Quality Management in Service

 Servqual model
Prepared by Rahul Dalvi
 Servqual scale
• Developed by Parasuraman, Zeithaml, Berry.
• Customers can evaluate a firm’s service quality
by comparing their perceptions of its service
with their expectations.
• Can be applied to a broad spectrum of service
industries.
 Generic Dimensions used by customers to evaluate
service quality
Dimension Definition Examples
Credibility Trust worthiness, believability, honesty Does the hospital have a good
of the service provider reputation?

Security Freedom from danger, risk or doubt Is it safe for me to use the
bank’s ATM at night?

Access Approachability, ease of contact How easy is it for me to talk to

a supervisor when I have a
problem?
Communic Listening to customers and keeping When I have a complaint , is
ation them informed in language they can the manager willing to listen
understand to me?
Understand Making the effort to know customers Does someone in the hotel
ing the and their needs recognize me as a regular
customer customer?
 Generic Dimensions used by customers to evaluate
service quality
Dimension Definition
Tangibles Appearance of physical facilities,
equipment, personnel and
communication materials
Reliability Ability to perform the promised
service dependably and accurately
Responsiv Willingness to help customers and
eness provide prompt service
Competen Possession of the skills & knowledge
ce required to perform the service
Courtesy Politeness , respect , consideration,
and friendliness of contact personnel
Examples
Are the hotel’s facilities ?
Is my telephone bill free of
errors?
Is my stock brocker willing to
answer my questions?
When I call my travel agent , is
she able to obtain the
information I need ?
Are telephone operators
consistently polite when
answering my calls ?
 Servqual scale

• Include 5 dimensions : Tangibles, reliability ,

responsiveness ,assurance and empathy
• Within each dimension, several items
measured on a 7-point scale .
• 7  “strongly agree”
• 1 “strongly disagree”.
 Servqual scale
 Tangibles
• Excellent banks or appropriate service business will have
modern-looking equipment.
• The physical facilities at excellent banks will be visual
appealing.
 Reliability
• When excellent banks promise to do something they will do
so .
• Excellent banks will perform the service right the first time.
 Responsiveness
• Employees of excellent banks will give prompt service to
customers.
 Servqual scale
 Assurance
• Customers of excellent banks will feel safe in their
transactions.
• Employees of excellent banks will be consistently courteous
with customers.
 Empathy
• Excellent banks will give customers individual attention.
 Dimensions of service quality
Ten dimensions Five Dimensions (Later
(Original model) Model)
Tangible
Tangibles
Reliability
Responsiveness Reliability
Competence
Responsiveness
Courtesy
Credibility Assurance
Security
Empathy
Access
Communication
Understanding the
customer
 Servqual for a Typical Service
• Tangibles : ABC Company will have a modern looking
equipment.
• Reliability : When customers complain or have problems, ABC
company will show great concern for solving them.
• Responsiveness : Employees of ABC Company will give prompt
service to customers.
• Assurance : Customers will feel safe and confident when
transacting with employees of ABC Company.
• Empathy : ABC Company will have opening hours convenient
to all their customers.
 Application of Servqual scale
• Determine the average gap between customer’s perceptions
and expectations for each service attribute.
• Assess the organisation’s service quality along each of the five
dimensions of SERVQUAL.
• Compute organisation’s overall weighted SERVQUAL score,
which not only accounts for service quality gap for each
dimension individually but also the relative importance of
dimension.
• Track customer’s expectations and perceptions over time.
 Application of Servqual scale
• Compare organization's SERVQUAL score
against those of competitors.
• Identify and examine customer segments that
significantly differ in their assessment of
company’s service performance.
• Assess internal service quality .
 Problems with Servqual
• It measures customer’s expectations of the ideal firm in a
particular service industry. This may or may not be relevant to
the capabilities of a particular service .Example : Physicians
should provide service at scheduled time but they come late
and still patients wait.
• It is not industry specific , it doesn’t measure variables that
are important to industry Ex : Airline business – ontime
delivery, video rental business, distribution companies
• Methodology: consumer bias
 Service Performance Measures
• Internal Measures(on-time flights, no. of
baggage claims , fill-rate, on-time arrivals)
• Customer Measures(comment cards, surveys)
 Gap Model
• P = Service level achieved by Customer
• E = Consumer expectations of Service prior to
the service

• Gaps 5
 Gap One
• Difference between what customer expects from a service
and what management believes customers expect from a
service
• Strategies for reducing Gap One :
 Communicate with customers about what they expect
 Conduct MR to learn what customers expect
 Encourage upward communications within the service
organization
 Decrease the number of layers of management
 Gap Two
• Difference between management ‘s perception of consumer
expectations and translation of those perceptions into service
quality specifications
• Competitive parity, monopoly markets, management
indifference
• Strategies for reducing Gap Two:
 Top management commitment to providing service quality
 Develop service quality goals
 Standardization of tasks
 Address feasibility of customer expectations
 Gap Three
• Difference between the service quality specifications and
delivery of those specifications to the customer .
• Employees unaware of service specifications,don’t have skill,
have but not o do willing
• Strategies for reducing Gap One :
 Enhance teamwork among the employees
 Ensure there is a good employee-job fit
 Ensure there is a good technology-job fit
 Provide employees some control on how they can perform
the service and power to modify the service to meet
consumer requests.
 Gap Three
Develop a supervisory control system that
rewards employees for providing service
according to the specifications
Reduce employee role conflicts
Reduce employee role ambiguity
 Gap Four
• Difference between Service delivered to customer and
external communications made about the services
• Strategies for reducing Gap Four:
 Increase horizontal communications between the marketing
department and service personnel
 Avoid the propensity to overpromise . Be sure what is
promised.
 Inform service personnel of promises made by salespeople
and marketing communications
 Gap Five
• Gap Five = Gap 1 + Gap 2 + Gap 3 + Gap 4