Factors influencing cloud service quality and their relationship with customer satisfaction and loyalty

Abstract

The quality of cloud service is an important aspect to the success of any global business in today's world. The objective of this paper is to find the factors of the cloud service quality and assess the impact of service quality on customer satisfaction and loyalty. A survey of 419 cloud experts/users was conducted in India by means of an organized survey instrument/questionnaire based on Likert scale. The respondents were the cloud experts/users using the services of top 5 cloud service providers of India. Research hypotheses were tested using partial least squares structural equation modeling. The study found that agility, assurance of service, reliability, scalability, security, service responsiveness, and usability all have a positive and significant effect on overall cloud service quality. The research revealed the partial mediation effect of customer satisfaction amid service quality and customer loyalty. It is noticed that service quality has positive and significant link with customer loyalty and customer satisfaction. This establishes the partial mediation effect of customer satisfaction on the link between service quality and customer loyalty. Finally, the paper recommends cloud experts/users/service providers to give specific attention to these factors when migrating to cloud services.