Measuring Quality and Client Satisfaction in Professional Business Services

ABSTRACT

This paper builds on recent research into the key attributes clients use as a measure of quality and satisfaction when consuming professional services. It looks at the use of SERVQUAL as means of measuring consumer satisfaction and attempts to isolate the key factors and attributes used by decision makers to determine supplier choice. The results of the study are presented and discussed in respect to what communication action may increase awareness and loyalty in existing and potential buyers.     

Measuring the Perceived Quality of Professional Business Services

Professional firms serving business clients are recognizing the need for improved quality services. Unfortunately, measures of professional service quality have proven difficult to develop. This paper reports on the use of SERVQUAL, an instrument commonly used to assess consumer perceptions of service quality. This instrument was employed with a sample of business owners who were asked to rate the quality of service received from their accounting firm. Although several dimensions of the scale proved useful, additional quality related factors emerged from the analysis.     

Japanese Professional Business Services: A Proposed Analytical Typology

This paper explores certain characteristics of Japanese professional business services (PBS). The aim is to develop an analytical typology consisting of the three dimensions – organizational linkage, service market, and competitive situation – for analysing the obtained empirical data. This typology has been developed in order to increase the understanding of how Japanese companies operate within this sector and also to examine the reasons behind the fact that Japanese business services seem to be marginalized in an international context. This typology could serve as a theoretical frame for comparing Japanese companies with western companies in future research. This research is based on empirical material collected in Japan in the spring of 2001, covering research institutes, general trading houses and insurance companies. Using the constructed analytical typology, the findings reveal that strong organizational linkages have generated a business service market where diversification of service supply within companies is common. However, there are strong indications of a changing business environment with increased competition and further specialization among business service firms. Furthermore, the findings indicate that Japanese companies have difficulties competing with highly-specialized and reputable western business service firms.     

The Marketing of Professional Services

The recognition by professional services firms of the need to become marketing-orientated and apply marketing techniques is of recent origin. Yet their need to identify, anticipate and satisfy client requirements profitably, rather than passively wait for clients to request their services, is overwhelming. The professional services provided by such specialists as accountants, advertising agents, banks, computer consultancies, consulting engineers, and management consultants are highly people intensive. Consequently, there is more room for individual discretion, eccentricity, delay and error. This article argues that professional services companies can systematically plan the marketing of their services so that they can provide value satisfactions that will create and keep their clients and produce profits.     

Marketing Professional Services

No abstract available for this article.     

Professional Services Pricing

No abstract available for this article.     

Positioning Professional Services

Market segmentation and positioning allow marketers to differentiate themselves from competitors in a manner that is valued by customers and results in competitive advantage. Through an analysis of the financial services market this study develops a segmentation and positioning strategy based on the proposition that consumers employ many kinds of professional service providers to compensate for their own inability or unwillingness to perform certain tasks. Groups of similarly classified informants were examined to create profiles of four distinct market segments with unique needs, expectations, and evaluative criteria.     

Competitive Orientations in Professional Services

ABSTRACT

This article presents the results of a study on the competitive orientations of three types of professional service firms: advertising agencies, market research agencies and management consultants. Similarities as well as some differences in orientations were identified among the three groups. Advertising agencies were found to have the strongest competitive orientation. The study also found that firms with higher levels of competitive orientations also had better internal integration and control of the marketing function.     

Issues and Opportunities in the Professional Services

Professional practice management has been a largely ignored discipline for many years. Most universities do not offer courses in administration and marketing as they are not considered appropriate for the professional. Yet with threats created by public intervention, technological change, rapidly rising practice costs, high practice failure rates, increased competition and high promotion costs, new and unique strategies for professional practice administration are required. This study focuses on the issues and new strategies available to those in professional services.     

Advertising Professional Legal Services

No abstract available for this article.     

The Consumer Decision Process for Professional Services Marketing

No abstract available for this article.     

Market Signaling in the Professional Services

A Market Signal is a marketing activity that provides information beyond the mere form of that activity. Market Signals reveal levels of the unobserved. Signals occur in a variety of marketing phenomena: advertising, pricing, quality, competitive response to name but a few. In this paper we examine the use of market signals in the Professional Services industry and provide a set of recommendations for providers in which how to better utilize signals in the marketing of their professional services.     

Quality Measurement in Professional Services Firms

The purpose of this paper is to examine the nature of the association between service quality as perceived by consumers and its determinants. In particular, the SERVQUAL instrument is discussed and then it is demonstrated how it can be adapted 1.0 fit the needs of small professional services firms using a CPA firm as an example. The entire analysis can be performed with a spreadsheet package and the results are easy to interpret. The results are presented and the managerial implications are discussed.     

Expert Systems and Professional Services Marketing

No abstract available for this article.     

服务的不可分离性特征与企业的营销对策

<正>随着经济的发展,我国的服务业也得到了很大的发展,服务业在国民经济中的比重由1978年的23.7%上升到2005年的40.3%。然而,服务的不可分离性特征给企业的营销活动带来了一些不利的影响。     

外资银行的机会:专业的定制服务

<正>放眼看去,中国的市场上已经密密麻麻布满了各类银行的分支机构。据统计,截至2004年底,全国各类金融机构近800家。国内雨后春笋般发展的金融业,给新来乍到的外资银行提供了机遇,也提出了难题:如何寻找适合自己的途径?来自招商银行的经验可以给急于拓展市场的外资银行一些启示。     

Marketing/Selling Professional Services

No abstract available for this article.     

The Role of Price in Consumer Quality Judgments for Professional Services

Abstract

Classifying services according to their level of search, experience and credence properties can help professional service providers better understand their customers. This research uses an experiment to study the influence of price information on consumer judgments of service quality and patronage intentions for professional services. The conceptual framework predicts that consumers believe in a price-quality relationship for search-based services but not necessarily for professional services that are high in credence properties. The study findings provide support for this proposition and suggest that professional service providers should carefully consider how consumers view their services when using price as a promotion tool.