Quality, Safe And Accessible Health Care

The diagram above outlines the customer service gap. Customer satisfaction refers to a person’s belief on the service provided to the. It describes whether the services accorded to them was a success or was it a failure. The expected service on the other hand refers to what your consumer wants whereas the perceived services is what they feel they have received. The gap is what Nordstrom Inc. is striving to close. Business enterprises should strive to ensure that customers receive what they expect(Nordstrom & Lattin, 2008). They should lay down procedures or steps that will aid in closing up the gap that exists.

The model shows the difference between customer’s perceptions and expectation of the service received by the provider (Parasuraman et al., 1985). This process is undergone to calculate the difference in the gap between the consumer perception of the service quality and the service that the customer perceived. This method relates to both the delivery process and the outcome of the service (Parasuraman et al., 1985).

Service quality is one area which was studied extensively for the past four decades. In the field of service marketing, there are many definition for service quality. Parasuraman et al, (1988) defines service quality as a discrepancy between customers’ expectation and perception of a service or service experience and this is basically the perceived service quality. Based on this concept, Parasuraman et al. (1985), developed a model known as the SERVQUAL. The SERVQUAL model is based on 22-item scale and it measures service quality based on five dimensions which are reliability, responsiveness, tangibility, assurance and empathy. According to Parasuraman et. al (1985) these five dimension are generic and they are applicable across the industries. However, there are some critics to this model also such as Gronroos (1990) and Mangold and Babakus (1991) who opines that SERVQUAL solely focuses on the service delivery process while neglecting the outcome of the service. Interestingly, the inventors of SERVQUAL suggested the importance of both the functional and technical aspect of service quality in the model (Parasuraman et.al, 1985). However, they didn’t include the technical aspect but it in the instrument. The emphasis on the functional aspect is basically the American school which was

The Gaps Model of Service Quality was originally developed for application in the financial service sector. The model was

A GAP model approach refers to the following five Gaps of service quality in operations in which a Gap Model is split. (Parasuraman et al, 1985).

* The difference between expectations of service for a given organization and perceived quality of delivery by the service provider

Introduction There appear to be five major debates taking place in the service quality area. One debate concerns the similarities and differences between the constructs of service quality and satisfaction (see e.g. Anderson and Sullivan, 1993; Bolton and Drew, 1991; Cronin and Taylor, 1992, 1994; Oliver, 1993; Parasuraman et al., 1988; Taylor, 1993; Zeithaml et al., 1993). There appears to be a consensus emerging that satisfaction refers to the outcome of individual service transactions and the overall service encounter, whereas service quality is the customer’s overall impression of the relative inferiority/superiority

5. Describe the five gaps identified in the gap model of service quality that can cause problems in service delivery and influence customer evaluations of service quality. Discuss ways that marketers can close each gap. (Points : 0.

Measuring the quality that a healthcare facility gives is of most importance for the individuals that are serviced.

Each and every one of us are in favor for quality, in healthcare to define quality is quite difficult. The Joint Commission had defined quality as; service delivered to patient care is achieved to the desired outcome without resulting in any unwanted outcomes. In simplified terms, quality is defined as having standards that are based on evidenced based practice integrated to current practice and knowledge (Kapoor, 2011). Over many decades, knowledge and experience is the strength of quality health care and it had been accumulate worldwide. In healthcare, high quality care is referred as care that is being delivered effectively and efficiently.

The key to ensuring good quality service is meeting or exceeding what the customers expect from services. Judgements of high and low quality depend on how customers the actual service performance in the context of what they expected. Service quality, as perceived by the customers, can be defined as the extent of discrepancy but customers’ expectations or desires and their

4. Must get at least 10 customers to complete the questionnaires to receive performance data and

• Standards gap – This indicates the difference between the service provider’s perception of the customer’s expectations and the customer service standards it set.

Customer satisfaction and service quality are the two important components that direct anyone’s attention in every concept related to marketing, services, etc. (Spreng and Mackoy, 2006). In today’s competitive era, the success lies in

Service quality represents a fundamental aspect of delivery, which strongly influences consumer satisfaction and, as a result, loyalty. In today’s global market a customer’s service expectation has to be met and exceeded eventually in order to retain customers as well as achieve success. Perceived quality of a product or a service is becoming one of the major competitive factors in the business world and has led to the innovation of the ‘Quality Era’ (Peeler, 1996). In simple words, the comparison of customer expectations with service performance is service quality. On the other hand, customer satisfaction is defined as a pleasurable fulfilment response toward a good, service, benefit, or reward (Oliver, 1997). Both of these