International Journal of Bank Marketing: Article Information

International Journal of Bank Marketing
Interrogating SERVQUAL: a critical assessment of service quality measurement in a high street retail
bank
Karin Newman
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To cite this document:
Karin Newman, (2001),"Interrogating SERVQUAL: a critical assessment of service quality measurement in a high street retail
bank", International Journal of Bank Marketing, Vol. 19 Iss 3 pp. 126 - 139
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(1984),"A Service Quality Model and its Marketing Implications", European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 18 Iss 4 pp. 36-44
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(1996),"SERVQUAL: review, critique, research agenda", European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 30 Iss 1 pp. 8-32 http://
dx.doi.org/10.1108/03090569610105762
(1996),"SERVQUAL revisited: a critical review of service quality", Journal of Services Marketing, Vol. 10 Iss 6 pp. 62-81
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Interrogating SERVQUAL: a critical assessment of

service quality measurement in a high street retail
bank
Karin Newman
Professor, Middlesex University Business School, London, UK
Keywords
SERVQUAL, Banking industry,

Marketing management,
Human resource management,
United Kingdom
Abstract
This paper presents a case study

of a pioneering nationwide
implementation of SERVQUAL by a
major UK high street bank
between 1993 and 1997 at an
annual cost of one million pounds.
In addition to highlighting serious
weaknesses in the value of
SERVQUAL as a measure of
service quality and as a diagnostic
tool, this study raises some of the
practical difficulties entailed in its
implementation. Moreover, in this
particular instance, it becomes
apparent that difficulties are
introduced by the separation of
service quality management from
the management of marketing and
human resources. In addition,
there was a discernible lack of top
management commitment, as well
as obstacles in the form of
functional and informational silos,
which served to constrain an
integrated company response to
SERVQUAL criteria.
International Journal of Bank

Marketing
19/3 [2001] 126139
# MCB University Press
[ISSN 0265-2323]
[ 126 ]
Introduction
Published studies of applications of
SERVQUAL have focused mainly on the USA
and, in relation to retail banking have
featured banks in North America, Australia,
Hong Kong and Singapore. This paper
presents a case study of a pioneering use of
SERVQUAL in the UK by one of the top ten
retail banks. Unlike most existing accounts
of service quality improvement initiatives
this study is empirical and qualitative rather
than conceptual and quantitative. Such an
approach is supported by Gummesson (1998),
who observed: ``There is a need for inductive
research that allows reality to tell its own full
story without forcing received theory on it''.
This study therefore seeks to add some
empirical insights to the theoretical
literature on service quality through a
depiction of a major High Street bank's fiveyear quality improvement programme, at the
heart of which lay the systematic application
of SERVQUAL. Specifically, this paper
explores the ways in which SERVQUAL was
used in a retail bank as a diagnostic tool. It
examines the difficulties that arise in the
measurement process (including the
administration and collection of the data,
sample selection, timing, retrospection) and
suggests that its value may not be fully
realised if the measuring process is not well
executed. Indeed, it may be easy to adopt
SERVQUAL and implement large-scale
surveys and continue to measure outcomes
but if they are not acted on it becomes a futile
exercise. Finally, this paper explores the
relationship between SERVQUAL use and
the management of service quality.
The paper is structured into the following
sections:
1 the financial services environment;
2 a review of the relevant industry and
academic literature;
3 explanation of the methodology;
4 the case study itself; and
5 discussion of selected aspects.
The research register for this journal is available at
http://www.mcbup.com/research_registers
The study closes with observations on both

practical and theoretical aspects of the
implementation of SERVQUAL. The
conclusion briefly stated highlights the
difficulties of translating service quality
improvements into financial results in the
context of free banking and the profitability
profile of UK retail banking customers.
Financial services environment

Increasing competition, technology, social
and cultural factors were the chief drivers of
service quality initiatives during the 1990s.
The onset of competition in consumer
financial services can be traced to the
regulatory changes of the 1970s, which
allowed the banks' entry into the mortgage
market and ended the rationing of housing
finance. In the 1980s further deregulation
with the Building Societies Act facilitated a
diversification of Building Societies into
unsecured lending, insurance brokerage and
paved the way for demutualisation and
conversion to plc status. The Financial
Services Act 1986 promoted competition in
the savings industry and put in place a
system of industry self-regulation to protect
consumers of investment products. The
traditional business boundaries or horizons
of banks, building societies and insurance
companies crumbled away. Traditional
players now competed against each other for
the custom of personal customers of current
accounts, savings products, personal loans,
mortgages, credit cards and insurance
products. New entrants attracted by the
liberalisation cherry-picked their way into
profitable segments and niche products in an
expanding market as household income and
wealth increased substantially (Harrison,
2000) while shares and savings accounts and
new tax-sheltered products such as PEPS and
TESSAs were created to absorb the increase
in net wealth.
Simultaneously, the development of
corporate treasury operations reduced the
bank profits from corporate banking. The
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
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Karin Newman
Interrogating SERVQUAL: a
critical assessment of service
quality measurement in a high
street retail bank

