Student Expectations Of Service Quality

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 primary purpose of the survey was to ascertain how customers perceived National’s quality of service

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,

Different customers have different expectation than others: one could like the same hotel and everything but another person can say that the same hotel isn’t good , so we could say everyone has their own way of how they perceive things. Service quality can cover meetings and exceeding customer expectations (Zeithaml and Gronroos,

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

(2004, p. 363), “the total summation of difference between perceptions and expectations from the five dimensions results to the perceived quality; expectations from customers are rewarded through the ending dimension (reliability) and surpass it through the process dimension-- empathy, assurance, tangibility and responsiveness”.

SERVQUAL is a model used to measure service quality management in relation to customer service quality needs. It analyzes the gap between the two. In measuring service quality, SERVQUAL has been proved to be the most popularly used instrument in the past one decade. Oftenly, it is used to measure service quality of a service providing organizations to compare the expectations of customers beforehand and their perception in regard to the services being offered (Shahin, 2010). The model can be employed to assess the quality of services provided by any service organization, it being universal. Services are economic activities, they provide benefits, and create value for clients. As such, there is a need for measurement of their quality at specific points due to the desire for change, or on behalf of the customers that receive the services (Shahin, 2010).

Various studies in the field of hospitality & marketing have examined different components which constitute the customer

These findings specify an optimistic relation between hospitality, guest fulfilment, and the hotel servicescape, the second of which is the mediator working here. This supports the positive relations between hospitality and guest fulfilment. In today’s highly modest hospitality business, the communication between customer service and attractive service atmosphere will increase the level of guest fulfilment significantly. The relation between the perceptible as well as the imperceptible elements of service contributions will positively make the service skill more pleasurable and impressive for the guests. According to the author apart from the consequence superiority, customers assess the service excellence based on interface quality the procedure by which the service product is transported as well as physical atmosphere excellence, which is the quality of the physical atmospheres where the service is transported. Hospitality introducing behaviour is

This summer I worked at Broad Street Ministries. It’s a church that’s a major staple in their community and the homeless. They provide drop in shelter services such as mailing, meals at different times through the week, social services, after school programing, summer camp, enrichment classes and much more. Their goal is to build a community that fosters a safe, inclusive, and welcoming environment that provide upscale meals to those less fortunate. My overall opinion of the operation is that it has great values, provide quality services, and strives for excellence in all aid provided.

As part of learning outcomes for Managing Service Quality class, we need to critically assess and identify services issues regarding their customer satisfaction of a hospitality organization of our choice.

In hospitality industry, service quality and customer satisfaction play irreplaceable roles as most of the management facing difficulty in measuring them. It is essential to understand customer satisfaction these days. As it able to allow organizations to understand how consumer defines the service and product quality.

Food service highlights the quality of service delivered by the staff, how helpful staff are to consumers and waiting time (Andaleeb & Conway, 2006). With service ranking second in importance in a study of college students at one US college, W.G. Kim et al. (2009) concluded that university foodservice operators needed to pay attention to courteous service, increased knowledge about food as well as neat appearance. Law & Hui (2004) found that waiting time was an area of service that could potentially increase the number of return visits during peak hours while also having a significant impact on customer satisfaction in all time periods.

Jain et al., (2011) proposed that like the corporate, academic institutions also need to continuously innovate, diversify their structure and find new ways of delivering their services more effectively to their customers. To obtain a sustainable competitive advantage, it is imperative to understand the importance of customer satisfaction and perceptions of services quality offered and received. In education services, it is the student who is bearing all the expenditure to obtain the services as perceived. Thus they deserve the best education, therefore, quality has become a competitive weapon for the institutions to serve and attract their primary customers i.e. students (Senthilkumar and Arulraj, 2010). The present study is an attempt to develop a conceptual framework that helps the education institutions to understand the concept of service quality in higher education so that it can help them to improve their education quality. Improving service quality within a higher education context is often mentioned as an internal goal without any explicit references to what is meant by service quality in higher education (Sultan & Wong, 201*2).

The findings imply that public and private universities should adequately analyze service quality attributes ensuring that they meet the expectations and perceptions of the students as this will help in satisfying their expectations. Tanzania Commission for Universities (TCU) should enforce