ABSTRACT
The telecommunications industry of Timor Leste in 2018 had a market penetration among cellular service users of 132%. Telemor (575,000 mobile subscribers) (38.90%), Telkomcel (466,881 subscribers), and Timor Telecom (436,356 subscribers) are telecommunications companies in Timor Leste. Telkomcel, as the second largest company, must know that service quality is a factor in maintaining and increasing the market share. This study aimed to determine the effect of service quality dimensions – such as tangibility, empathy, assurance, responsiveness, and reliability – partially and simultaneously on customer satisfaction, and its impact on repurchase intention as the operational variable. This research was conducted using quantitative methods, with nonprobability sampling techniques. Respondents in this study were 400 Timor Leste Telkomcel customers. The data were obtained using Google Forms to distribute questionnaires, and the results of the questionnaires were statistically analyzed using the SEM-PLS method and a partial t-test formula. The results of the SEM-PLS analysis found that dimensions of service quality had a significant positive effect simultaneously on customer satisfaction of 63.9% and customer satisfaction with repurchase intention of 74.8%. Service quality had a significant positive effect on repurchase intention with customer satisfaction as the intervening variable. The t-test found that all dimensions of service quality significantly positively effect customer satisfaction. Furthermore, this study also found that the dimension of service quality that has the highest effect on customer satisfaction is reliability and the dimension that has the lowest effect on customer satisfaction is tangibility.