Marketing
19/3 [2001] 126139
banks' high-cost income ratios of between 60

and 70 per cent (Dalton, 1998) were no longer
sustainable and the drive to reduce fixed
costs and raise revenues preoccupied the
banks' business strategies during much of
the 1990s. The drive to reduce fixed costs
centred on a restructuring of services, heavy
investments in technology and the
application of service quality improvements.
Technology facilitated the automation of
services (processing of accounts and
transactions, error and cost reduction and
increased efficiency) and allowed the
transfer of the ``back office'' into a few
regional processing centres. Improvements
in IT and database competencies allowed the
establishment and development of telephone
banking with over 15 million accounts by
1999 (British Bankers' Association, 2000).
Sophisticated automatic teller machines
(which allowed cash withdrawals, balance
enquiries and statements) increased from
14,606 in 1994 to 23,212 in 1999 of which 1,725
and 6,163 (British Bankers' Association, 2000)
respectively were located away from
branches in supermarkets, shopping centres
and railway stations, thereby improving
customer accessibility and convenience. The
number of customer visits to expensive bank
branches fell and so did the number of
branches from 13,950 to 11,274 between 1994
and 1999 (British Bankers' Association, 2000).
Such changes inaugurated the emergence of
``Martini banking'' services available
`ànytime, anyplace, anywhere'' (Financial
Times, 2000) fuelled by more recent
innovations such as Internet, PC and digital
TV banking.
In the process of these changes financial
service providers moved from the process
driven control and check to a sales and
customer orientation (Dalton, 1998). Service
quality improvements were necessary not
only to reduce costs and increase
competitiveness but also to improve revenue
(by selling a greatly enlarged portfolio of
products to an increasingly wealthy, aware
and demanding consumer). A survey in mid
1994 of quality initiatives amongst UK
financial services reports the following main
motivations for quality initiatives:
competitive pressure to improve service
quality (74 per cent), enthusiasm of the CEO
and senior management (70 per cent),
competitive pressure to reduce cost (52 per
cent) and customer demand for quality of
service (51 per cent) (McCabe et al., 1997).
Quality of service is also attractive to retail
banks as a competitive differentiator
(McCabe et al., 1997). Between 1992 and 1994
over 90 per cent of companies within the
financial services sector had adopted one or
more quality initiatives: business process

re-engineering (75 per cent), customer care
(69 per cent), service quality (59 per cent) and
total quality management (46 per cent).
Relevant industry and academic

research
Service quality as a route to competitive
advantage and corporate profitability
The service marketing literature of the 1990s

has advocated customer service excellence
and prescriptions for improving service
quality as a way to enhance customer
satisfaction and loyalty leading to increased
competitiveness and profitability. Several
studies have identified a significant
relationship between service quality and
performance. Findings demonstrate that
firms offering superior service attained
higher than normal market share (Buzzell
and Gale, 1987), that service quality impacts
on profits via enhanced market share as well
as premium prices (Gummesson, 1993) and
that, compared to competitors, organisations
in the top quintile of relative service quality
on average achieve an 8 per cent higher price
premium (Buzzell and Gale, 1987). Other
consequences of superior service have been
found including word of mouth
recommendation (Parasuraman et al., 1991).
Consequently service quality is accepted as a
winning competitive strategy, good for
service providers and their customers.
Such findings are encapsulated in the
service profit chain, a conceptual framework
that postulates that in service firms
profitability and growth are stimulated
mainly by customer retention. Retention is a
direct result of customer satisfaction and
satisfaction is primarily influenced by the
value of services provided to customers.
Customer satisfaction is the result of the
buyers' perception of service quality and
satisfaction leads to customer retention,
which leads to repeat purchase and increased
scope for relationship building and word of
mouth recommendation. The consequence,
increased revenue, derives from reduced
customer acquisition costs and lower costs of
serving repeat purchasers leading to
increased profitability (Heskett et al., 1994). A
5 per cent increase in customer retention can
increase profitability by between 25 and 85
per cent (Reichheld and Sasser, 1990).
The antecedents to customer retention
include service quality (Storbacka, 1994),
customer satisfaction (Rust and Zahorik,
1993; Hallowell et al., 1996), relationship
quality (Storbacka, 1994), service recovery
(Hart and Bogan, 1992) and customer service
[ 127 ]
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19/3 [2001] 126139
(Lewis and Entwistle, 1989; Berry et al., 1989).

Companies that focus on customer service
retain customers 50 per cent longer, increase
profits by 7 to 17 per cent and reduce their
marketing costs by between 20 to 40 per cent
(Zemke, 1997).
Yet, despite this evidence in favour of the
value of satisfaction and quality, in practice,
customer satisfaction in itself may be
insufficient, for between 65 and 85 per cent of
customers who defect are satisfied customers
(Reichheld, 1993). More generally, the service
profit chain has very limited empirical
validation (Loveman, 1998) and may even be
largely irrelevant in some cases. For
example, in the UK retail banking is subject
to an adverse variation of the Pareto
principle, which states that the top 20 per
cent of profitable customers account for 80
per cent of a company's profits. For UK retail
banks, burdened by the inheritance of free
banking, only between 10 and 30 per cent of
the customer base is profitable (Dalton, 1998;
Parker, 1998). In such circumstances
indiscriminate customer retention can be
uneconomic. Moreover, the competitive
drive to customer satisfaction and retention
in UK banking in the 1990s was in reality a
phoney war as clearly demonstrated by the
findings contained in the Cruickshank
Report (2000) on banking which noted the
limited amount of switching and information
gathering undertaken by consumers and the
relatively high level of customer retention
reflecting loyalty in behaviour if not in
attitude.
Thus, in many senses the true value of
customer satisfaction and service quality in
contributing to genuine attitudinal loyalty
and subsequently to profitability remains
open to some debate. Notwithstanding such
caveats, investment in quality continues to
be seen by many as a route to competitive
success and one which is of particular
significance in financial services.
Employee perceptions of service and

customer satisfaction
Customer service is a prerequisite for

customer satisfaction. In service industries,
employees play a key role in the provision of
service (Albrecht and Zemke, 1985; Schneider
and Bowen, 1995; Johnson, 1996). Employees
influence the quality of, and delivery of,
products and services to external customers
(Zeithaml et al., 1990; Schneider and Bowen,
1995). Evidence of a positive relationship
between employee satisfaction and customer
satisfaction has been documented by classic
studies (Schneider and Bowen, 1985;
Schlessinger and Zornitsky, 1991; Johnson,
1996; Rucci et al., 1998) and, as Hallowell et al.
[ 128 ]
(1996) observed, ``while job satisfaction may

