Serv ice Quality

5/20/2018 Serv ice Quality

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SERVQUAL:Review, Critique,

research agendaSERVICE OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT

PrNishant

PinMri


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Service Quality

Quality : Composed of those characteristics and features of aproduct or service or process which are needed to satisfy customeneeds.

Service Quality : Used in both customer care evaluations and intechnological Evaluations. The quality of service deals with

measuring the incidence of errors within a process which may causfor the creation of issues for an end user.

Intangibility

Complex to measure

Hence the need for a tool- SERVQUAL


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SERVQUAL-Introduction

SERVQUAL provides a technology formeasuring and managing service quality

First published by Parasuraman, Zeithaml andBerry, a series of publications followed

SERVQ

Profitab

+ive word ofmouth

Cost

SQ is widely regarded as

of corporate marketing an

performance

SERVQUAL has been adopted in corporatestudies for industries and sectors like

Computer services Construction

Mental health services Hospitality Recreational services Ophthalmological services Retail services In addition, a number of organizations,

such as the Midland and AbbeyNational banks have adopted it.


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This assessment is conceptualized as a gap between what the customer exway of SQ from a class of service providers and their evaluations of the perf

a particular service provider..

In 1988

The ability to perfordependably and acReliability-4 items

The knowledge and

their ability to conveAssurance-5 items

The appearance ofpersonnel and comTangibles-4 items

The provision of carcustomersEmpathy-5 items

The willingness to heprompt service

Responsiveness-4

items

SERVQUAL-Introduction

In their original formulation Parasuraman et al.(1985) identified ten componentsof SQ:

(1) reliability(2) responsiveness(3) competence

(4) access(5) courtesy(6) communication(7) credibility(8) security(9) understanding the customer(10) tangibles


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In 1991-refinement of previous work

Wording of all expectations changed:

Companies offering

to

Excellent companies offering

22 questionsExpectation22 questions- PerceptionStrongly agree-7Strongly disagree-1


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Analysis of SERVQUAL data cantake several forms:

Item-by-item analysis(e.g. P1E1, P2E2)

Dimension-by-dimension analysis (e.g. ((P1 + P2 + P3+ P4)/4)((E1 +E2 + E3 + E4)/4), where P1 to P4, and E1 to E4, represent the fourperception and expectation statements relating to a singledimension

Computation of the single measure of service quality ((P1 + P2 + P3

+ P22/22)(E1 + E2 + E3 + + E22/22)), the so-called SERVQUALgap.


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The Make-up of Servqual

Gap 2: The difference between management perceptions and service quality specstandards gap

Gap 3: The difference between service quality specifications and actual service delstandards consistently met?

Gap 4: The difference between service delivery and what is communicated externapromises made consistently fulfilled?

Gap 5: The difference between what customers expect of a service and what they receive

Gap 1: The difference between management perceptions of what customers expeccustomers really do expect


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Conceptual Model of Service Quality

Word-of-mouthCommunications

Personal Needs Past experience

Expected Service

Perceived Service

ServiceDelivery

ExternalCommunicationsTo Customers

Service QualitySpecs

Management

Perceptions ofCustomer Expectations

CUSTOMER

PROVIDER

Gap 1

Gap 2

Gap 3

Gap 4

Gap 5

Parasuraman et al. developed a 22-item instrument with which to measure customers expeperceptions (E and P) of the five RATER dimensions.

PZB MODE


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Criticisms of SERVQUAL

Theoretical

Paradigmaticobjections

Gaps model

Processorientation

Dimensionality

Operational

Expectation

ItemCompositio

Moments oTruth

Polarity

Scale Point

Administrativ

VarianceExtracted


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Paradigmatic objections

Based on disconfirmation model

Widely used in customer satisfaction literature

Perceived quality - > Attitude - > Attitudinal model

Inconsistency is construct definition

One constructmultiple operationalization

Two constructsorthogonally related

Conceptual cousinsrelated constructs Adequacy-importance model of attitude

measurement should be adopted for SQ researchCronin & Taylor

Failure in Economic, Statistics & Psychological front


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Paradigmatic objections (contd..)

