Service quality and the congruency of employee perceptions and customer expectations: The case of an electric utility

Understanding how the quality of customer service is impacted by employees is essential to managing and improving customer service quality. This article develops a model that looks at the relationship between a series of two important customer service gaps. The first series of gaps (service provider gaps) is a result of the difference between consumers' and employees' expectations based on various dimensions of the customer service encounter. The second series of gaps (service quality gaps) occur when a difference exists between consumer expectations and the service they actually receive based on specific aspects of the customer service encounter. This study found a positive significant relationship between these two series of gaps. This significant relationship provides empirical evidence as to the importance of keeping employees informed about the expectations of consumers. © 1995 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

The Problems of the Development of the Service Sector in Czechoslovakia

This article exemplifies the principal-agent problem by reference to executive search consultancy The client company (principal) hires an executive search consultancy (agent) to recruit on its behalf Inherent in the relationship is the possibility of opportunistic behaviour: The effort expended by the agent on behalf of the principal cannot be monitored and the principal cannot judge whether sufficient effort has been expended. To overcome this, incentive systems based on outputs rather than behaviour would have been advocated. In the service sector; however, there is the added problem that often output itself’ is difficult to define and monitor: By taking a non-standard view this article considers the incentive systems that have evolved in executive search.     

Perception Gaps in Customer Expectations: Managers Versus Service Providers and Customers

Two new gaps are added to the 5-gap model proposed by PZB. These new gaps reflect the differences in the understanding of customer expectations by manager and front-line service providers and in customer expectations and service providers' perception of such expectations. Using room service as the object for investigation, the present study provides empirical evidence indicating the existence of these gaps which have negative impact on overall service quality. The findings also disclose that the gap between customer expectations and managers' perception of such expectations is much larger than the gap between customer expectations and service providers' understanding of such expectations.     

营销组合视角下的服务质量差距分析

服务质量差距模型是专门用来分析服务质量产生差距问题的工具,从营销组合角度分析发现,服务质量产生的差距分为管理层认知差距、质量标准差距、服务传递差距、营销沟通差距及顾客期望服务与感知服务间的差距。可从管理认知、质量标准、服务传递、营销沟通和感知服务五方面弥补差距,解决服务质量的差距问题。     

Hospice Informal Caregivers' Perception of a Good Death Experience: A SERVQUAL Analysis

ABSTRACT

This research study explores hospice informal caregivers' perceptions of service quality and a good death experience during end-of-life care. It demonstrates how service dimensions of the SERVQUAL analysis affect overall customer satisfaction. This study addresses contrast and dissonance theory as relative to marginal gaps in actual service performance and the effect on overall customer satisfaction. The research indicated that while reliability was the core of the service outcome, peripheral variables (e.g., assurance, empathy, responsiveness, and tangibility) integrated emotions and feelings into the hospice service process that equated to a positive disconfirmation of expectations and a good death experience.     

Exploring manager’s perspective of service quality strategies in Malaysian Banking Industry

In service industry, the subject of service quality remains crucial as business strive to maintain a comparative advantage in the marketplace. In aftermath of globalization, the operating environment for banking industry has become more dynamic and competitive. Banks have evolved to become diversified financial providers instead of traditional banking-only service providers. With bank placing emphasis on a mutually beneficial bank–customer relationship, customer loyalty must be pursued through repeat purchases. Central to achieving this is often the quality of services offered by the bank should satisfy the customer’s needs. This article attempts to identify any service gaps in Malaysian banking industry and to recommend effective strategies to close these service gaps from bank mangers’ and executives perspectives based on GAPs Model of Service Quality (GAPs Model). Using qualitative data collected from interviews with 30 bank managers and executives, this article provides effectives strategies to close each of the gaps in GAPs Model. It is hoped that the empirical evidences and recommendations provided in this article shed some light to management of banks to improve upon their customer service quality in order to benefit from customer satisfaction, customer loyalty and other behavioural outcomes which will lead to greater competitive advantage and profitability to the banks concerned.     

Responsible Alcohol Service: Ethics and the Licensee

This article notes the problems experienced in the UK due to excessive alcohol consumption. It offers a brief analysis of the public house sector and then considers the ideal ethical approach of the licensed retailers. Their legal requirements are established, together with the expectations of society. Using an already published source and some similar prime research, the actual performances of the licensees are examined, so as to assess to what extent these ethical expectations are achieved. Suggestions are offered as to how the issues of alcohol service can be best addressed.     

Planning and implementing effective service guarantee programs

This article highlights different types of service guarantees, explains the benefits of service guarantees to consumers and service providers, examines why service guarantees are so rarely used, and describes the characteristics of effective service guarantee programs. We seek to motivate additional service providers into offering service guarantees (when appropriate), to improve the effectiveness of service guarantee programs, and to spur additional research that can reduce the gap between academic research and industry practices relating to service guarantees. Properly planned, implemented, and controlled service guarantees can benefit service providers by serving as a signal of quality to customers, focusing on consumer expectations, developing specific performance standards, providing reliable data on service failures, determining weak points in the service-delivery process, and regaining customers who would otherwise be lost. Despite these benefits, service guarantees are not commonly used by service providers for a variety of reasons. We study and evaluate these impediments as well as describe characteristics of effective service guarantee programs from both the consumer's and service provider's perspectives.     