not lead to customer satisfaction directly,
service organizations rarely have satisfied
customers without having satisfied
employees''. Of equal importance is that
employees' perceptions of service and actual
customer perceptions of service quality tend
to match (Naumann and Giel, 1995).
Similarly, commitment to customer service
and service capability are significant
influencers of customer satisfaction, service
quality and performance (Bergkhoff, 1995;
Garvin, 1988; Hallowell et al., 1996).
Commitment to customer service depends on
recruiting the ``right'' employees and
rewarding good service. Service capability
depends on internal service quality,
processes, IT, and equipment (Roth and
Jackson, 1995). Employee attitude and
employee and customer perceptions of
service quality have all been shown to be
related to profitability (Schneider, 1990;
Johnson, 1996; Rucci et al., 1998). The service
profit chain (Heskett et al., 1994) encapsulates
these linkages.
Service quality measurement
There is still no consensus on a definition for

quality. For this paper, that of Parasuraman
et al. is adopted:
Service quality as perceived by the customer
is the degree and direction of discrepancy
between customer service perceptions and
expectations (Parasuraman et al., 1985).
It is this gap between perceptions and

expectations that underpins the formulation
of SERVQUAL, the service quality
measuring instrument of Parasuraman et al.
(1988) and its subsequent refinements (1990,
1993, 1994). Since its formulation,
SERVQUAL has been used in a variety of
service industries and countries. Several
authors of SERVQUAL-based studies have
questioned its psychometric soundness and
its usefulness. Principal among these are
criticisms of its reliance on two scales
measuring perceptions and expectations
when one scale (that of perceptions or a
simple performance measure) would be
shorter, simpler and more easily
understandable and ultimately more
effective. The use of expectations is
questioned by Babakus and Mangold (1992)
and Cronin and Taylor (1992), who in
measuring service quality in banking
conclude that the disconfirmation approach
has little support either theoretically or
empirically. Similarly, Teas (1993) questions
the interpretation and operationalisation of
expectations and Avkiran (1999) notes a
tendency to set expectations higher than
perceptions thus making a gap between
Karin Newman
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19/3 [2001] 126139
perceptions and expectations inevitable.

Moreover on practical grounds the use of two
scales and the negatively worded question
items are both time consuming and too
complex for most respondents (Avkiran,
1999). The reliability and validity of
SERVQUAL's difference score formulation
has been questioned by Babakus and Boller
(1992) and Brown et al. (1993) and
SERVQUAL's dimensionality has not proved
universal. Published empirical studies have
produced a variety of dimensions. Babakus
and Boller (1992) in their study of electricity
and gas confirmed two SERVQUAL
dimensions and added two from the original
(Parasuraman et al., 1985) ten dimensions of
service quality. In a banking context, Lam
(1995) reports that there were problems with
the dimensions of SERVQUAL thus raising a
fundamental question of what is SERVQUAL
measuring? Buttle (1996) and Genestre and
Herbig (1996) argue that SERVQUAL only
measures process of delivery rather than the
outcomes of service whilst Gilmore and
Carson (1992) observe that SERVQUAL is
narrowly focused on service or product
dimensions to the neglect of the rest of the
marketing mix. The debate continues, the
pioneers have been scalped and Robinson
(1999) in his synthesis of such critiques has
concluded:
. . . it is questionable whether SERVQUAL is a
reliable measure of service quality or, indeed,
whether it is measuring service quality at all.
Academic criticism of the validity and

feasibility of SERVQUAL as a measure of
service quality has been accompanied by
proposals for alternative service quality
measures. Prominent among these are
Cronin and Taylor's (1992) SERVPERF
measure which has the claimed advantage of
one scale designed to measure service quality
performance using a seven-point semantic
differential scale with answers ranging from
very poor to excellent. It eliminates the
expectations scale and has been tested in
dentistry and telecommunications.
BANKSERV (Avkiran, 1999) is a single scale
measure of service quality designed to allow
customers to reflect on their perceptions and
expectations in a single statement. Another
approach is the importance-performance
measure of service attributes, which
measures how well a service meets customer
needs (Ennew et al., 1993). The importanceperformance grid was redeveloped by
Hemmasi et al. (1994) and tested in banking:
It is considered that the Hemmasi et al. (1994)

method is the most appropriate way of
measuring service quality in the banking
industry'' for it allows ``diagnosis'' and
``treatment'' of customers' priority problem

areas (Joseph et al., 1999).
Since then the Banking Service Quality

(BSQ) measure comprising 31 items for six
dimensions (effectiveness and assurance,
access, price, tangibles, services portfolio
and reliability) has been constructed (Bahia
and Nantel, 2000) This measurement tool,
dedicated to measure service quality in
banking, is essentially an adaptation of
SERVQUAL.
Thus, the accumulation of academic
research over the past decade has
highlighted many of the weaknesses and
difficulties associated with the use of
SERVQUAL. Nevertheless, it continues to be
one of the most widely recognised methods of
measuring service quality, notwithstanding
these criticisms. More pertinently perhaps,
at the time when Bank 1 was seeking to
improve its service quality measures beyond
the standard internal operations measures,
SERVQUAL was a pioneering tool, adopted
by a leading US bank and heavily promoted
by management consultants. In such a
context it was not surprising that
SERVQUAL was selected as a basis for
monitoring and managing service quality
development. In contrast to the existing
literature, the current study focuses
attention, not so much on the properties of
SERVQUAL as a measurement instrument,
but rather on the costs and benefits of using
such an instrument as part of a service
quality improvement process.
Methodology
The methodology adopted for this combined
an examination of SERVQUAL survey data
for 1993-97 and of customer commitment
survey data for 1995-98,with the bank's own
literature annual report and accounts 199399, employee opinion surveys and company
leaflets. The company documentation was
augmented with in-depth interviews
employing an evolutionary interview
structure in which the focus, issues and
practice-areas grew over time as the
programme progressed from pilot in 1993 to
the eve of its sixth year. Fourteen in-depth
interviews were conducted at headquarters
with senior managers including the director
of the national retail branch network with
overall responsibility for the selection and
implementation of the SERVQUAL surveys
together with senior managers from retail
support, personnel, marketing and human
resources over a period from January 1995 to
May 1999. These interviews were augmented
by drawing on the few accessible executive
[ 129 ]
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19/3 [2001] 126139
summaries of the bank's employee opinion

