The Concept of Service Quality - Term Paper Example

The concept of service quality Introduction /Definition Service quality is the product of what the customers expect and what they actually perceive on how the delivery process of a service (Brady, Cronin & Brand, 2002). Service quality is a process, which involves management of business processes in such a way that ensures that the customer is full satisfied at all, levels of the organization, that is, both externally and internally. Service involves doing, processing or performing something in the process of production of goods or services. It constitutes the intangible part of a product. Services have intrinsic characteristics, which set it apart from the goods, that is, services are intangible, inseparable and heterogeneous. Serviced quality is a process that makes an organization to be more competitive than related businesses. Furthermore, service quality ensures that the organization’s way of running business is flexible and effective. An organization, which boasts, of having high service quality is well placed in the market in terms of both competition and results of the business. Thus, such an organization has the largest market share in addition to high profit returns from its investments. In order for a company to have high quality service, monitoring and analysis of the customers’ demands and defining and controlling the process is required. This should be tied to constant implementation of the required improvements to both service delivery and production of goods and services. Different elements and criteria constitute quality. All elements and criteria of quality are important in the process of achieving wholesome quality service. Without a single element or criteria, 100% quality of a product or service cannot be obtained (Rust & Zahorik, 1993). In addition to elements and criteria, there is need for the product or service to meet the consumers’ demand for 100% quality service to be attained. Theory of service quality This theory identifies that product quality and satisfaction of the customer are connected in accordance to disconfirmation paradigm. This paradigm shows the quantity and direction of what is initially expected by a person and the actual experience received. There are three disconfirmations, namely - positive, zero and negative disconfirmation. Positive disconfirmation shows that the service has been performed better than what was initially expected by the person. Zero disconfirmation shows that what the person initially expected is what he or she actually experienced (Brady, Cronin & Brand, 2002). Negative disconfirmation shows that what the person really experienced was below what he or she expected initially. Positive disconfirmation leads to satisfaction of the customer while negative disconfirmation results in dissatisfaction of the customer. During evaluation of service quality, customers perform a comparison between what they expect and what they actually receive. Thus, the service quality perceived by customers is a result of these comparisons (Rust & Zahorik, 1993). Models of service quality Currently there are two major service quality models. These are perceived service quality model and the Gaps model. The perceived service quality model was proposed by Gronroos in 1984 while the Gaps model was proposed by Parasuraman in 1985 (Cronin & Taylor, 1992). The perceived service quality model divides the experienced service quality into two dimensions. The first dimension is the technical quality while the second dimension is the functional quality. The way the service has been offered to the customer constitutes the functional dimension and what is actually received by the customer constitutes the technical quality. According to this model, service quality can be evaluated using seven criteria. First is the professionalism in addition to skills used during service delivery. Second criteria are the attitudes of both the customer and the person delivering the service and their respective behaviours. The flexibility and the accessibility of the service constitute the third criteria. How reliable and the trustworthiness of the service provider comprise the fourth criteria. The fifth criterion is the recovery of the service. The sixth criteria that should also be evaluated is the serviscape. Finally, the reputation of the organization services and their reputation need to be evaluated during the determination of a good service quality according to this model (Kumar & Morris, 2007). According to the gaps model, perceived quality is the difference (gap) between what is expected by the customer prior to reception of a service and what is actually perceived by the customer after receiving the service. Based on this model, SERVQUAL instrument was devised to measure the service quality. The instrument was initially made up of twenty two attributes in form of questions aimed at measuring the difference (gap). These questions were reduced later to twenty one. This model has five dimensions that are used in the process of evaluating service quality. The first dimension is reliability. This dimension evaluates the dependability and accuracy involved in performing the service (Brady, Cronin & Brand, 2002). The second dimension is the responsiveness of the service provider. This evaluates the extent to which the service provider helps and responds willingly to the needs of the customer. The third dimension is empathy (Kumar & Morris, 2007). This dimension evaluates the care and individualized service given to the customer. The assurance is the fourth dimension. It evaluates the ability of the employees of the organization to inspire confidence in the customers and to build trust with the customers (Yang, 2003). The final dimension according to this model is tangibles. This evaluates the facilities of the organization. Of the five dimensions, reliability is the most important according to research (Cronin & Taylor, 1992). Measurement of service quality Even though service quality measurement is barred by several problems, some instruments have been devised to enable the process of service quality measurement to be undertaken. The SERVQUAL is the most commonly used instrument in the measurement of service quality especially in research studies (Cronin & Taylor, 1992). This instrument measures the gap existing between what the customers expects prior to service delivery and what they real perceives after the service has been delivered. Several determinants based on the dimensions of the gap model are the one measured using this instrument. The instrument has been widely used in published studies ranging from banking industry, agriculture, cleaning and food industries. Other portfolio methods also exist for measuring service quality (Yang, 2003). These include transactional surveys, mystery shopping, new declining and lost customer surveys, focus group interviews, customer advisory panels, service reviews, customer complaint, comment and inquiry capture, total market surveys, employee field reporting, employee surveys and service operating data capture (Zeithaml, Parasuraman & Berry, 1996). Thus, the company can decide to employee some of this portfolio measurement instruments in addition to SERVQUAL to effectively gain insight on the service quality expected by the customers. Service quality approaches Two service quality approaches exist. They were first identified in the 1990s. The two approaches are product and technical