Abstract:
The recent growth of competition and the wide spread in technological awareness have made customers to sort out for ways to evaluate service quality before making purchase decision. One of the measures employed by customers in this regards is the firm's physical environment. The framework of physical evidence has become paramount in service marketing due to the fact that pre-purchase assessment of service is difficult to ascertained and customers are becoming more skeptical about the overall service experience since services are intangible. In this regard, this study was carried out in order to assess the effect of physical evidence on customer patronage of health care service in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State. The determinant factors of physical evidence that customers considers when making repeat purchase of a health care facility were used as pre-determined factors in measuring customer patronage. These pre-determined factors formed the independent variables for the study which were architectural design, ambient conditions and Cooperate identity while the dependent variable was Customer patronage. The population was the customers of five selected public health care facilities in Uyo metropolis and its environs. Using Top-man formula, a sample size of 358 employees was considered for the study and data collected within the period of two weeks. A survey research design was adopted for the study. Research questions were answered using frequency, mean and standard deviation. The hypotheses stated were tested using simple linear regression model at a 5% level of significance. From the data analysis, the major findings revealed that Architectural Design had a significant effect on customer patronage of health care services in Uyo, (t-statistic = 43.312 > p-value (0.000). The study revealed that Ambient Conditions had a significant effect on customer patronage of health care services in Uyo, (t-statistic = 48.491> p-value (0.000). The study also revealed that Cooperate Identity had a significant effect on customer patronage of health care services in Uyo, (t-statistic = 42.292> p-value (0.000). From the findings, it was concluded that the physical evidence of a health care has a significant effect on the customer patronage and that customers will frequently revisit a health facility if the environment meets their expectations. In line with this, it was recommended that service industries should aim at influencing their customer's patronage by making their environment and surroundings an important component of service marketing strategy as customers will always make their judgment based on what they can see and induce inferences from it.
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