surveys conducted during this time in order
to improve the representativeness of the
information. The available information and a
spectrum of viewpoints is presented prior to
a discussion reflecting on the experience of
this major high street bank's quality
initiative and the prescriptions of the
academic literature.
The case study
This retail bank (referred to as Bank 1) is one

of the top ten high street banks in the UK.
Employing some 18,000 people it offers over
80 distinct products to over 15 million
customers through 850 high street branches,
30 `ìnstore'' branches of a major grocery
retail chain and through the telephone. The
average account holdings per customer was
1.7 (The Sunday Times, 1999) although 2.6
million (or 17.33 per cent) of Bank 1's
customers were found to hold three or more
accounts (Bank 1, 1997). As repeatedly
proclaimed in its Annual Reports and
Accounts (1994-1997) Bank 1 is explicitly
committed to:
. . . secure and maintain competitive
advantage through superior customer service
[and to] achieve above average growth in
shareholder value over the long term by
meeting the needs of our customers, our
staff and all other stakeholders in our
business.
In pursuit of these objectives Bank 1 has, in

common with its rivals, enlisted a number of
distinct but mutually reinforcing strategies
ranging from cost reductions initiatives,
revenue growth through a strong selling
focus, product diversification and a twin
commitment to increasing customer and
product profitability through greater crossselling, up-selling and more significantly
increasing the commitment of valuable
customers. The investments in new
information technology, including ATMs and
a new Branch PC network, were designed to
improve processing efficiency thereby
releasing staff for customer service and sales
activities.
Triggers for interest in service quality

improvement
In 1992 a national survey of financial

customers' perceptions of who offers
excellent service in financial institutions
placed Bank 1 in the middle of its rivals. As a
senior manager put it: ``we were all the same.
Only two financial providers stood out from
the pack and they were miles above us.''
(Bank 1, Retail Support, 1999). Added to this,
[ 130 ]
a re-emergence of mortgage demand as the

UK came out of recession exposed Bank 1's
uncompetitiveness due to weaknesses in the
mortgage process. It was developments such
as these, together with a visit to the Bank of
Chicago and Omega (a management
consultancy), which proved highly
influential in the Branch Network Director's
decision to champion SERVQUAL as the
keystone to improving quality of service.
This initiative is all the more striking for the
bank initiated its quality improvement
programme without benchmark
measurements and prior to any management
plans for a ``whole bank'' quality
management programme. Moreover the
quality initiative was to be distinguished by
its innovatory external orientation towards
customers' perceptions of service quality
and devolution of quality solutions to local
branches. Such features were novel to an
organisation hitherto characterised by its
top-down and directive management style
and introversion (Senior Manager in
Personnel, 1995, 1999). This quality initiative
stimulated the formulation of an operational
definition of service quality, which
acknowledges the tension between the quest
for service quality and the drive for sales and
revenue. In its own words, for Bank 1 the
measure of service quality is:
. . . consistently meeting or exceeding
customers' expectations, at a price which is
acceptable to the customers and at a return
which is acceptable to the company.
Sales and service are therefore seen as

interdependent since Bank 1's aim `ìs to keep
long term relationships with our customers
in which service quality is critical'' (Head
Office Briefing Notes for Managers, August
1993).
The next section describes the
implementation of the measurement
programme and typical quality improvement
measures undertaken by individual branches
in relation to their scores on each of the five
SERVQUAL dimensions. It illustrates the
usefulness to this bank of SERVQUAL as a
diagnostic tool, and records the outcomes as
they were perceived by customers and the
resultant degree of customer commitment.
Administration of SERVQUAL 1994-1998
The hallmark of Bank 1's service quality

initiative was the implementation of an
annual year-long cycle of SERVQUAL
measurement, staff feedback, action and
evaluation that has to date outlasted all its
other service improvement initiatives. The
cycle is based on the administration of two
principal surveys:
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19/3 [2001] 126139
1 the national telephone Market Survey

administered to around 500 Bank 1
customers and over 1,000 customers of
seven main competitors; and
2 the Branch Survey administered face-toface to around 100,000 of Bank 1's
customers while visiting their branch.
These measures were supplemented by the
customary customer satisfaction surveys
and, from 1995, through branch inspections
conducted by ``mystery shoppers''.
Since the pilot surveys in 1993-4, BMRB, a
well-known market research company, has
regularly administered the market survey in
May and June and the Branch Survey in
October. These are large-scale surveys. For
example, data collection for the Branch
Survey alone represents the equivalent of 850
working weeks. The surveys have been
consistently administered with only minor
adjustments in order to provide a consistent
year-on-year measure of Bank 1's customer
perceptions of service quality and the service
quality gap. A minor adjustment to wording
in 1997 from ``This branch never makes
mistakes on customer accounts'' to ``This
branch never makes mistakes on my
account'' improved the score, which had
fallen owing to unfavourable publicity
generated by the absorption of a rival. From
1994 SERVQUAL scores were augmented by
customer satisfaction surveys which have
regularly produced an average score of
between 60 and 70 per cent. The year 1995 saw
the introduction of the ``mystery shopper''
Branch Survey focusing on specific aspects of
service delivery highlighted by SERVQUAL
scores. This case study embodies the largest
and most consistent application of
SERVQUAL by any financial services
company in the UK. Together, the ``mystery
shopper'' and SERVQUAL surveys cost the
bank around 1m per annum.
Dissemination of SERVQUAL data from

head office to branches and action
The Market Research Company presents the

results of the two surveys to the retail sales
department of the branch network located at
head office from where they are cascaded
directly to individual branch managers. As
the national director of the retail network
explained, `ìn essence we present the
problems and it is up to the branches to solve
the issues. They are responsible.''
Table I shows how expectations and
perceptions have changed during the years
1994-97 and how, contrary to customary
prescriptions, Bank 1's customers'
expectations appear to fall. Moreover,
expectations are not being met on four out of
the five dimensions and most critically for a

banking service reliability, a ``hard quality''
dimension, saw the largest gap between
customer expectations and perceptions.
Reliability
Reliability became the prime focus of

