CUSTOMER SATISFACTION TOWARDS HOSPITALS , A STUDY ON SELECTED HOSPITALS AT SHIVAMOGGA CITY
Abstract
The opening of Indian economy since 1991 has given a new dimension to the economic structure of the country. The service sector is contributing more than 50% to the GDP. In service sector the contribution of healthcare sector towards GDP is significant. India will spend a huge         Rs 200,000 crore on healthcare in the next five years as the country witnessing changes in its demographic profile accompanied with lifestyle diseases and increasing medical expenses. Nearly 80 per cent of the required investment is coming from the private sector. The government spending on healthcare is around 0.9 per cent of the total GDP, which limits the extent and effectiveness of the coverage it can provide. Private healthcare will continue to be the largest component in 2012 and is likely to double to   Rs 156,000 crore. Therefore the study focuses on services provided by private hospitals.
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The modern age can be called as the Age of Consumersâ€. In today's cut-throat competition the consumer is considered as the king. Many policies of various organizations are aimed at keeping the consumer happy and satisfied. It is very important for any organization to keep its consumers satisfied in order to maintain its competitiveness in the market. It is true in case of health care sector also. As the competition grows among the private hospitals, the trend has become customer centric. In last few years, a plethora of hospitals have mushroomed in and around the city. These hospitals are advertising heavily about the specialized treatments provided by them. Because of neck to neck competition between hospitals customers run to these hospitals for specialized treatments. Interestingly all hospitals claim to have a high success rate. They claim to provide the best treatment and other essential facilities at reasonable cost. But how much of this is true and how many of their claims are myth is not known to vast majority of customers.
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The current study is focused on examining the various factors prevailed in the private hospitals of study area Viz., customer expectations from hospital services, customer perception from the hospital services and the degree of satisfaction of customers from hospital services.
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