Abandon the principle of scientific continuity

and deductionCost of service improvement is not accounted

Use of ordinal scales yet doing a factor analysis

Interdependencies among the dimensions of qualityare difficult to describe

Fail to draw on the large literature on the psychologyof perception


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Gaps model

Difference scores do not provide any additional informa

beyond that already contained in the perceptions comthe SERVQUAL scalea generalized response tendencyexpectations high

Consumers may form experience-based norms after sexperiences, rather than expectations beforeNo poinexpectation as a measurement

Expectations may attract a social desirability response b

Gap between (P=1, E=2) is not same as gap between (Pthough they differ by same unit

Fails to capture the dynamics of changing expectations


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Process orientation

Focusing on the process of service delivery( Receiving the

product) rather than outcomes of the service encounter(How the product was delivered)

Though both process & outcome componentsare included, it is not determined whichcomponent makes greater impact on choice

In SERVQUAL defense we can say reliability, competenceand security have already been added

SERVQUAL


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Dimensionality

Main issueSERVQUAL scale, the number of dimensions, and their stability to context

SQ is a second-order constructconsisting of two factors (Ex : SocioEcon

SERVQUAL is composed of the five RATER factors

SERVQUALs dimensions and items represent core evaluation criteria that tspecific companies and industriesClaim by the Author

Other works related to dimensionality

Lehtinen and Lehtinen - Interactive, physical and corporate quality Hedvall and Paltschikwillingness and ability to serve, and physical an

psychological access

Leblanc and Nguyencorporate image, internal organization, physicathe service producing system, staff/customer interaction, and the levelsatisfaction.


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Number of Dimensions of Service Quality

Independent Researchers found differentdimensions and also in different numbers

Saleh and RyanHotel industry 1992 Conviviality (62.8) Tangibles (6.9) Reassurance Avoid sarcasm EmpathyTotal 78.6Two Factor!

Babakus et al.s (1993b) survecompany produced a singleaccounted for 66.3 per cent

These researchers concludeexception of findings reporteand his colleagues, empiricadoes not support a five-dimeof service quality

Spreng and Singh (1993)Lack of discrimination betweendimensionsAssurance and Responsivenesscorrelation 0.97

the domain of service quality may be factorially complex in some industriesvery simple and uni-dimensional in others. Babakus and Boller (1992)

Parasuraman et al. (1991a) have now accepted that the five SERVQUAL dimare interrelated as evidenced by the need for oblique rotations of factor soluobtain the most interpretable factor patterns. One fruitful area for future reseathey conclude, is to explore the nature and causes ofthese interrelationships

It therefore does appear that both contextual circumstances and analyticalprocesses have some bearing on the number of dimensions of SQ


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Contextual Stability & Item Loading

According to Carman, customers are at least partly context-specific in the dimensions they employ to e

Tangibles, Reliability and Security were present

Responsiveness, a major component in the RATER

relatively weak in the dental clinic context If a dimension is very important to customers they

decomposed into a number of sub-dimensions.

In placement centre Responsiveness, Personal atand Convenience were all identified as separate

Carman (1990) tested the generic

qualities of the SERVQUAL instrumentin three service settingsa tyreretailer, a business schoolplacement centre and a dentalschool patient clinic.

According to Carman, this indicates that researchers should work with the originadimensions, rather than adopt the revised five-factor Parasuraman et al. (1988) m

Items have not loaded on the factors to which they were expected to belong.

Two items from the Empathy battery loaded heavily on the Tangibles factor in the study of dental clin

In the tyre retail study, a Tangibles item loaded on to Security;

in the placement centre a Reliability item loaded on to Tangibles.

An item concerning the ease of making appointments loaded on to Reliability in the dental clinic coSecurity in the tyre store context.

Carman warns against importing SERVQUAL into service setting contexts without m

and validity checks


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CONCERNS ABOUT THE OPERATIONALIZATION OF

E (EXPECTATIONS) IN SERVQUAL.

Service attribute importance: Customers mayrespond by rating the expectations

statements according to the importanceof each. Forecasted performance: Customers may

respond by using the scale to predict theperformance they would expect.

Ideal performance: The optimalperformance; what performance canbe.

Deserved performance: The performancelevel customers, in the light of theirinvestments, feel performance should be.

Equitable performance: The level ofperformance customers feel they oughtto receive given a perceived set of costs.

Minimum tolerable performance: Whatperformance mustbe.

HOW DID PARASURAMAN RESPO

CRITICISMS ?

He defined expectation as some

providershould offer rather than

Redefined expectations as the se

would expect from excellent se

rather than normative expecta

providers

Some critics have questioned SERVQ

access customer evaluations based

standards of SQ.

