AN EMPIRICAL STUDY OF THE SERVICE FAILURE

AND SERVICE RECOVERY – A PERSPECTIVE OF

EDUCATIONAL SERVICE QUALITY

SUBMITTED BY:
MOHIT DASWANI A033
PRIYAM DUGAR A045
RANI GULRAJANI A047

Under the supervision of

Ms. MALLIKA SRIVASTAV
 ABSTRACT
It is impossible to deny the importance of education and the role it plays in attaining various goals that
individuals set for themselves. With the rise in competition and limited availability of financial resources,
service - providing organizations and centers must take serious actions to provide high-quality services to
get much more customer attention and also to remain relevant. One of the most important industries that
needs to strive to achieve excellence in the services they provide is the education sector in India. It
provides the foundation for students from primary, secondary and higher education. These young
individuals will go on to contribute towards the GDP of the country. There are various methods to
improve the quality of services they provide, these include:

 Improving academic programs

 Use of technology to improve learning
 Identifying and recruiting the brightest minds as part of faculty
 Improving Infrastructure
 Updating study matter and pedagogy to match industry trends

One of the signs of quality in universities is the fulfillment of students’ expectations from the educational
services, more researchers have focused on the gap between the students’ expectations and perceptions of
the different educational aspects and dimensions. Hence, it is very important to assess the education
service quality that is provided by the universities and institutions.

In today’s world of competitive environment, rendering quality service is key competing weapon for
success. To gain competitive advantage, customer service and quality are the two most driving forces for
the service providers. In order to sustain in the business and to retain their share and profitability it is
imperative for the service providers to provide quality service to their customers. Thus, service quality
has become predominant part of all advanced organization’s strategic plan. Considering any other service,
measuring service quality is an important issue in management education. Management education is one
of the professional and higher education courses. Higher education possesses all the characteristics of
service industry such as it has both the customer and service providers. The main aim of this study was to
examine the students‟ expectation and perception towards the service quality in management education
and also to understand how the students perceive the quality service provided in the select management
institutes.

Therefore, based on the literature SERVQUAL model has been widely used in the study of management
education service in particular. In 1988, the first service quality measurement model was developed by
Parasuraman et al. known as Service Quality (SERVQUAL).He developed five dimensions showing
significance to the measurement of service quality, namely (a) Tangibles (physical facilities and
equipment), (b) Reliability (performing the promised service), (c) Responsiveness (willingness to help
customers), (d) Assurance (courtesy of employees to convey trust) and (d) Empathy (individualized
attention provided to customers).This demonstrates that „measuring service quality‟ plays a vital role in
upholding the standards in the process of delivering quality education. For the purpose of this study an
enhanced approach to using SERVQUAL is adopted for measuring service quality in management
education.
 TABLE OF CONTENTS
__________________________________________________________________

Chapter 1 Introduction 4

1.2 Theoretical Background 5

1.3 Current Management Education Scenario in India 6

Chapter 2 Methodology 8

2.2 Sample 9
2.3 Questionnaire 9

Chapter 3 Discussion & Analysis 10

3.2 Students as Stakeholders of Higher Education Institutions 11

3.3 Service Quality in Higher Education 11

3.4 Assessing Higher Education Service Quality Using SERVQUAL 12

Hypothesis

3.4 Result 12

Conclusion 13

References 14
 CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION
The performance improvement and management of universities/institutions is vital in all countries across
the globe. In addition, the ability of any society to manage its institutions and development programs
should not only be limited to concentrating on the effectiveness and efficiency of the university/institution
but also through concentrating on its fairness, innovation and the programs’ suitability with the
interacting users along with its ability to meet the users’ expectations.

The rapid and transcending change in the economic, social technology and demographics have acquired
higher demands an increase in the quality of services offered by different universities/institutions. Higher
education, just like any official service, is nothing but a reflection of general social and economic contexts
common in societies, and it is no stranger to major complications; where higher education institutions
face adverse limitations and threats. The limitations and threats are created from various factors and the
formation of new international systems that depend on knowledge and accelerated development. There
has been a massive increase in the dependence on Hi-Tech systems across countries that lead to progress,
excellence and creativity. The new systems help these institutions to begin implementing comprehensive
development programs that help these educational institutions in the elimination of limitations, threats
and points of weaknesses.

1.2 Theoretical Background

As of FY 19, the education sector in India is at US$ 101.1 billion. Latest figures state that at least 28.25 %
of India’s population ranges from 1-14 years of age. Also, the government confirms that 100 per cent FDI
is allowed in the Indian education sector

In today’s competitive environment, it is of paramount importance for management institutes should be

concerned about measuring their service quality. However, the level of service quality and the importance
given to it in the higher education sector is significantly underdeveloped.

