Service Marketing Gap Analysis

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).

Today's world competition is very strong in every kind of businesses. Every organisations must provide high quality products or services in order to survive, however their competitors also providing the same or comparable products or services. An important way to an organisation to get an edge over its competitors is to provide extra service to satisfy and delight their customers, which can retain them and also gain new customers. Therefore the achievement of customer satisfaction must be a major objective in all organisations.

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

Customer service must satisfy the needs of the customers to ensure a service companies’ quality is maintained.

Brandy and Cronin (2001) introduced their own dimensions of service quality which are 1.) service environment, 2.) customer-employee interaction, and 3.) service outcome. These dimensions are considered the sources of quality of a service. Different dimensions of service quality have been introduced and accepted in past researches and studies but the 5 dimensions of Zeithaml et al., (1988) were proved to be the most reliable and credible. One of the most important strategies service providers can use to position themselves effectively in a competitive environment, and to distinguish themselves from competitors, is to provide and improve service quality to ensure the customer satisfaction (Cronin & Taylor,

INTRODUCTION TO UNIT 3  Aims 3  Your learning outcomes 3  Essential and suggested reading 4 SERVICE EXPECTATIONS 5  Customer expectations 5  Service encounter experience 5  Organisational change of focus 7  Ensure that segments are compatible (managing the segment portfolio) 7  Segment management 8 SERVICE LEVELS AND STANDARDS 9  Introduction to expected service levels 9  Problems in defining and agreeing service levels 9  Expected service levels versus service standards 10  Developing a set of service standards 11  How many service standards are necessary? 11  Planning service standards 12  Implementation of service standards 12 

Excellence in customer service is the objective of all organisations wishing to be successful. However, there is often a gap between customer expectations and management perceptions of customer expectations. Organisations often fail to get close to their customers and correctly read their expectations.

The service industry interacts with our lives on a daily basis. Services can be defined as deeds, processes and performances. When considering the differences between products and services, intangibility and the fact that a service cannot be touched, tasted, viewed or tried on are terms often used (McColl-Kennedy & Kiel 2000). Services differ from goods in essentially four ways: (1) intangibility; (2) inseparability; (3) heterogeneity; (4) perishability (Kotler, Brown, Adam, Burton, Armstrong 2006). To deliver a quality service, managers also pay attention to the importance of tangibles that support service delivery as well as service delivery blueprinting. Managers must also accept that service failures occur and be able to

• Knowledge gap – This is the difference between customer expectations and the service firm’s perception of the customer’s expectations, needs etc.

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

In any business service quality is going to “make or break” the company in the long run. JetBlue has great ideas on how to compete and how to be lower priced while still gaining profit. Customer and provider gaps are all about what a customer expects, what a customer perceives, what a customer is willing to accept, what a company understands about those expectations, a company’s communication both internal and external, and the company systems and processes (Zeithaml, et al.,2013).

Traditionally, Service quality can be portrayed as the result from client comparison between their assumptions about the service they will use and their insight about the service company. That implies that if the insight recognitions would be higher than the desired the service will be considered as fabulous, if the desires rise to the insight observations the service is viewed as great and if the desires are not met the service will be viewed as awful. For a service to be considered as good the organisation is required for making customers satisfied and service quality should be associated with customer perceptions and expectations. (Carlsson, 2010)

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

In order for the service employee to deliver on the customer’s expectations, the company (or management) must provide the necessary resources to fulfill the duties of the job. The success of the firm is also supported by the internal customers, also known as employees, and the satisfaction of these employees can influence the service encounters with external customers (Gremler, Bitner & Evans, 1994). It is imperative that management of the company delivers to the expectations of the employees in order to fulfill business goals and objectives.