20 4.47 *** .29 6.46 ***
Total effect
IV on DV satisfaction [c] .30 6.18 *** .30 6.11 *** .37 7.95 *** .46 10.31 *** .55 13.06 ***
Model fit
R2 .09 .09 .14 .21 .30
F 38.14 37.37 63.14 106.35 170.60

Indirect effect(s) of IV on DV satisfaction (bootstrapping)

THE SERVICE INDUSTRIES JOURNAL

Decision Access Transaction Benefit Post-benefit
β SE L-CI U-CI β SE L-CI U-CI β SE L-CI U-CI β SE L-CI U-CI β SE L-CI U-CI
Total indirect .20 .03 .14 .28 .27 .04 .20 .36 .24 .03 .18 .31 .26 .03 .20 .34 .26 .04 .19 .34
Fairness .12 .02 .08 .17 .17 .03 .11 .25 .14 .03 .09 .20 .15 .03 .09 .21 .14 .03 .10 .20
Fair. → Quality .06 .02 .03 .09 .09 .02 .05 .13 .07 .02 .04 .11 .06 .02 .03 .10 .04 .01 .01 .07
Quality .02 .02 −.01 .05 .01 .01 −.02 .04 .03 .02 .00 .07 .06 .02 .03 .10 .07 .03 .03 .12
*p < .01.
**p < .05.
***p < .001.

251
252 S. K. ROY ET AL.

multi-step path of fairness to quality to satisfaction mediate access, transaction, benefit

and post-benefit onto satisfaction.

Mobile data
Direct effects
All service convenience constructs, except decision convenience, are significantly and
positively related to fairness confirming hypotheses 1(b–e). The relationship between
decision convenience and fairness is not significant. On the other hand, only post-
benefit convenience is significant for quality perceptions. As expected, it is a positive
relationship and therefore, hypothesis 2(e) is confirmed. No other convenience dimension
has significant impact on quality. In regard to satisfaction, transaction and post-benefit
convenience show significant positive path coefficients, supporting hypotheses 3(c) and
3(e). Decision and transaction analysis are not significant while, surprisingly, access has
a negative and significant impact. As expected, fairness has a positive and significant
impact on quality, and both fairness and quality are positively related to satisfaction at
high significance levels. Hypotheses 4, 5 and 6 are confirmed. The important link
between perceived fairness and service quality has the highest coefficient (t = 7.24 and
β = .39) for the mobile phone service data.

Mediation analysis
Results of mediation tests (as shown in Table 4) reveal that the total (c) and direct (c’)
effects of decision convenience on satisfaction are 0.30, p < .001 and 0.10, p < .05,
respectively. The difference between the total and the direct effect is 0.20 and a
95% bias corrected and accelerated bootstrap confidence interval of 0.14–0.28 does
not include zero. Since the confidence interval of the mediator ‘fairness’ is different
from zero (.08–.17), fairness is a significant mediator. The confidence interval of the
mediator ‘quality,’ on the other hand, includes the value of zero (−.01 to .05) and is
not a significant mediator. Finally, the multi-step mediation through ‘fairness’ and
‘quality’ is a significant mediating path as its confidence interval (.03–.09) does not
include zero. Repeating the analysis for the other four convenience constructs, we
find that all four (access, transaction, benefit and post-benefit) have significant indirect
effects for fairness, quality and the multi-step fairness-to-quality-to-satisfaction
mediation path with only one exception: Quality does not mediate access convenience
on satisfaction.

Cross-industry validation through intergroup analysis

To evaluate whether the differences in the path coefficients between the different indus-
tries of retail banking and mobile phone services are due to random error or industry-
specific traits, we employed partial least square-multi-group-analysis (Henseler et al.,
2009). Table 3 presents the group-specific partial least square path modeling results for
mobile and banking services. The results suggest that relationships for the two industry
sectors of mobile and banking services differ significantly.
For the relationships between service convenience and fairness, the dimensions of
decision, access and benefit convenience are significantly different between customers
 THE SERVICE INDUSTRIES JOURNAL 253

