Customer Comfort as a Marketing Construct in Healthcare

Customer comfort is an important factor in developing and maintaining relationships between customers and service providers. For example, it plays essential roles in selecting service provider. In spite of its importance, the concept of comfort has not been fully explained in the service marketing literature. Although, comfort has been discussed as a fundamental element in healthcare, its role in developing and maintaining customer relationships has not been fully explored in the boarder marketing literature. The present study focuses on the concept of comfort (physical and psychological) as a crucial factor in marketing health care services, particularly in Saudi private hospitals. This thesis examines a number of the antecedents and consequences of physical and psychological aspects of comfort in the marketing arena. Antecedents investigated included: functional and technical dimensions of service quality, the environmental and social aspects of hospital life and service costs (monetary and non-monetary). Patients¿ satisfaction was the consequence of customer comfort explored in this thesis.