organisational activity. ``Getting it right first
time all the time'' became the target for
account accuracy, keeping promises, meeting
deadlines and providing timely and accurate
information to customers. Efforts to improve
cash machines' availability and
dependability received unprecedented
attention. National operating standards were
devised and a monitoring and measurement
system put in place alongside a major
programme of investments in information
technology.
Responsiveness, empathy and assurance
The essentially ``soft'' or ``people'' quality

dimensions of responsiveness, empathy and
assurance accounted for significant gaps
between customer perceptions and
expectations. A gap of 12 points in staff
responsiveness indicated a particular need
for urgent attention. The responsiveness
dimension actually incorporates a number of
activities, including the readiness of staff to
tell customers exactly when things will be
done, the provision of prompt service, giving
customers their undivided attention as well
as being demonstrably responsive to
customers' requests. Improvements in staff
behaviour became a prime focus for
individual staff as well as for teams'
improvement initiatives with apparent
success. The staff responsiveness gap
diminished over the five years thanks only in
part to improved staff performance but also,
it seems, to declining expectations.
Similarly, `èmpathy'' was identified as a
quality displayed by staff when they
demonstrably had ``customers' best interests
at heart'' by offering convenient opening
hours, understanding of individual customer
needs and problems as well as providing
individual attention. Empathy scores
indicate an overall decline in both
perceptions and expectations. By 1997, both
had fallen sufficiently to narrow the gap by a
single point. `Àssurance'' requires staff to
have the knowledge to answer customers'
questions and the ability to provide
competent, confidential, courteous and
friendly service. Scores of the assurance
dimension displays similar trends, with
expectations falling by some eight points
while perceptions hover between one and two
points and the gap being reduced rather more
by the decline in expectations than by staff
behaviour.
[ 131 ]
Karin Newman
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19/3 [2001] 126139
Table I
Bank 1 overall SERVQUAL gap scores 1993-1997
Reliability
Responsiveness
Assurance
Tangibles
Empathy
1993
E
1994
E
1995
E
1996
E
1997
E
80
82
88
88
84
95
94
96
90
95
15
12
8
2
11
86
84
86
92
79
95
92
92
91
91
9
8
6
1
12
87
85
87
92
81
90
87
88
87
82
3
2
1
5
1
85
83
86
90
81
91
88
89
87
84
6
5
3
3
3
88
84
87
91
82
91
87
88
87
83
3
3
1
4
1
Notes: Bank 1 (score out of 100); P = perception; E = expectation; G = gap between P and E
Tangibles
In the ``tangible'' dimension Bank 1 exceeded

its customer expectations. Owing to the
legacy of an earlier branch refurbishment
programme and a parallel investment in
equipment, the appearance of branches in
terms of appeal, cleanliness and tidiness
exceeded customer expectations. However
SERVQUAL revealed a considerable
weakness on customer leaflets, letters,
statements and communications in general.
The organisational response included the
adoption of a ``plain English'' policy for all
correspondence and, after considerable
benchmarking the Bank adopted the
housestyle of a well-known retailer for its
product literature. Customers' perceptions
improved.
Process and systems re-design and IT
investments formed the heart of the
organisational hard quality improvements.
Tactical human resource strategies included
encouraging staff to behave more
responsively by using customer names more
often, offering greetings, saying ``please'' and
``thank you'' and providing customers with
undivided attention. In 1995 SERVQUAL
performance scores were being incorporated
into the branch managers' variable pay. In
1998 staff were empowered to spend up to 500
in service recovery. Table I reveals a
considerable diminution of the gap scores
owing to a marked improvement in
performance on all three dimensions, where
one point is significant and three is
``phenomenal''. An overall improvement of
eight points in perceptions was registered
between 1993 and 1997. At the same time,
contrary to popular and academic received
wisdom, customers' expectations show a
decline, which is hard to explain.
SERVQUAL as a diagnostic tool
The elements that make up the SERVQUAL

dimensions can also be displayed for
diagnostic purposes. Table II shows the most
severe gaps under each dimension and
records the company's success in tackling
individual problems.
[ 132 ]
As can be seen from Table II, Bank 1 made

considerable inroads in the most seriously
weak elements of the reliability and empathy
dimensions from the third year. These
results are mirrored in an increase in
customers' word-of-mouth recommendation
scores.
Bank 1's customer commitment scores as
expressed by answers to the question, ``would
not hesitate to recommend'' displayed in
Table III rise to a peak of 88 out of 100 points
in 1997 thereafter falling to 83 points in 1998
perhaps mirroring the expansion of its
banking operations through supermarkets.
As can be seen from Tables III and IV
above, Bank 1's scores on customer
commitment and service quality are high and
rise to a peak in 1997 reflecting the bank's
multifaceted actions at national and local
level to improve service quality. These scores
also reflect well on Bank 1 when compared
with its seven main rivals. Bank 1 customers
appear considerably more committed to their
bank than the customers of rivals A-E.
Overall, only banks F and G appear to
possess higher levels of support. Two striking
features are the ability of Bank 1's rivals to
catch up in the mid 1990s and for financial
providers D-G to overtake Bank 1 in
perceived service excellence, thus throwing
doubt on the use of service quality as a
unique differentiator.
Discussion
Interviews with head office senior
management in the retail sales, human
resources, personnel and the brand
marketing department provide a mixed view
on the role and contribution of this service
quality improvement initiative.
Service quality outcomes
In the opinion of its champion, the