in mobile services and retail banking services. Decision convenience has a significant
positive impact on fairness in retail banking, while it is not significant for the mobile
industry. At the same time, access convenience is positively and significantly related
to fairness in mobile phone services, while it is not significant in banking. For the
relationship between benefit convenience and fairness, both segments show positive
and significant beta coefficients. However, the relationship is significantly stronger
for banking services. Overall, the relationships of the mobile segment mirror the com-
bined data set with all convenience dimensions except decision being significant, while
for the banking segment access and transaction are not significant, while decision con-
venience is. The picture is different in the case of service quality. Decision, transaction
and benefit convenience have a significant positive impact on quality in retail banking
while these are not significant for the mobile data. Overall, the banking segment shows
all convenience types except access convenience to significantly impact quality percep-
tions, while for the mobile segment only post-benefit convenience significantly impacts
quality.
For the relationships between convenience dimensions and satisfaction, the focus is on
post-benefit convenience, which is significantly higher in banking, than in mobile phone
services, with both segments showing the relationship to be significant in the respective
segment. While the relationships between transaction and benefit convenience with sat-
isfaction are greater for mobile services than for banking services, neither is significant in
either segment. On the other hand, access convenience impact on satisfaction is signifi-
cantly higher for banking than for mobile phone services; yet again it is not significantly
different from zero in either segment. Last but not least, the banking segment also
shows a significantly higher impact of decision convenience on satisfaction than is
present for the mobile segment. Both segments show a significant path between fairness
and quality, and the difference between the segments is non-significant. For the path coef-
ficients of quality and fairness to satisfaction, banking shows a significantly higher impact
for quality on satisfaction with banking and mobile phone services showing that relation-
ship to be significant for their respective segment. Fairness to satisfaction also differ sig-
nificantly between the segments with a higher impact in mobile phone services and
the banking segment not showing the path to be significant for its customers (as
shown in Table 4).

Discussion and managerial implications

The purpose of this study is two-fold: to examine the differential impact of service conven-
ience types on service fairness and service quality and to empirically test their role in the
relationship between service convenience and customer satisfaction. The findings thus
provide useful insights to both researchers and managers.

Theoretical contribution
Prior research has highlighted the need for service providers to reduce customers’ waiting
time (i.e. provide convenience), to improve service fairness, service quality perceptions and
customer satisfaction (Seiders et al., 2007). The findings of our study suggest that the
above notion does not hold true across all types of service convenience. Hence, we
254 S. K. ROY ET AL.

contribute to the existing service convenience literature by addressing the call for future
research regarding deeper understanding of the effect of service convenience types on
the above mentioned managerially important outcomes (Berry et al., 2002; Colwell
et al., 2008; Seiders et al., 2007).
Our study expands on the use of the Equity theory (Adams, 1965) by showing that cus-
tomers evaluate service fairness mainly on the basis of their perceived time and effort
saved, while receiving core service (benefit convenience) and while resolving their com-
plaints and queries (post-benefit convenience). This is consistent with the propositions
of Seiders and Berry (1998), who posit an inverse relationship between delay in service
delivery and customers’ perceived service fairness. However, the results also show that
customers are willing to exert time and effort while establishing contact and concluding
transactions with their banks; hence access convenience and transaction convenience
do not have a significant impact on service fairness. This may be due to perceived high
levels of consequentiality (Angur, Nataraajan, & Jahera, 1999) and financial risk (Berry
et al., 2002) associated with banking transactions, which necessitates time and effort
expenditures by customers. In the context of mobile phone services, all the service con-
venience types (except decision convenience) have a significant positive impact on
service fairness. The non-significant relationship between decision convenience and
service fairness may be due to the presence of intermediaries selling mobile phone
service connections in India. These intermediaries provide information to customers
(regarding offerings of various mobile phone service providers) and assist them in
making their purchase decision. Due to perceived lack of direct contact between mobile
phone service providers and customers, the latter may attribute decision convenience
(hence fairness and quality of service at this stage of purchase behavior) to the intermedi-
ary rather than to the mobile phone service providers.
Our second contribution relates to service quality literature by revealing the extent to
which service convenience influences quality perceptions among customers (Colwell et al.,
2008). The finding supports our belief that customers use decision convenience (e.g. easy
availability and depth of banking service-related information) as a cue to assess service
quality prior to service consumption. Interestingly, unlike in the case of service fairness,
transaction convenience has a significant positive impact on service quality, indicating
that efficiently handled banking transactions are viewed by customers as an indicator of
superior service quality provided by banks. Moreover, a significantly negative impact of
benefit convenience on service quality can be attributed to the perception by customers
of a high level of complexity of banking services (Devlin & Ennew, 1997). Hence, we argue
that customers don’t mind exerting greater time and effort to evaluate the quality of
benefits provided by their banks. In such a scenario, any attempt by banks and their repre-
sentatives to expedite the above process (i.e. providing core benefits to customers) can
make the customers skeptical about the intentions of their service providers, and hence
may not go over well with customers in terms of service quality evaluations. Interestingly,
only post-benefit convenience has a significant direct positive impact on service quality in
the case of mobile phone services. This may be due to a lack of direct firm-customer
contact as indicated in the pilot study, wherein most of the respondents indicate that
they deal directly with their service provider only if they face problems or questions.
This lack of direct contact between firms and customers (at other stages of customer pur-
chase behavior) may make it difficult for customers to visualize, and hence evaluate, the
 THE SERVICE INDUSTRIES JOURNAL 255

