Customer Service Quality - Essay Example

Service Quality of the Table of Contents Introduction 3 2. Service Quality and ItsRelevance in Today’s Economy 3 3. Measures and Scope of Service Quality 4 3.1. GAP Model of Measuring Service Quality 5 4. Customers’ Perception of Service 6 5. Reasons of Poor Customer Service 7 6. Innovation and Service Improvement 8 7. TQM and Customer Service Quality 8 8. Strategies to Improve Customer Service Quality 10 9. Conclusion 10 References 12 1. Introduction Customer service quality can be defined as an assessment of how skillfully a delivered service corroborates with the expectations of the customers. Service organizations generally access the service quality offered to their consumers for improving their service, to efficiently and speedily realize the troubles and to better access the customers’ satisfaction. Quality customer service is believed to be a vital factor in determining an organizations success in all the renowned industries (Cronin, Brady, M. K. & Hult, 2000). If an organization does not offer its customers quality service, the customers of the company is likely to discontinue use of the organizations products or services and the worst outcome of poor quality service is that the customers will enlighten others about the poor service they received from a company. These troubles will lead to descending coil of pessimistic comments through word-of-mouth and the company will drop business. On the other hand, if an organization can communicate efficiently with its customers, find drawbacks of its customer service, deal with these quality issues and stay consistent with new policies and procedures then the organization is likely to gain customer loyalty and enhance upon the bottom line (Caruana, 2002). For instance, customer service quality is a key to successful business. If the customers receive superior services from a company they feel satisfied and depict future intentions to go for the services offered by the same company. A satisfied customer consequently can also be called a repeat purchaser and also the same customer may refer others the organization where they received a superior service, which would be the cheapest form of effective advertising for an organization. 2. Customer Service Quality and Its Relevance in Today’s Economy In the past few years, the relevance of customer service quality has gained much apprehension in the service industry namely, the hospitality sector, banking sector, the sales and marketing sector, the construction and healthcare sector. Superior service quality has been acknowledged as a key to gain competiveness and dominance in terms of service (Sureshchandar, Rajendran & Anantharaman, 2002). In today’s competitive world, the customers’ desires are largely influenced by global competition. Where customer has large number of companies to satisfy their expectations, the companies are forced to divert their focus from profit maximization to maximize profit via customer satisfaction. Customer service quality has gained much relevance as it has a huge impact on business performance, cost reduction, profitability, customer satisfaction and their loyalty. In service marketing, the terms service quality and customer satisfaction are used interchangeably as service quality is believed to be one of the dimensions on which the consumer contentment depend. It is also realized by many established organizations that service quality has an increasing impact on customers’ loyalty (Lee & Lin, 2005). In order to measure, control and enhance the service quality from customers’ perspective the companies require to realize what factors of the service quality influence customer loyalty. Customer loyalty is an important aspect for increasing organizations profitability as the loyal customers are always ready to pay premium price for the services. Customer service quality is frequently viewed as a mediator that associates service quality with service loyalty. 3. Measures and Scope of Service Quality In today’s globalised era, there are rapid changes in needs and desires of customers and therefore the companies require developing standards in order to measure the quality of service offered by them. Constant measuring will help a company to analyze the requirements of their customers. These measures will also assist companies to offer quality services that satisfy customers’ expectations by enhancing both aspects of service quality namely, technical and functional quality (Kuo, Wu & Deng, 2009). There are various models to measure service quality and it is also argued that there are ample dimensions of service quality but there are no consensus on the exact character and substance of such dimensions. There are three dimensions of serviced quality specifically, physical quality which is the tangible aspect of the business, corporate quality which is an organizations image through its recent and potential customers. Another one is interactive quality which is a two way interaction between a service provider and a customer. By disregarding the physical attributes of a product in the consumption of services, service quality can be decomposed into two dimensions such as technical quality and functional excellence (Seth, Deshmukh & Vrat, 2005). Technical quality is concerned with “what service is provided” and functional quality is concerned with “how the service is offered”. 