SERVQUAL measurement programme was
instrumental in reducing the myopia of the
organisation by introducing an external
view, the customer's, on the quality of the
bank's services and more significantly
Karin Newman
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Marketing
19/3 [2001] 126139
responding to the customers' verdict. In the

opinion of its sponsor, adoption of this
quality initiative marks the bank's
conversion from introspection to customer
responsiveness and an external orientation
(director of branch network). These tracking
surveys also revealed a major divide between
customers' expectations and perceptions in
the North and South and exposed differences
in performance, not only internally between
branches but externally relative to
competitors, thus providing management
with a detailed, comparative overview.
SERVQUAL provided the means to
introduce an element of devolution and
self-autonomy to bank branches in an
organisation whose management style was
Table II
Using SERVQUAL as a diagnostic tool: Bank 1 gaps on selected
constituents
Dimension
1995
1996
1997
Reliability
Does not make mistakes
Promise by certain time
Cash machines are operating when needed
16
12
15
12
7
2
5
4
2
Responsiveness
Staff willingness
Prompt service
Staff can tell me when things will be done
Tried to speed up service
6
8
14
11
2
9
4
8
2
8
2
7
Assurance
Staff authority to make decisions on the spot
Knowledge to answer questions
Privacy
Staff are competent
7
9
12
11
5
5
4
5
3
3
3
4
3
2
10
6
3
2
7
4
1
Empathy
Call me by my name
Trust staff
Staff understand special needs
Staff concerned and understanding of problems
Convenient opening hours
7
11
13
13
8
5
6
4
4
5
6
4
2
3
3
Table III
``Would not hesitate to recommend'': Bank 1
v. competitors
1995
1996
1997
1998
84
87
88
83
1995
1996
1997
1998
Bank 1
86
87
88
82
9
7
0
1
11
1
2
2
6
2
2
1
6
2
0
0
7
3
4
2
2
2
6
0
4
5
6
3
Note: Bank 1 score out of 100

variously described, by its management and
staff alike, as bureaucratic, autocratic and
hierarchical. SERVQUAL had the merit of
being equally well understood by staff and
managers and among staff in particular it
escaped the cynical, ``flavour-of-the-month''
reaction to past quality and customer service
initiatives and paved the way for the
acceptance of a more intrusive check on
branches such as the ``mystery shopper''
programme. However, it is arguable that
SERVQUAL's greatest contribution was to
raise the profile of service quality, bringing it
to the attention of senior management and on
to the board agenda. In 1995 a quality steering
group chaired by the chief executive was
formed to consider and select corporate-wide
actions necessary to underpin customer
service improvements. Hard quality
operational performance targets were set for
every department in the retail bank.
However, the adoption and
implementation of SERVQUAL also raised a
number of issues internally and these may
limit some of the potential benefits discussed
above.
Information silos
Tangibles
Professional appearance of staff
Up-to-date equipment
Easy to read leaflets, letters and statements
Bank 1
Table IV
``Quality of service is excellent'': Bank 1 v.
competitors
7 13
10 3
4 2
2 5
7
2
1
5
7
3
0
5
7
3
0
2
1
2
4
5
4
4
4
1
Note: Bank 1 score out of 100
The potential impact of service quality

measurement was reduced by the existence
of information silos. SERVQUAL and
``mystery shopper'' measures were selected,
introduced, sponsored, financed and `òwned''
by the retail sales division at head office: the
customer satisfaction surveys were
sponsored and financed by the marketing
department and the employee opinion
surveys were sponsored, financed and owned
by Human Resources! These potentially
valuable sources of information on
customers' perceptions and judgements,
employee performance and company
operations were neither co-ordinated nor
integrated, thus losing the benefits of
synthesis, cross-fertilisation and
co-operation between departments and
reducing the possibility of concerted and
combined action to create and deliver service
quality. Customer perceived quality was the
preserve of retail sales rather than of
[ 133 ]
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19/3 [2001] 126139
marketing. The placing of quality with and

under the umbrella of retail sales rather than
the marketing department suggests a sales
rather than a customer focus and suggests a
subordinate importance of both service
quality and marketing within the
organisation. This, when combined with the
organisational barriers, limited Bank 1's
ability to be market oriented and reduced the
potential effectiveness of both marketing and
service quality strategies. Similarly,
employees are both internal customers as
well as part time marketeers (Berry et al.,
1989) yet the connection between employee
recruitment and training and the needs of
service quality and marketing is severed. It is
these organisational barriers that limited the
impact of this service quality improvement
initiative.
Service climate and service orientation
The impact of the service quality drive and

the employment of a ``people'' sensitive
quality measure such as SERVQUAL were
hardly discernible on HR strategy, practice
or employee behaviour. There were no
special training programmes to indicate to
employees what they had to do in order to
provide a quality service and SERVQUAL
itself offers no practical guidance for
behaviour. Similarly, staff appraisal seemed
to favour sales at the expense of service. As
one employee put it ``Commitment and
service do not seem to count for much, sales
are the most important aspect now'' and ``you
could lose points on service quality but you
can't gain points'' (Employee Survey, 1997).
Consequently the failure to link service
quality, customer satisfaction and employee
reward and appraisal limited the penetration
and impact of SERVQUAL for, as one senior
management put it, `Ùnless such measures
are directly linked to pay nothing really
happens'' (Senior Manager, Marketing, 1999).
Indeed, concern for sales, rather than a
service culture, pervaded the organisation. It
was not until 1998 that a branch manager's
variable pay became sensitive to customer
satisfaction scores while the remuneration of
top management remained firmly locked to
the profit and loss account.
Absence of top management commitment
Top management support for customer

service must be seen to be total (Schneider
and Bowen, 1985) but Bank 1 employees
seemed less than convinced that this was the
case. While 65 per cent believed the company
was committed to customer satisfaction this
is significantly below the 73 per cent norm
for the financial services sector and 93 per
cent achieved by the best company (Bank 1
[ 134 ]
Staff Opinion Survey, 1993). As one employee

observed `Ì think the management would like
staff to think they are committed to customer
service, but at the end of the day they are
more interested in profit'' and another
observed `Ì have no job satisfaction anymore.
We just have to get sales''. Indeed less than 45
per cent of staff believed that senior
management demonstrated that customer
satisfaction was an important goal and only
56 per cent of staff expressed themselves as
satisfied with quality and customer service
issues this was due largely to insufficient
staff numbers to ``provide the high standards
we want to offer our customers'' (Employee
Opinion Survey, 1997).
In any quality improvement programme
top management has to be seen to believe in
customer service and demonstrate that
customer service and quality really matter
before a service culture becomes embedded
and a significant and sustained improvement
in service quality and customer satisfaction
occurs. Consequently, the scores at the end of
the programme reflect the reluctant
conclusion of one of SERVQUAL's admirers
that ``Five years of measuring service quality
has not changed very much the way we
deliver the service to customers'' (Senior
Manager, Retail Support 1999). Setting aside
the practical difficulties the lack of top
management commitment and the
dominance of a sales climate together suggest
that senior management may have been
merely paying lip service to service quality
improvement.
Reflections on the limitations of