service quality of mobile phone service providers. Another possible explanation may be
the mediated effect of service fairness in the relationship between service convenience
and service quality. The effect of service convenience on service fairness may offset its
effect on service quality.
The third contribution pertains to providing a better understanding of the relationship
between service convenience and customer satisfaction by empirically examining the
mediating role of service fairness and service quality (Colwell et al., 2008). In the
context of banking services, service quality plays a significant role in explaining the
relationship between service convenience and customer satisfaction. On the contrary,
service fairness, compared to service quality, plays a more crucial role in explaining the
above relationship in the case of mobile phone services. Banking services allow for
close and direct contact between the firm and its customers (Yee, Yeung, & Cheng,
2008). Customers associate high risk and consequence with banking services and hence
may not mind spending considerable time and effort to ensure that their expectations
are met by their service provider. Therefore, superior service quality, more than service fair-
ness, plays a major role in explaining service convenience–customer satisfaction relation-
ship. On the other hand, mobile phone services do not allow significant direct contact
between the firm and customers. Hence, time-starved customers may be more inclined
to engage in evaluating their benefit-cost analysis; and service fairness may play a key
role in determining service convenience–customer satisfaction relationship while
dealing with their service provider.

Managerial implications
This study provides managers with deeper insights into the types of service convenience
they should focus on in order to improve service fairness and service quality, thereby
enhancing the level of customer satisfaction. The results show that service fairness and
service quality perception among customers depends on the type of service convenience
provided by their service providers (banks or mobile phone service). In order to provide
service fairness, it is critical for banks to provide service convenience at the decision,
benefit and post-benefit stages of customer purchase behavior. This can be ensured by
directing communication efforts toward educating the customers and proactively provid-
ing information on service offerings. Moreover, banks need to design and streamline their
service processes in order to ensure that customers are able to enjoy the benefits of their
core service with ease and at the time of their (customers’) choice. In addition, proactive
measures need to be taken to facilitate smooth resolution of customer complaints. For
mobile phone service providers, it is critical to focus on providing service convenience
at every stage of customer purchase behavior (except the decision stage) by developing
adequate infrastructure to ensure mobile connectivity; providing multiple payment
options to customers; streamlining their customer complaint/query handling procedures,
and by providing multiple touch points (mobile applications, website, toll free numbers
and customer service outlets) through which customers can establish contact with their
service provider.
To enhance service quality perceptions among customers, banks needs to adopt a
proactive approach in terms of updating customers on a continual basis about their
product offerings. This acts as a cue which aids customers in evaluating service
256 S. K. ROY ET AL.

quality prior to consumption of service. Furthermore, banks need to make the trans-
actions hassle free by providing multiple payment options, and demonstrating a high
degree of responsiveness when dealing with customers’ complaints. Hence, banks
need to make significant investments in developing the required information technol-
ogy infrastructure and providing adequate training to their customer care executives.
For mobile phone service providers, the focus should primarily be on efficient handling
of service failure and recovery, as our pilot study indicated that the majority of custo-
mers’ contact their service providers when faced with a service-related problem, or for
resolving queries.
In case of banking services, service quality plays a greater role in explaining the
relationship between service convenience and customer satisfaction when compared
to service fairness. It implies that banks are more likely to enhance the level of customer
satisfaction if they focus on providing decision convenience, transaction convenience
and post-benefit convenience, as it improves service quality perception among their cus-
tomers. For mobile phone service providers, service fairness, instead of service quality,
emerges as the driver of the service convenience–customer satisfaction relationship. It
implies that managers of these companies can achieve greater levels of customer satis-
faction if they concentrate their marketing efforts (see above) toward providing access
convenience, benefit convenience, transaction convenience and post-benefit conven-
ience as these service convenience types improve service fairness perception among
customers.

Limitations and scope for future research

The findings of our study need to be considered in light of its limitations. First, it was con-
ducted in a single country using convenience sample. Future studies should examine the
influence of culture on the hypothesized relationships by conducting a cross cultural
examination using a probability sampling approach. This is important since many multi-
national corporations plan to capture market share in developing markets to improve
their growth prospects. Second, our study examined the mediating role of service fairness
and service quality between service convenience and customer satisfaction in services.
Future studies may investigate these relationships in other services such as full-service res-
taurants and in entertainment and theme parks where customers don’t mind spending
more time. It would be interesting to understand the extent to which the above relation-
ships hold in such cases. Third, we limit our investigation to understanding the influence of
service convenience on customer satisfaction from the perspective of a service provider. It
is worth examining the relationship between service employees’ perceived convenience
on customers’ perceived service convenience (Heskett, Jones, Loveman, Sasser, & Schle-
singer, 1994). Finally, future research can examine the transformative impact of providing
service convenience to customers in terms of customer well-being and quality of life
(Ostrom et al., 2015).

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
 THE SERVICE INDUSTRIES JOURNAL 257

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