A Study of Customer Satisfaction with Special Reference to High Speed Harmain Railways Services in Saudi Railways

Nowadays customer satisfaction is intensively discussed and analyzed because all organizations of any type are relying on highly satisfied customers to achieve success, growth and sustainability, especially in service sector. Numerous theoretical and empirical studies show a positive relationship between customer satisfaction and plenty of factors that influence that. In this paper we are trying to measure the level of customer satisfaction with the services offered by the Saudi railways (haramin high speed rail HHR), investigate the passenger’s perception about the service quality, and try to identify different ways to improve the service quality in both the stations and on board. A survey was conducted on 248 passengers for this research. The survey consists of 18 fixed alternative questions and one open ended question for suggestions and remarks. The survey questions cover three main categories the stations, service on board and catering (6 questions each). To analyze the data an average was calculated for each category and for each question with gender based demographic segmentation. As a result, different areas for improvement have been recognized. The results also indicate that the passengers perceive that quality of services delivered to them is relatively satisfactory. This paper can be viewed as starting point for future research regarding Haramain high speed rail. Keywords: High Speed Rail, Entertainment Service, Catering Quality, Customer satisfaction, Harmain railways DOI: 10.7176/EJBM/11-9-18 Publication date:March 31st 201