Dineserv: A tool for measuring service quality in restaurants

If it's true that restaurant customers vote with their feet (and pocketbooks) when a restaurant doesn't measure up to their standards, how does a restaurant operator determine what guests think of the operation? To gauge consumers' opinions before they desert in droves, a restaurant operator can use the reliable questionnaire, called “Dineserv,” described here.     

Learning from the past and present: measuring Internet banking service quality

The Internet has played a pivotal role in transforming banking services into e-services. While several studies have examined the effective measurement of e-banking service quality, their lack of a holistic view has hindered the accumulation of past knowledge. To address this issue, this study first reviews and summarizes the methodology, service quality dimensions, suggestions and limitations of seven e-banking service quality studies conducted in seven countries. An empirical study is then conducted to derive the first robust and comprehensive measure of e-banking service quality in Taiwanese context by compensating three shortcomings of a prior Taiwanese study. To improve our understanding of e-banking service quality, a comprehensive scheme is proposed that has managerial implications. The primary contribution of this study is to present a holistic view of e-service quality for e-banking with embedded cultural factors and to provide a rigorous measurement scale development procedure applicable to areas other than e-banking.     

User involvement in measuring service quality of local authority occupational therapy services; a new approach

The aim of this paper is two‐fold: (i) to describe the development of a new measuring instrument for quality of care from the perspective of the users of local authority Occupational Therapy (OT) services, and (ii) to evaluate the potential of the new instrument as a standardized approach for involving consumers in the service evaluation of home health care services. A combination of qualitative and quantitative methods was used. Focus group discussions with users of local authority OT‐services preceded a postal survey. Questionnaires were sent to a random sample of 997 users of the local authority OT Bureau in Kent, UK. The response rate was 55%. A valid and reliable instrument – the QUOTE‐OT Services questionnaire – was developed, which reflects the (expressed) needs of the users of OT services. Feasibility tests showed that information from the instrument can play an important role in follow‐up activities that aim at continuous quality improvement. The QUOTE‐OT Services instrument can be seen as an example of a new generation of questionnaires for assessing user views in quality of care research. Potentially, instruments such as the QUOTE‐OT questionnaire contribute to the empowerment of users in programmes that aim at improving the quality of home health care services.     

Improved customer service: measuring the payoff

Will enhanced levels of service automatically lead to greater sales and profits? Here's how two companies measure the payback from improved service.     

Interpersonal service quality,self-service technology (SST) service quality,and retail patronage

The main purpose of this study is to examine how two components of interactive service quality (interpersonal service quality and self-service technology service quality) are related to retail patronage. This study also aims to identify the moderating effects of individual characteristics. The results indicate that two components of interactive quality are greatly related to retail patronage intentions. The moderating effects of technology anxiety, need for interaction, and age are also partially supported. To increase retail patronage, it is very important to focus on improving self-service technology service quality as well as interpersonal service quality. The results from this study also provide retail managers with a detailed understanding of how individual characteristics influence retail patronage intentions.     

Internet service providers' service quality and its effect on customer loyalty of different usage patterns

This study attempts to investigate the dimensions of an ISP's service quality, and their effects on customer loyalty in high-tech services. Data was obtained from 1231 internet users. The analyses include segmenting ISPs' customers on the basis of their usage pattern and evaluating their perceptions of Internet service quality dimensions. Through the use of structural equation modelling and bias correct bootstrapping techniques, the study confirms that service quality dimensions can influence both attitudinal and behavioural loyalty. These effects, however, are different across different groups of ISP customers. The contribution of the present paper stems from the modelling of mediation effects and the incorporation of Internet usage that can help better explain the impact of service quality dimensions on customers' loyalty in high-tech service settings.     

优质服务体系成就优异服务品牌

从今年元月份开始，陕汽重卡异军突起，市场表现甚好。1-5月陕汽重卡销量突破1．3万辆，同比增长70％，增长率全国第一，完成全年任务近50％。人们不禁要问，在行业整体低迷的情况下，陕汽为何捷报频传，持续火爆？答案是产品可靠、服务到位。     

Effects of individual resources and team-member exchange on service quality

While workplace resources are generally viewed as positively affecting performance, some studies indicate that not all resources increase performance. This study addresses the controversial disparate effects of workplace resources on performance by exploring functionally classified workplace resources in self-managing service teams and their relative impacts on team service quality. Considering membership dynamics and consequences between members, a field experiment was conducted in a cafeteria, with data collected through a working diary for workplace resources and a customer survey to evaluate service quality. Results suggest that efficacy-resources in self-managing teams should be controlled with caution as they may adversely affect team service quality. Supporting the person–situation interactionism perspective, workplace resources interact dynamically with individual employees and with situations. Esteem-resources were found to increase team service quality, while team-member exchange not only improved team service quality but also moderated the impact of esteem-resources on team service quality.     

Public service quality and customer satisfaction: exploring the attributes of service quality in the public sector

Beyond the existing SERVQUAL-based research, the authors develop an alternative model of public service quality. The various sources of public service quality are explored and a new classification scheme formulated by using critical incidents technique. Four main qualities of public service are identified: process quality, outcome quality, design quality, and relationship quality. The findings suggest that the critical attributes of public service quality for customer satisfaction differ according to the types of customers in the public sector. Final customers (beneficiaries) give priority to the process and outcome qualities, whereas intermediary customers (social workers) have high regard for the design and relationship qualities.     