3.1. GAP Model of Measuring Service Quality GAP model is the most widely used tool that is employed to measure the service quality and this model is now proposed as SERVQUAL. The SERVQUAL model provides the basic framework through its perceptions layout encircling proclamations for each of the five service quality dimensions. This model is a multi-item scale that includes statements that measure customers’ expectations aligning five directions: Tangible, responsiveness, assurance, empathy and reliability (Sureshchandar, Rajendran & Kamalanabhan, 2001). Figure 1: GAP model of service quality (Source: Brady & Robertson, 2001) GAP model of service quality was developed to realize the existing gap and to what extent the gap exists. GAP 1 is the gap that exists between the customers’ expectations and organizations perceptions of customers expected service. GAP 2 is the gap that exists between the customers expected service and organizations perceptions of customers desired service standards (requirement gap). GAP 3 is the gap existing between the service quality standards and the actual service provided to the customers (service performance and delivery gap). GAP 4 is the gap that lies between the actual service delivered by an organization and the service quality that an organization promised to deliver (interaction gap). GAP 5 is the gap that exists between customers anticipated and perceived service (perception gap) (Brady & Robertson, 2001). These gaps in the serviced quality help a service organization to realize the areas where they are lacking. Moreover, a negative service gap can facilitate the companies to prioritize the performance enhancement of the services for which the expectations are high. If any service gaps turn positive, it will indicate that the expectations are exceeding the perceptions of the customers and the organizations can identify the service features in which they are oversupplying. By realizing the oversupplying areas the organization can deploy resources into those features which are performing below potential. 4. Customers’ Perception of Service The dependence of service perception is on the customers’ contentment through experience. There are numerous studies that recommend that customers analyze physical environment to inspect the quality of the product or services. It has been the subject of consideration that physical environment has an increasing influence on the customers perception of service quality (Li, Tan & Xie, 2002). There is a positive link between perceived quality and the behavioral indents such as word-of-mouth, intention of repeat purchase and enthusiasm to recommend the service to others. The competition in the global economy is getting further and fierce. Customers are more aware of the price and have become more amalgam. Therefore, in this situation the customers go for bargaining for the services and are highly aware of the expectations that they need from the service providers. Figure 2: Customer perceived service quality model (Source: Dabholkar, 2011) The retail sector now-a-days are facing the ever changing environment in the market and it is reflected on as one of the high economic growth industries worldwide. The advanced the customers’ perception the higher will be the customers’ loyalty at the retail store. The quality of service is aligned with the dimensions of service (Dabholkar, 2011). More precisely, it can be stated that the consumer perception of service quality is an element of customer satisfaction. Due to the advancement in the technology and education, customer perceptions are increasingly differentiating which makes necessary for the organizations to take efficient steps to realize these ever changing perceptions. Retail image along with the customer perception largely influence the customers and other shareholders of the service firm. 5. Reasons of Poor Customer Service In customer service it only requires one negative occurrence to lose a customer forever. There are few general traits of poor customer service with the purpose of making a service organization realize its service drawbacks. Understanding of these traits a service firm can develop various alternatives which will enable them to serve their customers more efficiently and positively (Dabholkar, 2011). Failing to acknowledge customers when they come in connection to the service firm is one of the poor customer service traits. A customer who is not greeted upon when they come in connection to a firms business will not feel like they are the valuable asset of the company. Another major reason of poor customer service delivery is the improperly trained employees of a service firm. Angry or frustrated employees can work to disrupt and destroy the service organization. Another main reason of poor service is the employees of the organization do not believe in the company or its services (Li, Tan & Xie, 2002). Lack of providing proper solutions to the customers and inefficiency of the service providers to address customers’ problems quickly also contributes to the poor service delivery. Sticking to a cost-centric approach instead of a consumer-centric approach is another reason of delivering inferior service. Many service organizations look at customer service as a “cost-center” which is a function that includes many expenses instead of revenue. On the other hand a successful organization understands the relevance of maximizing every opportunity to interact with its customers (Caruana, 2002). 6. Innovation and Service Improvement Innovation is the method of initiating creative development or new idea implementation which is centered towards expanding features and functionalities of a service to offer more improved quality services to the target customers (Li, Tan & Xie, 2002). In the globalised economic scenario, the service sectors can never be undervalued. The innovation comes with new technologies and unlocks new markets especially regarding how to serve its customers. Understanding the expectations of the customers is a complex phenomenon and their expectations and perceptions alter with the transformation in fashion trends. In addition to the customer services, the self check-out and various ways of ordering provide fastest and easy opportunities for customers to do shopping. Innovations in the recent years is more aligned to a product namely, in-store ordering methods and self check-out techniques (Kuo, Wu & Deng, 2009). Moreover, consumers also have an important role in service innovation. In order to sustain and compete in the global market and knowledge economy, the service organization needs to design, implement and deliver superior quality service. It is as a result perquisite to attract new customers and develop new initiatives in service innovation through customer involvement. 