SERVQUAL.
From the experience of administering
SERVQUAL over a five-year period a number
of questions and issues centring on
administration and measurement, HR
practices, business culture and performance
have emerged.
Respondents' suitability
A fundamental issue on the composition of

the branch sample has emerged. It is
suspected that the branch survey involving
interviews with over 100,000 customers a
year in branches might be capturing
disproportionate numbers of the ``wrong
customers'' those regular low-value branch
visitors who appear easily satisfied rather
than the profitable high-net-worth customers
who are reluctant to visit branches and are
more discerning and harder to please. Thus,
these high SERVQUAL scores may
encourage a false sense of security and feed
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complacency. Furthermore, the visual

selection of customers by independent
market researchers may not be sufficiently
sensitive to either customer or product
ownership segments or the purpose of the
service encounter. It is therefore an
undifferentiated measure unsuited to a
situation in which as research has shown
perceptions and expectations vary across
customer segments, product ownership and
purpose of service encounter (Kangis, 1997).
Such weaknesses assume great importance
in a bank where less than 20 per cent of
customers provide 80 per cent of profits
(Director of Retail Branch Network, 1998),
where another 15-20 per cent cost the bank
money and the remainder might be made
profitable only with the abandonment of free
banking.
Prioritisation, diagnostics and

retrospection
The employment of unweighted SERVQUAL

measures fails to gauge customers' priorities
across the five quality dimensions and their
constituent elements and so may mislead.
For example, a 5 score gives a false picture of
importance. `Ùsing customer names'' became
de rigueur in branches yet this was
subsequently found not to be important to
branch customers and may have diverted
attention and resources from a more relevant
element. Doubt also exists on the value of
SERVQUAL as a diagnostic and prescriptive
tool. For example SERVQUAL failed to reveal
the extent of the lunchtime queues problem
in branches. Similarly in a mortgage
situation, the symptom or effect ``my
mortgage didn't arrive in time'' is captured
by SERVQUAL but the causation, the who,
where, what, when, remains hidden and has
to be discovered by other means. The
SERVQUAL instrument is no substitute for
customer relevant operational standards and
requires supplementation by other
performance measures. A more significant
limitation of SERVQUAL in this case is that,
by its very nature, it tends to be
retrospective. The cycle of administration,
collection, analysis and report-back of one
year's duration is further exacerbated by the
contemporaneous nature of the questions.
Managers operating in a turbulent
marketplace require real-time as well as
forward-looking information as a basis for
anticipating or responding fast to shifts in
expectations, priorities and performance
levels. There is a case for rephrasing the
SERVQUAL questions to make them more
managerially valuable along the following
lines `ìf we did this . . . would you'' . . .?
The influence of corporate image and

reputation on SERVQUAL scores
Finally, there remains the question ``what is

SERVQUAL measuring?'' where the
corporate image and reputation is highly
favourable. To what extent does SERVQUAL
measure perceptions and expectations
engendered by corporate brand and
reputation? How far do the corporate brand
and image influence customers' expectations
and perceptions of the local branch service
encounter? Recent experience by Bank 1 is
suggestive that the branch SERVQUAL
survey scores reflect more on corporate
brand and reputation than on branch
performance. Support for this view
originates from the finding that only five
points separate the best and worst
performing branches of a network totalling
over 850. Further support is provided from
the finding that the biggest recorded change
in SERVQUAL scores of three points
coincided with the relaunch of the corporate
brand in a substantial television and press
campaign in 1998.
Gronroos (1984) and Lehtinen and Lehtinen
both recognise the power of corporate image
as a filter, mediator or influencer of service
quality (cited in Le Blanc and Nguyen, 1988).
Similarly research by Bloemer et al. (1998) on
banks in The Netherlands has shown that
corporate image affects customer perceived
service quality. Support for a link between
corporate image or reputation and quality is
seen across the Atlantic in America where
Fortune's corporate reputations survey
concludes that quality of management and
the quality of products and services that a
company delivers are its most important
attributes. Quality and service excellence
fosters reputation (Brown and Kleiner, 1997).
In the UK the success of new entrants with
powerful brand names in life assurance,
retailing and even airlines suggest that
company image or reputation override
considerations of service quality perceptions.
That there is a connection is evident.
However the direction of the linkage is not
yet clear and requires further research. What
is clear is the widespread belief that it is
pointless to switch banks because all banks
are the same (Abbey National Survey, 1998).
``Soft'' quality is no compensation for

inadequate ``hard'' quality
The three soft quality ``people'' dimensions,

responsiveness, empathy and assurance, are
widely regarded as critical in service
marketing. The crux of the service is the
customer experience in which staff
involvement their willingness and ability to
serve determines customers' perceptions of
[ 135 ]
Karin Newman
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Marketing
19/3 [2001] 126139
quality. It is at this point of the service profit

chain that the quality of internal processes,
staff empowerment, training and corporate
leadership are fused. The experience of Bank
1 demonstrates that where hard quality,
especially reliability of service delivery, is
low then ``soft'' quality cannot compensate.
Conclusions
Much of the existing literature which