While India is at consistently growing in number of business institutes, it is for the schools to decide
whether they should focus on quality or quantity. With the rise within the variety and kinds of business
faculties, there are growing concerns about maintaining the quality of management education within the
country.

India is still in its state of development; thus, today’s education is tomorrow’s future. And it is not only
believed but also proven time and again that providing the right information and skills to the youth can
ensure the overall national progress and economic process. The Indian education system acknowledges
the role of education in inculcating the values of doctrine, respect for democratic traditions and civil
liberties and go after justice.

Education is much esteemed and productive speculation that it generally compensates in numerous
manners. It has consistently been agreed with a respected spot in each economy. The solid and successful
educational framework brings about financial development, social change and more prominent execution
of the understudies. Accordingly, the education business assumes an undeniably significant job in
supporting state-funded training by fulfilling the need for items and administrations that both supplement
essential educational administrations and supplement their fundamental objectives. The business is
characterized by four primary classes: Schools/Service Providers, Supplemental Education Service
Providers, Products and Education Service Businesses. Because of globalization, the Indian economy
unequivocally impacts advanced education to improve personal satisfaction.

Post-freedom India has seen a better than expected development in the quantity of higher education
establishments opposite its populace. While there were just around 20 Universities and 500 Colleges at
the hour of autonomy, today these numbers have developed exponentially. Find underneath a depiction of
the current advanced education area in India:

• India has a total of 574 universities. 44 central universities, 286 state universities, 111state private
universities, 129 deemed universities and 4 institutions established through state legislation, 30
Institutions of National Importance3
• There are 45 technical institutes, 13 management institutes, 4 information technology institutes, 6
science and research institutes and 3 planning and architecture institutes
• Currently, the Government spends around 3.8% of its GDP on education
• Less than 1% of the $38 bn of the Government spend on education was towards Capex (2008-09)
• According to the 2011 census, the total literacy rate in India is 74.04% compared to the world average of
83.4% (2008)
• The female literacy rate is 65.46 % and male literacy rate is 82.14 %

It is essential to see how the understudy sees the exhibition of value administration and furthermore the
elements which impacts administration quality in the board instruction establishments. Understudies are
viewed as a client and furthermore a result of the administration training organization. In this way, nature
of education must be observed normally in light of the fact that understudies (clients) are legitimately
associated with the training procedure.

1.3 Current Management Education Scenario in India

The Indian economy is developing at a quick pace making impressive open doors in its field, fabricating,
pharma, and so forth. In any case, we additionally need to understand that a quick monetary development
through these segments can happen just with the assistance of adequately gifted directors, which will give
the nation the ideal stimulus for the improvement of every division. This is the motivation behind why
increasingly more business schools are coming up in the country. The board instruction is at its blast in
India with 1000 business colleges offering the equivalent.

Plus, India's new educational strategy – Foreign Universities Bill further implies a climb in the quantity of
remote business colleges in the nation prompting better training with the trading of worldwide thoughts.
You will be, be that as it may, astounded to realize that an Indian MBA or even Indian recognitions in the
executives, so far as that is concerned, are universally recorded obviously better than some other Asian
ones. Why? Since India likes to teach in English, which is the worldwide language with regards to the
prospectus as well as with regards to trading meetings to generate new ideas through coordinated effort
with business colleges abroad. This doesn't occur in other nations, similar to China and Japan, where they
educate in their national language as it were.

The second factor that gives India an upper edge as far as the management studies is concerned is the cost
of training. India is giving a world-class training at negligible costs. No big surprise even American and
European understudies are coming to India to accomplish excellent administration training at practical
costs. The placements of students concentrating in India and abroad are happening in big names like the
World Bank, Apple, Google, IBM, McKinsey, Accenture, Adobe, and so forth; further affirms and
approves the nature of world-class training that India gives.

In any case, India has to go really far to uphold this reputation; and for this, it is significant that
administration foundations in the country receive and adhere to the worldwide guidelines of higher
education and fuse the same in their framework and teaching method:

 Make management education student-centric, not faculty-centric

 Involve in Industry collaboration to hone up the practical skills of the students via
internship/training

 Organize regular practical training at a related management industry to help the students capture
the right pulse

 Craft the management curriculum in line with the latest industry trends, standards, and practices

 Incorporate digital education, which is a must in the current scenario, whether to train students or
the faculty

 Have faculty with diversified experience. Gone are the days when the faculty used to remain
restricted to just teaching. Today, they should diversify to training, research, and consultancy.

 Engaging students in seminars, etc., where industry experts impart them with current knowledge.

