Service Quality

Sources:
• Robert Johnston and Graham Clark. Service Operations Management, Improving
Service Delivery; Pearson Education India, New Delhi, 2nd edition & 4th edition
• Roberta Russell and Bernard Taylor. Operations Management along the
supply chain. Wiley India, 7th edition
• James Fitzsimmons & Mona Fitzsimmons. Service Management: Operations,
Strategy, Information Technology. McGraw-Hill Education, New Delhi, 8th edition
• Successful Service Operations Management. Metters, King-Metters.
Pullman, Walton. Cengage Learning
• Operations Management : Processes and Value Chains , Lee J. Krajewski, Larry
P. Ritzman, Prentice Hall India

For Academic Purpose Only

 Service Quality
• Measuring and improving quality is more difficult for services
than for products

• Simultaneity - Services are created and consumed simultaneously

• Unsatisfactory service cannot be replaced or repaired
• Customer Participation – Presence of customer as a participant in
the service process and service delivery
• Heterogeneity- Variation in service from customer to customer
• Intangibility - Intangible and temporary nature of services
• Perishability – cannot be stored

2
 Service Quality
• It’s a Perceived Quality for Services i.e. Perceived by customers / consumers

• Customer Satisfaction with a service can be defined by

comparing

Perceptions of Service Received

with

Expectations of Service Desired

1-3
Customer satisfaction
 Perceived Service Quality
Parasuraman, A., Zeithaml, V. A., & Berry, L. L. (1985). A conceptual model of
service quality and its implications for future research. Journal of marketing, 49(4), 41-50.

Word of Personal Past

mouth needs experience

Service Quality Expected Service Quality Assessment

Dimensions service 1. Expectations exceeded
Reliability ES<PS (Quality surprise)
Responsiveness 2. Expectations met
Assurance Perceived ES~PS (Satisfactory quality)
Empathy service 3. Expectations not met
Tangibles ES>PS (Unacceptable quality)

6-5
 Service Quality
Service Quality Factors:

• Those attributes of service about which customer have expectations and

which need to be delivered at some specified level for customer satisfaction.

• Marketing Researchers - Parasuraman, A., Zeithaml, V. A., & Berry, L. L.

(1985) identified 18 service quality factors which captures the totality of
service quality.

• Note: Results of above study based on research across different services- retail banking, brokerage,
credit card companies, appliance repair, long distance telephone service; survey consisted of
1900 customers of five national companies

1-6
18 Service Quality actors
 Service Quality

• These 18 Service Quality factors are consolidated into five

broader dimensions of Service Quality –

1. Reliability
2. Responsiveness
3. Assurance
4. Empathy
5. Tangibles

1-8
 Dimensions of Service Quality
1. Reliability:

✓ Perform promised service dependably and accurately;

✓ Consistency of service
✓ Service is accomplished on time, in same manner and without errors
everytime.

Example: receive mail at same time each day.

6-9
 Dimensions of Service Quality
2. Responsiveness:
✓ Willingness to help customers promptly.

✓ The willingness or readiness of employees to provide service or fulfill

different needs of the customer
✓ Recover quickly in case of service failure

Example: serving complimentary drinks in case of flight delays.

6-10
 Dimensions of Service Quality
3. Assurance:
✓ Ability of employees to convey trust and confidence
✓ Knowledge and skills of employees
✓ Competence of employees to perform service
✓ Courtesy of employees
✓ Politeness and respect for customers
✓ Effective communication with customer

Example: being polite and showing respect for customer

6-11
 Dimensions of Service Quality
4. Empathy:
✓ Ability to provide caring and individualized attention to customers
✓ Ability to be approachable by customers
✓ Approachability, sensitivity and effort to understand customer needs

Example: Airline staff helpful efforts to find a connecting flight for a

customer who missed flight

6-12
 Dimensions of Service Quality
5. Tangibles:

✓ Appearance of Physical Facilities

✓ Equipment, personnel, communication materials
✓ Condition of physical surroundings

Example: Clean and well furnished hotel room

6-13
 Service Quality

• Service Quality is a function of expectance – performance

Gap

• Gap is the difference between customer’s expectations with

respect to five dimensions of service quality and their
perceptions of what was delivered.

1-14
 SERVQUAL
• SERVQUAL is a multi-item scale
• 22 items in the scale measures all aspects and dimensions of service quality
• Measures five dimensions of service quality
• It is a two part instrument which pairs expectation statement with a
corresponding perception statement.
• Customers are asked to record their level of agreement or disagreement on a
7 point likert scale
• For measuring service quality, score of GAP is calculated.

Refer word file- SERVQUAL instrument

1-15
 Hygiene Factors and Enhancing Factors
• The service quality factors or sub-dimensions of service quality can be
categorized in four groups:

1. Hygiene Factors
2. Enhancing Factors
3. Critical Factors
4. Neutral Factors

Note: Individual factors under each grouping may vary depending on

the organization, customer segment or context of business situation.

1-16
 Hygiene Factors and Enhancing Factors
1. Hygiene Factors:
✓ Need to be present.
✓ If present, result in customer satisfaction
✓ If not present, result in customer dissatisfaction
✓ But they are not a source of customer delight, if over-specified
✓ e.g. For a bank, ATM machines working properly, Security
2. Enhancing Factors:
✓ Not necessarily expected to be present
✓ If present, have a potential to delight
✓ If not present, not likely to dissatisfy the customer
✓ e.g. For a bank, warm and caring staff, Friendliness

1-17
 Hygiene Factors and Enhancing Factors
3. Critical Factors
✓ Have potential of both delight and dissatisfy
✓of E.g. Knowledge, competence, Communication and responsiveness and
bank staff

4. Neutral Factors
✓ Little impact on customer satisfaction
✓ E.g. ambience and aesthetics of bank
.

1-18
Hygiene Factors and Enhancing Factors

Delighting and dissatisfying factors

Source: Adapted from Lockwood, Andrew (1994), ‘Using Service Incidents to Identify Quality Improvement Points’, International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management 6 (1/2) 75–80. Reprinted by permission of Emerald
Group Publishing Limited, www.emeraldinsight.com/ijchm.htm.
Hygiene Factors and Enhancing Factors

e.g. Four types of factors for a bank

THANKS

1-21