The Determinants of Service Quality : Satisfiers and Dissatisfirers

Service quality is referred to a valuation of how good a delivered service meets the customer’s expectation. Upper management

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

Service quality is defined as a comparison of customer expectations with service performance. The organizations with high service quality meet the customer needs and also remain most economical in terms of competition as improved service quality also makes the firm more competitive. High service quality is achieved by knowing operational process through identifying problems in service and defining measures for service performances and outcomes as well as level of customer satisfaction (Suneeta & Koranne, 2014).

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,

When the competition was growing in service sector the demand for service quality was understood. At this time a new question was emerged, if it is possible to apply the principles of TQM in service industry. The literatures and viewpoints of different researchers made the latest moderations to TQM concepts and made TQM adaptable for service sector also.(2) Today, customers have a wide choice of service providers and they would choose only the best service providers in terms of quality, reliability, and profitability and who are at par with international standards. Therefore, the quality of service plays a dominant role and is a primary factor in ensuring the survival of the service provider in the global market. The whole focus is now concentrated on providing services to customer beyond his expectations. This concept is applicable to all service industries and has given birth to the concept of TQM in service

Hung, Y. H., Huang, M. L., & Chen, K. S. (2003). Service quality evaluation by service quality performance matrix. Total Quality Management and Business Excellence.

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

Perceived service quality as customer-based performances measure is also known as SERVQUAL Model. This study empirically examines organizational barriers to delivering high-quality service performance as measured by customer perceptions and expectations. Using the extended service-quality model developed by Zeithaml, Berry, and Parasuraman (Journal of Marketing, 52, 35-48) as a conceptual framework, five specific propositions implied by the model and by earlier studies contributing to its development were tested. Such testing required a complex research design involving five service companies as well as samples of customers, contact employees, and managers from each company. The results have

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)

Hwang 2014 expanded on these areas to include five dimensions of customer service, as the consumer is concerned. The first is responsiveness; the timely response of the business to the consumer’s needs (Hwang 2014). The second is assurance, the continued promise of the business to have a relationship with the consumer. The third is reliability, the ability for the consumer to continue to rely on the business to provide in the manner that they have done so in the past (Hwang 2014). The fourth is tangibility, the continued actions of the business to make itself visible to the consumer. The final dimension is empathy. Empathy is the area of customer service that address when something goes wrong with the consumer’s experience, how the business handles the situation will determine whether the consumer will continue to trust the business. Each of these five dimensions helps to continue the

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”.

The combined multi-attribute and Kano model provide some guidance regarding how service is perceived by bank customers in the mass affluent segment. There exists a substantial heterogeneity in customer perceptions of the service quality items (Strandberg et al., 2012). An alternative model presented by Gronroos (1990) emphasizes the functional (how), technical (what), and servicescape (where) dimensions. Gronroos (1990) includes the servicescape attributes in the functional dimension, while others (Bitner, 1992; Rust and Oliver, 1994) see the servicescape as a discrete dimension. According to Kang (2006), recent studies have attempted to include more items in models of perceived service quality, particularly items related to Gronroos’ dimensions (Strandberg et al., 2012). According to Kano et al. (1984) quality attributes can be divided into four distinct categories: taken-for-granteds, which produce dissatisfaction if they are performed unsatisfactory but will not result in increased satisfaction if they are performed above that level; proportionals, which produce more satisfaction the superior the performance and more dissatisfaction the poorer the performance; delighters, which creates satisfaction if they are performed but not necessarily in dissatisfaction if they are not performed; & neutrals, which are traits to which the customer is indifferent (Strandberg et al., 2012).

To verify the validity of SERVQUAL model in the assessment of service quality, Zeithaml et al (2006, p. 106-107), said that “service quality is a precise assessment that demonstrates the customer’s perception of reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy and tangibility”. Furthermore, they said that “of all the stated dimensions, “reliability” is consistently shown to be the most significant in terms of service quality”.

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