 Globalize Education: This can only be done by collaborating with foreign universities. India’s
upgraded education policy will go a long way to help do this.

 Replace most of the theory-based education slowly yet steadily with practical-based education as
only this comes handy when the students look for jobs in the corporate world outside.

 R&D based collaboration: Constant research and development, whether in the industry or its
related education, is a must and thus it is important that the curriculum at a management school
keeps updating with the changing demands of the industry. This can be achieved only when a
management school collaborates with the big-wigs of the industry to walk hand-in-hand to create
world-class management graduates/postgraduates.

Circumstances are different and what did ponder in the past may demonstrate futile later on. In this way
making new and better courses and redoing them according to the enthusiasm of the business is the need
of the present business education framework. What's more, if the Indian business education needs to
remain world-class, it is not only exclusively to be challenged but also additionally re-evaluate itself
every now and then to meet the cutting edge needs of the dynamic worldwide business condition.
 CHAPTER 2
METHODOLOGY
We chose a simple random sample to proceed with our study. We targeted people with different and
varied background and demographics with respect to age, gender, university they are studying in and their
domain for their post graduate studies. In this survey the dependent variable was the perception of
educational service quality and was influenced by independent variables like :Brand name, Teaching
Faculty, fee structure , Infrastructure, employment opportunity and location.
We conducted a quantitative study which involved the administration of the survey in order to empirically
validate the factors of service quality in higher education. Our primary method of data collection was
through the survey / market research.

2.2 Sample

A total of 40 students from various B- schools have been surveyed from whom 21 properly filled
questions each have been obtained. Most of the respondents were enrolled in either their first or second
year of MBA/PGDM program. As for the overall rating of the quality service, majority of respondents
gave their positive views with mean at 3.6 of the 5-point Likert scale. The self-developed instrument
consisted of 21 items was used for the purpose of data collection. Respondents were asked to
indicate their perception of each service quality item on five-point scales. The five-point scales
ranged from 1, strongly disagree to 5, meaning strongly agree.

Faculty has contemporary equipment for the education process

Building and Premises are modern and visually likeable
Employee/Faculty are professional and well read
Teaching material are available and up to date
Classes are held in accordance with the schedule of lectures and without delay
Working hours of office for student affairs are adequate and in accordance with student’s needs
Staff at faculty provide support and help to students
Administrative staff has precise record of student activities
Academic staff applies consistent grading criteria
Students are timely informed about schedules and activities
Enquires, requests and claims of students are handled and resolved timely and promptly
Academic staff conducts themselves in students’ best interest
Academic and administrative staff responds well to student feedback
Faculty implements study and educational programs with clear aims for specialisation of students
Quality of education process is at par with other successful B-schools
Conduct of staff fills students with confidence
Reputation and position of the faculty in the B-school environment is adequate
Academic staff provides professional answers to student questions
Academic staff treats students equally and with respect
Academic curriculum is updated as per industry trends
Staff is polite kind and professional with students
CHAPTER 3
DISCUSSION
& ANALYSIS
3.2 Students as Stakeholders of Higher Education Institutions

Institutions facilitating with higher education have been asked to identify the need to evaluate their role in
the society and also identify their stakeholders. Once the institution is able to identify the stakeholders
and manage their demands their success rate will be much higher. Higher Education Institutions need to
fulfill the demands and expectations of their stakeholders also managing relations with the stakeholders is
important to keep the quality in check as they are actively involved in internal and external evaluations of
higher education institutions. The quality of service imparted must be continuously improved in order to
meet the demands of the stakeholders.

3.3 Service Quality in Higher Education

An important role is played by the service sector in developing knowledge about the economy and
increased competition is the key motivator for service providers to strive for quality. assessing the service
quality has attracted the researchers in the past 3 decades. The term consists of service and quality which
both are linked to the consumer. There is no universal definition of quality - it may be defined as the
conformance of requirement, being fit to use, or technical and functional aspects of quality can be
distinguished.

3.4 Assessing Higher Education Service Quality Using SERVQUAL

There is a lack of measuring quality as no stringent definition is available for the same. Grönroos (1984)
has defined quality of service by mentioning three key parameters: functional, technical and image and
also says that quality of service depends on two variables that is the expectation and perception of the
service.
Customers attitude determines the functional quality of the service.