Integrating Customer Satisfaction into the Strategic Marketing Plan

Demanding ever-increasing quality and value, consumers are having major impact on organizations. Ideally, marketing should be at the forefront of organizational change because of this new orientation to customer satisfaction. Marketing can increase its contribution to the organization to the extent it is able to integrate customer satisfaction into the strategic marketing plan. Manufactured products and delivered services generally arise from a need. As long as that need exists and it is fulfilled, the life of the business that procedures that product or service continues. Many businesses have faltered or even disappeared because they did not consistently keep customer needs, expectations, perceptions and attitudes as their first priorities in decision-making and planning. In a changing marketplace, focusing on customer satisfaction ensures a solid foundation on which continued growth and success can be built. This article presents a summary of the key concepts gathered from a review of recent literature on the customer satisfaction process. Examples are offered to illustrate that companies are integrating customer satisfaction to increase their competitive advantage. Finally, the article provides a framework for integrating customer satisfaction into the strategic marketing plan.     

Metaheuristics in Logistics and Supply Chain Management

The modeling of logistics systems is performed to seek the best possible system configuration to minimize costs or maximize operational performance, in order to meet or exceed customer expectations. Classically, analytic system analysis of this type has been performed using optimization, simulation, or heuristics. However, in the past two decades, a newer class of techniques, metaheuristics, has emerged as a capable method for quickly providing near‐optimal solutions for problems that exact optimization cannot solve. This article outlines recent advances in metaheuristics development, and considers the ability of these advanced techniques to resolve various logistics and supply chain problem types. Specifically, the article discusses the ant colony optimization, genetic algorithm, simulated annealing, and tabu search metaheuristics. The capabilities of these metaheuristic techniques to examine supply chain risk and disruptions, intermodal operations, customer service trade‐offs, backhaul strategies, and simultaneous facility location and vehicle route problems are proposed. The article concludes by describing how faculty can bring these techniques into the classroom to ensure their students enter the logistics and supply chain field with a current and relevant understanding of the state of the art in supply chain design techniques.     

Learning About Computers: An Analysis of Information Search and Technology Choice

We estimate a dynamic model of how consumers learn about and choose between different brands of personal computers (PCs). To estimate the model, we use a panel data set that contains the search and purchase behavior of a set of consumers who were in the market for a PC. The data includes the information sources visited each period, search durations, as well as measures of price expectations and stated attitudes toward the alternatives during the search process. Our model extends recent work on estimation of Bayesian learning models of consumer choice behavior in environments characterized by uncertainty by estimating a model of active learning—i.e., a model in which consumers make optimal sequential decisions about how much information to gather prior to making a purchase. Also, following the suggestion of Manski (2003), we use our data on price expectations to model consumers’ price expectation process, and, following the suggestion of McFadden (1989a), we incorporate the stated brand quality information into our likelihood function, rather than modeling only revealed preference data.Our analysis sheds light on how consumer forward-looking price expectations and the process of learning about quality influence the consumer choice process. A key finding is that estimates of dynamic price elasticities of demand exceed estimates that ignore the expectations effect by roughly 50%. This occurs because our estimated expectations formation process implies that consumers expect mean reversion in price changes. This enhances the impact of a temporary price cut. Finally, while our work focuses specifically on the PC market, the modeling approach we develop here may be useful for studying a wide range of high-tech, high-involvement durable goods markets where active learning is important.JEL Classification: C15, C33, C35, C42, C51, C52, D83, D84     

Improving Customer Service

Abstract

The article presents a framework for implementing a TQM-oriented management process that can enable an organization to achieve continuous quality enhancements at minimal cost while simultaneously increasing the marketability of the service. The modeled framework demonstrates how such quality improvements can be made possible by heightening employees' sensitivity towards details pertaining to the many aspects of the service delivery process. The incidence of customer dissatisfaction resulting from sheer insensitivity towards detail during the delivery of service is established through real-world examples of actual customer experiences with numerous services. The severity of the implications of customer dissatisfaction and defection on a firm's bottom line are highlighted. The role of nonverbal communication and the many relevant forms of such communication are examined. A nonverbal communication feedback-response process model is presented that can help align the service with the expectations of the customer in high-contact services. Finally, a comprehensive set of managerial requisites for the creation of an enabling service quality culture is also identified. The framework presented also shows how performance can be enhanced, and competitive advantage gained, by effectively shaping and servicing the customer satisfaction plane.     

Adjusted expectations,satisfaction and loyalty development

The primary contribution of this article is an analysis of the influence of the use of individual's expectations about a service consumption on the behavior models, that examine the process according to which loyalty and satisfaction are generated. More specifically, the research examines the implications of considering adjusted expectations, namely those that tourists have after having visited a destination, rather than those expectations they may have prior to their visit. By developing structural equations, the research verifies that the use of adjusted expectations modifies the chain of causal relationships described in the cognitive–affective explanatory models for tourist satisfaction and loyalty.     

