Service Quality—from Definition to Measurement

Carman, J. M. (1990). Consumer perceptions of service quality: An assessment of the SERVQUAL dimensions. Journal of Retailing, 66 (1), 33-55.

Source : Adapted from A. Parasuraman, Valerie Zeithaml, and Leonard Berry, “A Conceptual Model of Service Quality and Its Implications for Future Research,” Journal of Marketing, 49 (Fall 1985)

Tung (2004) suggests that the SERVQUAL model provides a theoretical basis for examining the relationship between service quality and customer satisfaction. However to provide the best service quality available restaurants must look beyond the typical SERVQUAL framework. In this instance it is important that food quality, along with service quality, is considered to provide the best restaurant

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 as described by (William G. Zikmund, 1993) “is the degree to which the performance of service provider’s matches customer expectations. It can also be defined as those essential characteristics of a service that measures its excellence”.

These criticisms relates to conceptual, methodological and analytical issues in SERVQUAL. The primary issue raised in the literature is the conceptualization of service quality as the difference between perception and expectation [159]. Cronin and Taylor, reiterate their views against the disconfirmation based SERVQUAL scale of measuring service quality and continued to be proponents of their perception-only approach to service quality measurement. Further, the use of the perception and expectation gap measure of service also raises related analytical concerns about its low reliability, poor discriminant validity and spurious correlations [168-170]. Parasuraman et al.

From Parasuraman’s model, there are many interrelated factors which determine the service quality. The model shows the relationship between customer expectations and perception. It outlines five stages (gaps)

Service quality is a measurable set of standard established upon by a provider in delivering services to a client/customer. It can also be viewed upon as a degree of both tangible and intangible expectation coming from a customer’s perspective on how these services are realized by the supplier or by the product coming from the provider.

Sureshchandra, Rajendran and Anantharaman (2002) identified five critical aspects of service quality from the customers point of view namely core service/service product, human element of service delivery, systematisation of service delivery, tangibles of service and lastly social responsibility in order to conceptualise service quality. Table 1 will further provide an explanation to the five critical aspects of service quality as outlined by Sureshchandra et al (2002).

The efficiency in the shipping service is normally rated in terms of speed. For example, does the manufacturer or supplier’s get the order out in the same day or not? The other critical shipping factors include the packaging standards and the level of protection put in place to ensure that the product gets in to the hands of the customer safely and in good time. When it comes to quality of service. The main factor that determines a good service includes the manner and speed of response to queries. A comprehensive and easy to understand website is critical in providing good customer service; a good website should also make it easy for consumers to find and order what they want. Some e-juice websites provide an e-juice ratings list, which makes it easy for customers to find their favorite e-juices. When ranking the price of e-juice products; comparisons are normally made to check if the prices compare favorably with those of other suppliers. The other pricing factors including shipping cost and offers.

Service quality is defined as the ability of how well a delivered service conforms to the client’s expectations. Service business operators often evaluate the service quality provided to their customers in order to not only improve their service but also identify problems quickly. In addition, to better assess client satisfaction (parasuraman et al.,1988) interpreted service quality as the gaps between

This report is the outcome of a research created with the purpose of determining what impacts on customers’ satisfaction and expectation of service, as well as to study the relationship between the service nature, service quality, service failure, service recovery strategies and service guarantee. Evidence of how effective the service quality measurement models, such as SERVQUAL and SERVPREF, is also shown. The focus of this research is to show the main components of services, how

Parasuranman et al (1985) is one of the cornerstone studies of service quality, which gave the definition of service quality as the discrepancy between customers’ expectation for service and their perceptions of service performance they receive. The three authors further developed a comprehensive measurement set of service attributes called SERVQUAL. An appliance repair and maintenance firm, several retail banks, a long-distance telephone provider, a securities broker, and credit card companies. ERVQUAL is a 22-item scale which measures service quality from five perspectives; reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy, and tangibles (Parasuraman et al, 1988). SERVQUAL has been widely used as criteria of evaluating service quality (e.g., Reidenbach & Sandifer-Smallwood, 1990; Tan & Pawitra, 2001; Markovic & Raspor, 2010). Zeithaml et al (1990, p. xi) applauded

Amorim and Bashashi Saghezchi, inspired by the work of Dabholkar et al. (1996) and Vazquez et al. (2001) retail service quality scale (RSQS), used exploratory interviews with consumers by developing a questionnaire with two sets of twenty-four. The first set focused on consumer expectations of quality in retail stores using the ffour major dimensions (“physical aspects”, “reliability”, “personal interaction”, and “policies”). While the second set used the same dimensions, but was more concerned with customer perceptions about the service that was experienced. Consumers were to rate each question from 1, being the least important, to 7, having the most importance. A total of 248 surveys were taken to be analyzed. Preliminary questionnaires were also set to

　　　According to Cronin & Taylor(1992), consumer perception of firm delivery of a desired service. Greenwell, Fink, and Pastore (2002) made an experiment in measuring the impact that service quality has on customer satisfaction. And the result shows satisfied service quality has a positive correlation with customer satisfaction.