SERVQUAL model proposed by Zeithmal and Parasuraman which was based on multiple item scale for
measuring service quality. This model was also referred as the gap model as the gap was indentified
between customer expectations and customer perceptions and this gap needs to be eliminated in order to
offer excellent quality

Service Quality (Q) = Expectations (E) – Perceptions(P)

The SERVQUAL is founded on the view that customers' assessment of service quality is paramount.
Major dimensions in the SERVQUAL model for determining the gap between customer expectations and
perceptions are:
1. Tangibles (physical facilities, equipment, appearance of personnel, etc.)
2. Reliability (capability to provide the promised service accurately and dependably)
3. Responsiveness (willingness to provide prompt service and help customers)
4. Assurance (courtesy and knowledge of personnel and ability to convey confidence and trust)
5. Empathy (attention provided to individual customer)

The main aim of this research is to develop a tool based on the SERVQUAL model for measuring quality
in higher education and to explore whether it can be used to identify the gap between expectations and
perceptions of the higher education service providing the basis for necessary improvements. For the
purpose of this research the following research hypotheses were formed:

Hypothesis 1: Adapted SERVQUAL model can be used in higher education in order to determine in
which areas improvements are necessary and should be made by the institution, in order to increase the
perceived quality of the education service provided to students.

Hypothesis 2: There is a negative gap identified between student expectations and perceptions of
empathy in service quality.

The arithmetic mean of empathy expectations is 2.38 while the student perceptions peak to 3.64, hence a
negative gap of 1.26 is noticed.

3.4 Result

The Indian education system has tried to match the standards and level of the international education and
this has resulted them in not being able to understand the emotional needs of every individual student.

Every student comes from a different background be it emotionally or mentally, some may be able to
cope well with the grind while others may need extra help and support from the academic and
administrative staff. A students Emotional Quotient is different from their Intelligence Quotient and a
student’s credibility should be judged on both.

Hence, it is essential for the Indian education system; especially at its post graduate level to address each
student separately. Consider their needs at every step.

Few ways to inculcate more empathy in the higher education system:

  Have on campus therapists/counsellors.
 Keep a constant check whether student expectations are met via surveys
 Considering student feedback promptly
 Keep local guardians and parents in loop of their ward’s progress
 Institutions research students' expectations when they enroll in a study program or at the
beginning of the academic year

Conclusion

The quantitative methodology (in view of a study instrument) in this exploration was fitting for the
investigation. The adjusted SERVQUAL model was utilized for surveying higher education service
quality in advanced education and the presence of a negative gap between students' expectations and
perceptions of the higher education service provided by the higher education institution was determined.
Taking everything into account, in light of the consequences of the examination utilizing the adjusted
SERVQUAL model it very well may be reasoned that both research theories are decidedly affirmed. The
SERVQUAL model dependent on the adjusted sizes of the advanced education part can be utilized in
evaluating the quality of advanced education foundations. In view of the research results, a negative gap
between students’ expectations and perceptions of the higher educational service was distinguished.

We accept that advanced education foundations can just profit by administration quality estimation. Be
that as it may, without executing changes estimating quality is inconsequential. In this paper, we
presented a negative quality gap that is present at all of the five dimensions of service quality. The smaller
the gap the better the service quality.

Improvement is essential for all sections of the higher education sector. Clearly a precise methodology is
expected to improve the nature of advanced education administrations at this organization because of the
need of improving the entirety of the parts of advanced education administrations. Quality is one of the
significant objectives of colleges so as to pull in students and improve educational institutions. Improving
the nature of the administration at this advanced education foundation will require a significant interest in
budget and HR so as to live up to students' desires and accomplish long haul aggressiveness on the
advanced education showcase. As pointed out, management institutions ought to endeavor towards key
reasoning and acting and successful quality tasks. In light of the results of the research and the
hypothetical foundation of the exploration, it very well may be presumed that quality evaluation at the
interior needs level is the initial move towards the advancement of an inside quality confirmation
framework.
References

 A Review of Service Quality at Higher Learning Institutions - European Journal of Business and
Management | Authors: Saad Aziz Al-Otaibi, Sha’ri Mohd Yusof, Wan Khairuzaman Wan Ismail
from International Business School, University Technology Malaysia, Razak School of Engineering
and Advanced Technology, International Business School, University Technology Malaysia
 Research Article: Service Quality in Higher Education: An Exploratory Study by R. Jain, G.
Sinha and S.K. De
 Quality Assessment in Higher Education Using The Servqual Model - Sabina Đonlagić, Samira
Fazlić
 SERVQUAL: Measuring higher education service quality in Thailand by Khanchitpol
Yousapronpaiboon, Khon Kaen University
 A SERVQUAL-Based Framework for Assessing Quality of International Branch Campuses in UAE:
A Management Students’ Perspective - Khyati Shetty Datta and Julie Vardhan
 Service Quality in Higher Education an Empirical Study at the Jönköping International Business
School