oriented approach and the customer related approach (Zeithaml, Parasuraman & Berry, 1996). The first approach reduces the personnel involved in service provision from influencing the service quality. Thus, the service provider realizes the performance, which is already defined. This maximizes efficiency. This approach involves standardization of the service and thus the customers are not treated individually but as a group (Cronin & Taylor, 1992). The customer oriented approach values expectation of the customer. This expectation is seen as the foundation for customer satisfaction. This allows the customers to compare what they expected prior to consumption of the service and what they actually perceive after consuming the service. Thus, the customers either can be satisfied or dissatisfied (Kumar & Morris, 2007). Why do some organizations unable provide service quality? Inability of an organization to provide high service quality has been identified by research to result from internal shortfalls of the organization (Yang, 2003). These short falls have been grouped into four organizational gaps. The first gap is the gap resulting from the inability of the organization to accurately know what services the customers expect. This gap is referred to as market information gap. The second gap stems form the inability of the organization to use the market information in guiding their employees in service provision. This is referred to as the service standards gap. The third gap is in the service performance. This result from the inability of the organization to provide support systems that can help its employees to deliver the service quality expected by the customers (Brady, Cronin & Brand, 2002). The lacking support systems may be technology, recruitment, compensation or training. The final gap is internal communication. This result from the inability of the organization to provide the services they promise to deliver to their customers (Kumar & Morris, 2007). This gap may be filled by constant and effective communication between sales people of the organization and the service providers of the company to ensure consistency in the information given to customers concerning a certain service and what is actually delivered. Therefore, companies can improve their service delivery through continuous diagnosis of the gaps that may be existing in the organization and carrying out the necessary corrective measures (Cronin & Taylor, 1992). Advantages of service quality Improved service quality makes an organization to be more competitive in addition to making to stay afloat. This also makes an organization create more jobs (Zeithaml, Parasuraman, & Berry, 1996). Improved service quality also helps an organization reduce its costs of running the business and this result in increased profits. Research has shown that the service quality of an organization is directly proportional to its financial success (Brady, Cronin & Brand, 2002). Therefore, an organization with poor quality of goods and services will have fewer returns than a company, which heavily invests in production of quality services and goods. Service quality also helps the company to attain customer satisfaction (Kang & James, 2004). This in turn helps the company have long term customers and increases efficiency. This results in an expanded market share. Thus, the profits are also increased as the company reaps from increased volume of sales (Yang, 2003). The increased base of satisfied customers means that less is spent on attracting more new customer and thus reducing cost of running the business. This is because the satisfied customers influence other potential customers by their word of mouth (Kumar & Morris, 2007). Thus, the satisfied customers act as promotional agents for the organization at no pay. Difficulties in measuring service quality Unlike products, service quality has no clear way of being determined. In addition, there are no parameters such as durability found in product measurement, which are measurable during the process of determining quality service. Moreover, unlike products, services cannot be separated into production and consumption (Cronin & Taylor, 1992). Thus, services are continuously consumed as they are produced. This immaterial nature of services makes measurement of service quality difficult (Brady, Cronin & Brand, 2002). Furthermore, services cannot be preserved like products. This makes the process of offer and demand harmonization to be difficult and so is their measurement. The heterogeneity of service provision makes it also difficult to quantify the service quality. This is because; different persons in an organization can provide a similar service in varied ways, bringing about the heterogeneity of the service (Kang, & James, 2004). Conclusion Service quality is vital to the success of an organization. The ability of a firm to provide high service quality makes it more competitive in the market in addition to cutting the costs of running the business. Organizational gaps may bar an organization from achieving high service quality and thus need to be addressed by the management of an organization for improved performance and customer satisfaction. Companies that require to be strategically placed in the service quality need to measure service expectation of the customers and perceptions. This helps reduce the chances of a company being misled if it relies on the perception of the customer measurement alone. The organization need to improve its service quality continuously and not occasionally as seen in most companies. The company also needs to employ multiple approaches in the process of measuring service quality. This may involve using both SERVQUAL approach and portfolio approaches. This ensures that weaknesses of one method are compensated by the strengths associated with the other methods. Furthermore, the company can benefit from periodic research carried out by the employees of the organization. This is beneficial because the employees are also customers to the organization. Thus understanding their expectations and perceptions can help much in the process of improving service quality. To this end, motivation of the employees is paramount to the improvement of the services provided by the firm. Moreover, the company should ensure that its service quality is reliable for it to be able to improve its service quality. References Brady, M., Cronin, J. & Brand, R. 2002. Performance-only measurement of service quality: a replication and extension. Journal of Business Research, vol. 55, pp. 17-31 Cronin, J. & Taylor, S. 1992. Measuing service quality: A re-examination and extension. Journal of Marketing, vol. 56(July), pp. 55-68 Kang, G. & James, J. 2004. Service Quality Dimensions: AN examination of Gronroos Service Quality Model. Managing Service Quality, vol. 14, no. 4, p. 266-277. Kumar, V. & Morris, G. 2007. Measuring and maximising customer equity: A critical analysis. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Sciences, vol. 35, no. 2, pp. 157-17. Rust, R. & Zahorik, A. 1993. Customer satisfaction, customer retention and market share, Journal of Retailing, vol. 69(summer), pp. 145-156. Yang, C. 2003. Establishment and applications of the integrated model of service quality measurement. Management of Service Quality, vol. 13, no. 4, pp. 310-324 Zeithaml, V., Parasuraman, A. & Berry, L. 1996. The behavioural consequences of service quality. Journal of Marketing, vol. 60, no. 2, p. 31-46 Read More