A Comparative Analysis of the Relative Importance of Service Quality for Two UK Grocery Retailers

This article identifies the relative importance of service quality across two grocery store formats. Research to date, indicates that within the grocery sector, customers expect value for money in terms of product quality, nutritional value and service quality. If these attributes are met in relation to the customers' perceived risk, it is more likely that customer satisfaction and retention will occur. In difficult competitive, social and economic circumstances, some sources indicate that there will be a trading down in customer shopping habits, with more customers expecting higher levels of service provision across a wider range of store formats, including the discounters. This study examines the relative importance of service quality for a quality-led retailer, compared to a discounter. Quantitative and qualitative research was carried out to obtain both a demand and supply–side perspective. Research findings demonstrate that despite the fact that consumer expectations are rising in relation to the overall shopping experience, distinctions in relation to customers' expectations between the levels of service provided across quality-led stores, compared to discounters, is still evident.     

Advertiser Expectations of Agency Creative Product

ABSTRACT

The study reports the development and empirical testing of measures of advertiser expectations of agency produced creative product. This “applied creative,” professional, business-to-business service incorporates extensive process elements. Hence, two measurement models are developed: a traditional “unitary” model, and a dualistic model incorporating elements of process and outcome. The study demonstrates firstly that client expectations of this highly intangible, “applied creative” professional service can be empirically modelled, and secondly, that such measurement does exhibit dimensions of both outcome and process. This paves the way for subsequent modelling of consumer satisfaction or quality evaluation processes within this little explored service category.     

Managing Service Expectations in Online Markets: A Signaling Theory of E-tailer Pricing and Empirical Tests

Expectations play a significant role in determining customer perceptions and satisfaction. Accordingly, retailers seek to manage customers’ service expectations. However, the tangible signals of service quality that are available to brick-and-mortar retailers (such as location, store appearance, and salespersons’ behavior) may not be available in online markets. Using a signaling model, we obtain conditions when Internet retailers (e-tailers) use price to manage their customers’ service expectations. In contrast to extant theory, we find that it is possible for both low and high service e-tailers to use price in signaling their service levels. Further, we develop an appropriate deductive test of our theory based on price-ending patterns as an artifact of the signaling process. Based on this test, we find evidence that e-tailers indeed manage service expectations using price. Interestingly, we also find preliminary evidence that suggests customers implicitly associate price-ending patterns with a retailer's expected service level. We discuss several other implications of our findings for researchers and managers.     

The Impact of Coupons on Service Quality Evaluations,Risk, and Purchase Intentions

Abstract

To attract customers, restaurants will often use coupons. This research examined the impact of a promotional coupon on service quality expectations, perceived purchase risk and purchase intentions. It was found that the use of coupons does increase purchase intentions and reduce perceived purchase risk. However, coupons were found to negatively influence service quality expectations. Implications of these findings for restaurant managers are discussed.     

Employees' overestimation of functional and relational service quality: A gap analysis

This study extends previous research on gap analysis of service quality by including not only functional service quality but also relational benefits. To this end, a field study was carried out in 36 hotels and 35 restaurants. The samples consisted of 213 employees and 657 customers. A questionnaire format was used to measure both functional and relational service quality, as well as customers' loyalty. When comparing employee and customer perceptions, gaps potentially range from ‘overestimation’ (employees' perceptions are greater than customers' perceptions) to ‘underestimation’ (customers' perceptions are greater than employees' perceptions). In general, the results indicated that the employees surveyed overestimated the service quality they offer to customers, although gaps were greater for certain service attributes than for others. In addition, some gaps were more related to customer loyalty than others. The findings also showed that employees' overestimation of relational benefits plays a moderating role, increasing the negative relationship between employees' overestimation of functional service quality and customers' loyalty. The theoretical and managerial implications of the results are discussed further in this paper.     

The D&D Model - Dimensions and Domains of Relationship Quality Perceptions

In service management studies, various sets of quality dimensions have usually been considered to represent sub-components of quality perceptions. However, when focusing on a relationship instead of a service, this study suggests that the content of quality perceptions are of two inherently different types: quality domains and quality dimensions, which in turn can be combined into a new relationship quality model, labelled the D&D model. This refined way of categorising quality perceptions offers better analytical depth for research by more accurately distinguishing the wide range of different aspects being evaluated in a business relationship. For managers, the model offers a tool for broadening the company's quality work which can be used for improving quality and assessing compatibility between firms.     

A new service development integrated model

Several scholars have proposed a new service development (NSD) process but the failure rate of NSD is high, due to the lack of an efficient development process and customer orientation and input. Quality function deployment (QFD) is one of the structured methodologies that is used to translate customer needs into specific quality development, but the effect should be improved, especially when used in service industries applications. This research integrated Kano's model with QFD to categorize the attitude, and proposed a revised improved ratio to strengthen the rise in customer satisfaction, then through the revised gap model the gaps are evaluated to provide an indicator to the manager about the importance, priority and direction of the service development. Two illustrative cases are applied to this research, which proves the obvious contribution of this integrated model.