Exploration of Factors Affecting Customer Satisfaction And Loyalty in Community Pharmacies in Thailand: A Qualitative Study

Community pharmacy is considered one of the most successful businesses in Thailand due to high demand on customers in health market. The popularity of this business is in line with changing population demography since the country are becoming an aging society and facing new diseases and ailment. Thus, the business attracts greater number of competition is in correspondence to higher market demand. However, this business has been continuously and intensely competing with both local and global firms from developed countries such as US, Europe, and Japan. Therefore, gaining customer satisfaction and loyalty is the key driver to obtain pharmacy business survival. This study aims to strengthen competitive advantage of community pharmacy in Thailand by investigating factors affecting customer satisfaction and loyalty from pharmacists’ perspective. This qualitative research explores how pharmacists define customer satisfaction and loyalty and ways to improve these outcomes for community pharmacy through interview approach. As a result, two major themes have come up from five interviews, including pharmacist attributes and physical environment. Implications and limitations are discussed