Cronin and Taylor (1992) argued against Parasuraman et al.’s (1988) categorization. Cronin and Taylor (1992) found empirical support for the idea that perceived service quality led to satisfaction and argued that service quality was actually an antecedent of consumer satisfaction. Cronin and Taylor (1992) asserted that consumer satisfaction
appeared to exert a stronger influence on purchase intention than service quality, and concluded that the strategic emphasis of service organizations should focus on total customer satisfaction programs. The authors reasoned that consumers may not buy the
highest quality service because of factors such as convenience, price, or availability and that these constructs may enhance satisfaction while not actually affecting consumers’ perceptions of service quality. Cronin and Taylor (1994) later conceded that
the directionality of the service quality - satisfaction relationship was still in question and that future research on the subject should incorporate multi-item measures.