7. TQM and Customer Service Quality Total Quality Management (TQM) can be defined as a management approach which ensures long term success of a service firm through customer satisfaction. In the TQM approach of service quality improvement all the employees of an organization take an active part in enhancing processes, products, services and the culture in which they work (Kuo, Wu & Deng, 2009). TQM can be abridged as a service management process for a customer-centered organization in which all the employees involve in continuous improvement. It employs strategy and efficient interactions in order to integrate the quality discipline into the culture and deeds of a service firm. Figure 3: TQM model of service quality (Source: Cronin, Brady & Hult, 2000) There are various elements that are seen as vital to TQM and many service organizations implement these elements as a set of key values and principles on which it operates. Customer focus is an important element of TQM as customers are the ultimate people who determine the quality of a service. Another element is the total employee involvement where employees require participating in achieving the quality goals of an organization (Cronin, Brady & Hult, 2000). Centering on quality management processes is another element of TQM which includes planning process, process improvement and process management. A process can be understood as a series of steps that accepts inputs from suppliers and change them into quality outputs that are provided to the customers. Various steps are required to carry out so that the process is defined and the performance measures are frequently monitored for detecting unexpected variation. Effective communication is one of the elements of TQM that ensures maintaining morale and motivation among all employees in an organization in the continuously changing environment (Cronin, Brady, M. K. & Hult, 2000). This will in turn improve employee participation aligning quality management strategies, techniques and timeliness. 8. Strategies to Improve Customer Service Quality Efficient customer service is an integral part of business as it impacts on the objectives of a service firm namely, customer satisfaction, loyalty, retention, repeat purchase and revenue. Improving customer service should not be that complex if certain quality improvement strategies are implemented (Sureshchandar, Rajendran & Anantharaman, 2002). These strategies include incorporating business planning, transforming attitude towards service, integrating services with marketing, shedding the profile centered approach, effectively manage expectations and focusing on customers convenience. The service firms needs to integrate customer service requirements in all the phases of the business activities such as service or product design, procurement, manufacturing, pricing, communication and people. Along with this, proper training of the service personnel in delivering quality services to customers is crucial to retain loyal customers of a service firm. Another strategy to gain enhanced quality service is to effectively manage the customers’ expectations. Customers possess implicit and explicit service expectations (Sureshchandar, Rajendran & Anantharaman, 2002). Explicit expectations develop based on the promises made by the service organization at the time of purchase. Implicit expectations build up depending on customers’ insight of brand image that they pay for. Most organizations only measure the explicit commitments and fail to realize the implicit ones. It is important to realize both the expectations for improving customers’ perception of service and service quality. 9. Conclusion The paper illustrated on the concept of customer service quality and its relevance in today’s globalised competitive world. Also a detailed view on customers’ perception, customers’ satisfaction and service quality model in measuring service quality was gained through the paper. Good customer service is essential as it is easier and cost effective to maintain existing customers satisfied than to keep searching for new ones. Word-of -mouth is a powerful technique of marketing and a satisfied customer is most likely to refer their relatives about the company that they have had a superior experience with. A large number of companies’ have a customers’ service team who are responsible for dealing with their complaints and queries. In order to provide quality customer service every employee of an organization needs to be trained regarding the company’s customer care values and they require to be authorized with the knowledge and skills for offering good quality service to the customers. Realizing the importance of customer service quality is incredibly crucial for an organization as at the end of the day customers are the only people who can tell an organization about their desires and expectations regarding a service and how well the company is contributing to provide the desired service. By adopting an excellent customer service quality, an organization can stand through the tough competition and stabilize itself in the highly competitive global market. References Brady, M. K. & Robertson, C. J. (2001). Searching for a consensus on the antecedent role of service quality and satisfaction: an exploratory cross-national study. Journal of Business research, 51(1), 53-60. Caruana, A. (2002). Service loyalty: the effects of service quality and the mediating role of customer satisfaction. European journal of marketing, 36(8), 811-828. Cronin, J. J., Brady, M. K. & Hult, G. T. M. (2000). Assessing the effects of quality, value, and customer satisfaction on consumer behavioral intentions in service environments. Journal of retailing, 76(2), 193-218. Dabholkar, P. A. (2011). Consumer evaluations of new technology-based self-service options: an investigation of alternative models of service quality. International Journal of research in Marketing, 13(1), 29-51. Kuo, Y. F., Wu, C. 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Customer perceptions of service quality: A critique. Total quality management, 12(1), 111-124. Read More