Customers will evaluate a service f

their expectations are met or excee

whether their prior expectations we

regardless of whether the absolute

[service] performance is high or low

prediction is illogical. We argue tha

(e.g. the prior standards) certainly m

customers evaluation (Iacobucci e


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BAD SERVICE PARADOX

E-Score calculated on the basis of: Tangibles Reliability Responsiveness Assurance Empathy

Not good enough to capture

Expectations

Case Study:

E-score of six for Joes Greasy SpoonDiner is equivalent to an E-score of sixfor Michel Rouxs Le Lapin Frenchrestaurant.

ANOTHER P

Zeithaml e

DESIRED SERVservice a custoand should be

ADEQUATE SEservice the c

acceptable

SO THE DEBA


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ITEM COMPOSITION

Each factors in SERVQUAL is broken up intoa number of items: Carmans (1990) study of hospital

services employed 40 items

Bouman and Van der Wiele (1992) used48 items in their car service research etc.

Parasuraman et al. (1991b) acknowledgethat context specific items can be used tosupplement SERVQUAL, but thenew itemsshould be similar in form to the existingSERVQUAL items

MOMENTS OF TRU

Carman (1990) found evidence thaevaluate SQ by referenceto these multiple encounters:

(1) My discharge from the hosp(2) Nurses responded promptly(3) My admission to the hospit

POLARITY OF ITEMS

Of the 22 items in the 1988 SERVQUALscale, 13 statement pairs are positivelyworded, and nine pairs are negatively

worded.

SCALING PO

Use of seven-point Likert scales on severalgrounds- This may caover use extreme ends of the sca

Babakus and Mangold (1992) point Likert scales on the groreduce the frustrationlevelof pincrease response rate and respo

TWO ADMINISTRATIONS


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TWO ADMINISTRATIONS

(E & P) SIMULTANEOUSLY

Carman (1990) is critical of Parasuraman et al. for askingrespondents to complete E & P at a single sitting- IncreasesBoredom & Response Quality

Clow and Vorhies (1993) argue:

When expectations and experience evaluations aremeasured simultaneously, respondents will indicate thattheir expectations are greater than they actually werebefore the service encounter.

Customers who had a Negative Experience with theservice tend to overstate their expectations, creating alarger gap; customers who had a Positive Experiencetend to understate resulting in smaller gap


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CONCLUSION


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Major Concerns faced bySERVQUAL users

Face validity Construct validity

Face validity :Concerned with

the extent to whicha scale appears to

measure what it

purports tomeasure

Construct validity :Concerns about

the adoption of aninappropriateparadigm, theGaps Model,SERVQUALs

Process Orientationand SERVQUALsDimensionality areconstruct validity

issues.

Coitsof

coa


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How valid are the concerns?

Issues of face and construct validity are of overriding impthe development of instruments such as SERVQUAL

The operational criticisms are evidently less significant theoretical criticisms and pose less of a threat to validi

The theoretical criticisms raised in this article pose a quesvalidity of the instrument


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Directions for future research

Set ofquestionswhich SQ

researchers

should address

Do consumersalways

evaluate SQ interms of

expectationsand

perceptions?

What otherforms of SQevaluation are

there?

What form docustomer

expectationstake and howbest, if at all,

are theymeasured? Are

expectations

commonacross a class

of serviceproviders?

Do attitude-based

measures of SQperform better

than thedisconfirmationmodel? Which

attitudinalmeasure is

most useful?

Is itadvantageous

to integrateoutcome

evaluationsinto SQ

measurement

and how bestcan this be

done?

Is thepredictive

validity of Pmeasures of

service qualitybetter than

that of PEmeasures?


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Set of Questions continued

What is the role of context in determining E and P evaluations? What context-markers do cemploy?

Are analytical context markers such as tangibility and consumer involvement helpful in adtheory?

Do evaluative criteria in intangible-dominant services (e.g. consulting) differ from those intangible-dominant servic

How does involvement influence the evaluation of SQ?

How do customers integrate transaction-specific or MOT-specific evaluations of SQ? To whsome MOTs more influential in the final evaluation than others?

What are the relationships between the five RATER factors? How stable are those relations

context?

What is the most appropriate scale format for collecting valid and reliable SQ data?

To what extent can customers correctly classify items into their a priori dimensions?

Answers to questions such as these would help improve our understanding of the service qconstruct and assess the value of the SERVQUAL instrument.

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Serv ice Quality