critically evaluates SERVQUAL has focused
attention on either the coverage of the items,
the principles of measurement or issues in
administration. Despite these concerns,
SERVQUAL has been widely used, not least
in the financial services sector. However,
adopting and implementing SERVQUAL in a
business context may raise other issues
about the value of this approach to
monitoring and measuring service quality.
This paper reports on a case analysis of a
pioneering service quality improvement
programme which used SERVQUAL as the
main driver of organisational quality
improvement initiatives. The evidence from
the case has highlighted a number of
practical lessons and theoretical issues and
questions which overall cast further doubt on
the value of SERVQUAL as a measure of
service quality. Beginning with the most
important practical issues associated with
this programme, several areas of concern
have arisen.
One stems from the mode of SERVQUAL's
administration, which has raised
fundamental questions about the
composition of the sample, and its
insensitivity to customer, product ownership
and service encounter. The second stems
from the use of an unweighted SERVQUAL
measure, which fails to gauge customers'
priorities across the five quality dimensions
let alone their associated elements. The third
practical issue is that of retrospection caused
by both the construction of the questions and
the length of time it takes to collect, process
and analyse the data and disseminate the
information. Internally, it is apparent that
other concerns affected the value of
SERVQUAL and these included the presence
of information silos which meant that
important information from a range of
sources, including SERVQUAL, was not
effectively disseminated. This may in part
reflect a problem relating to the integration
of aspects of the service quality improvement
programme across the organisation as is
evidenced by the lank of any clear linkages
between SERVQUAL and the bank's HR
strategy. An inescapable conclusion is that,
[ 136 ]
while it may be easy to adopt SERVQUAL

and implement large scale surveys and
continue to measure outcomes, it becomes a
futile exercise if they are not acted upon and
are not seen as an integral part of the
organisation's activities as a whole.
These concerns are currently being
addressed by Bank 1. Starting in 1999 the
bank replaced the face-to-face annual
administration of SERVQUAL in branches
with a twice-yearly postal questionnaire to a
representative sample of its customer base
thereby improving the respondent profile
and timeliness of the information. In
addition, survey sponsorship has been
transferred from the retail sales department
to the marketing department, a move that
now places the results of the customer
satisfaction surveys, ``mystery shoppers'' and
SERVQUAL in the hands of a single
department. This unification of customer
data within the marketing department not
only reduces the information silo structure
but is significant for locating service quality
firmly within the orbit of marketing a
responsibility which all too often has been
placed in operations, customer care or
isolated quality departments. In this case the
recognition that service quality belongs to
marketing represents a major step forward
towards the acceptance in practice of
marketing as a strategic department within
retail banking.
The case also raises a theoretical concern.
What is SERVQUAL measuring? The finding
that only five points (out of 100) separate the
best and worst performing branches of a
network of over 850 branches and the finding
that the largest recorded change in
SERVQUAL scores of three points
coincided with the relaunch of the corporate
brand in a substantial television and press
campaign in 1998 suggest the need for further
empirical and conceptual work on the role
and significance of corporate image and
reputation on service quality.
This case study also raises questions about
the link between service quality and business
performance in the UK. A major issue for
financial services, and retail banking in
particular, is the profitability profile of bank
customers. A recent survey reports that the
percentage of profitable customers is around
42 per cent with some banks reporting a low
of 20 per cent. A total of 31.5 per cent of
customers are described as profit neutral and
26.5 per cent are deemed to be non-profitable
(King, 1999). Such a profile raises
fundamental issues for banks' strategies
from elimination of free banking to customer
migration to low cost delivery channels such
as ATMs, the telephone, and the Internet, to
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19/3 [2001] 126139
customer deselection and segmentation

strategies (The Banker, 1999). Such skewed
customer profiles also lend support to the
strategy of creating separate ``wealth''
divisions to cater to high net worth
individuals who expect, and are willing to
pay for, a commensurate level of service
excellence. However, such strategies depend
on the availability of holistic customer
information and it is this which is often
lacking in financial institutions owing to the
evolution of customer information based on
the account rather than the person. In a
recent survey of 12 large financial services
companies King (1999) concludes that only 8
per cent could capitalise fully on their
customer information, leaving some 84 per
cent who could only partially use the
information they stored. Banks are
obstructed and frustrated in practising their
new-found customer focus expressed by
such marketing strategies as segmentation
and customer targeting for new products,
direct mail, promotions, distribution and
relationship management by their
technological infrastructure, the
proliferation of activities and fragmentation
of delivery channels. Essentially, to be truly
customer focused requires holistic
information in real time on the whole
customer not the account. A recent survey
by King (1999) of KPMG reports that only 6
per cent of bankers believe their
organisations have been successful at
integrating all the different customer
information streams while 67 per cent said
that it was not possible to analyse customer
contacts across delivery channels and it is
this which makes successful customer
targeting for service excellence, new product
sales, customer retention and cross selling
difficult to operationalise. Furthermore, the
reality for financial services, such as savings
and mortgages and credit cards, is the
commodification of service in which price is
the key to acquisition and retention of
financially aware and ``high net worth''
individuals.
Of wider interest is the finding that,
despite a number of quality improvement
initiatives in retail banking over the last
decade, customer dissatisfaction with their
banks appears to be increasing. In 1993-1994
there were just over 8,000 written complaints
to the Banking Ombudsman; in 1997-1998
there were over 10,500 (The Banking
Ombudsman, 1993-1994, 1997-1998). Card
machines, direct debits, standing orders,
cheques and drafts, current, deposit and
savings accounts administration continued
to attract the most complaints with some 4
per cent of complaints centring on errors
(The Banking Ombudsman, 1996-98)

reflecting failures of IT, people and service
recovery. It is therefore more remarkable
that 83 per cent of consumers have not
changed their current account in the past
five years (Mintel Report, 1999) and 59 per
cent are still using their first ever current
account (Cruickshank, 2000). However, a
change in the law in 1999 which allows
customers to move all standing orders and
direct debits to new accounts using a single
letter to their old bank together with
automated current accounts, Internet and
interactive TV will end the phoney war and
introduce severe competition for the
acquisition and retention of existing and
potential ``profitable'' customers.
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79. Gyaneshwar Singh Kushwaha, Shiv Ratan AgrawalCustomer Satisfaction via Service Quality Dimensions: 1829-1846.
[CrossRef]

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