Customer satisfaction and Scuba-diving: Some insights from the deep

This paper explores the concept of customer satisfaction in relation to the scuba-diving consumption experience. It investigates the myriad of tangible and intangible elements of the experience, from which scuba-divers derive a sense of meaning and/or satisfaction. The results indicate that satisfaction is gained from a complex array of consumers' perceptions of the dive itself, but also from a range of associated peripheral experiences surrounding the dive such as the service provided by the operator, the ‘communitas’ from the social interaction with other divers and the functional aspects of the dive. The study takes an ethnographic approach using qualitative methods of inquiry, since the purpose of the study was to develop a deeper understanding of the inter-relationships between the levels of service provided; customer satisfaction of scuba-divers; and the dive consumption experience. The findings illuminate the diversity and complexity of dive consumption experiences themselves and the perceptual cues used by customers for determining customer satisfaction and longer term behavioural intentions.     

Stratography: The art of conceptualizing and communicating strategy

Representations of strategy tend to either be so generalized as to have little real meaning for employees, or go into such detail that people struggle to understand what is really required. The problem is this: a strategy not understood by those charged with implementing it is as bad as, or even worse than, not having a strategy at all. In 1983, a classic Business Horizons article by Karl Weick highlighted the importance of using graphical approaches to overcome strategy relation challenges; however, since then, little has been written regarding how managers might accomplish this successfully. Our article argues that individualized drawings of strategy, or what we term ‘stratography,’ could enable more effective conceptualization and communication of the strategic complexity that organizations face and the paths they are seeking to follow. Herein, we employ the latest thinking in cartography, educational philosophy, optics, graphic design, and military protocol to outline seven good practices of effective stratography.     

Conceptualizing and measuring experience quality: the customer's perspective

Today many customers, managers, and scholars have become aware of the importance of experiences, which are characterized as satisfying customers' psychic or personal needs. For customers, they care more about the experiences that are provided by stores, and they are willing to pay for them. As for managers, attractive experiences are the products they have taken great efforts to create, manage, and sell. For academic researchers, experiences are considered as distinct economic offerings that are different from goods and services. These scholars believe that the focus of the economy has been transferred to experience (O'Sullivan, E.L., & Spangler, K.J. (1998). Experience marketing: Strategies for the new millennium. State College, PA: Venture Publishing), and that experience industries are on the rise (O'Sullivan, E.L., & Spangler, K.J. (1998). Experience marketing: Strategies for the new millennium. State College, PA: Venture Publishing; Pine, B.J., & Gilmore, J.H. (1998). Welcome to the experience economy. Harvard Business Review (July–August), 97–105; Pine, B.J., & Gilmore, J.H. (1999). The experience economy: Work is theatre & every business a stage. Boston: Harvard Business School Press; Schmitt, B.H. (1999). Experiential marketing: How to get customer to sense, feel, think, act, relate to your company and brands. New York: The Free Press). Although experiences have moved to the centre of customers' consumption activities and have become crucial for business success, very few studies have investigated the customers' perceptions of experience quality. In this research, we have conceptually defined experience quality as the customers' emotional judgment about an entire experience with an elaborately designed service setting. We have undertaken multiple phases in conceptualizing and measuring the concept of experience quality.     

eTailQ: dimensionalizing, measuring and predicting etail quality

Quality is related to customer satisfaction, retention and loyalty in both product and services settings. Thus, quality is expected to be a determinant of online retailer success as well. Based on online and offline focus groups, a sorting task, and an online survey of a customer panel, the authors establish the dimensions of the etail experience, and develop a reliable and valid scale for the measurement of etail quality. The analysis suggests that four factors—website design, fulfillment/reliability, privacy/security and customer service—are strongly predictive of customer judgments of quality and satisfaction, customer loyalty and attitudes toward the website.     

Restaurant tipping and service quality A tenuous relationship

The connection between service quality and tip sizes is tenuous at best, as shown by an analysis of 14 studies (involving 2,645 dining parties at 21 different restaurants) that examined the relationship between service and tips. The meta-analysis of the studies sought to statistically combine 24 correlations between tipping and service. While the studies taken together found that, indeed, tips increased with the perceived quality of service, the relationship was weak enough to raise doubts about the use of tips to motivate servers, measure server performance, or identify dissatisfied customers.     

An innovative service quality evaluation and improvement model

Importance-performance analysis (IPA) is a popular approach used by firms to focus resources on crucial attributes, reduce expenditure on non-critical ones and develop improvement and innovation strategies accordingly. However, IPA develops quality improvement plans based on inaccurate assumptions about the independence between importance and performance and lacks clear measurement standards, which may lead to inappropriate recommendations. IPA also does not account for desired versus adequate service. Therefore, this study proposes an innovative framework that integrates the advantages of IPA, the zone of tolerance concept, and Kano’s model. A case study conducted in a wealth management department in the banking industry demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed methodology. The results indicate that the proposed approach recommends optimal service strategies to managers and outperforms traditional IPA.     

Electronic and in-person service quality of hybrid services

The service industries have experienced dramatic changes in service delivery format because of fast-paced innovation in information technology. Hybrid services involve service deliveries through conventional and technology-enabled environments, each of which is complementary and non-interchangeable. However, limited research has examined consumer behavior in response to a series of relevant service episodes in different channels at different points in time. In other words, how customers perceive service quality at each service encounter and how the cumulative effect of these perceptions influences customers’ overall service value assessment and satisfaction remain unclear. This study addresses this research gap by investigating the sequential influence of e-service quality on in-person service quality in a hybrid service format in which interpersonal and computer-mediated services coexist but at different points in time. Empirical analysis shows that e-service quality directly and positively affects in-person service quality, which fully mediates the effects of e-service quality on perceived value and customer satisfaction. The sequence of service encounters matters because in-person service quality perception has a stronger effect than e-service quality on customer metrics. Cumulative quality perceptions significantly influence perceived value and overall customer satisfaction. Theoretical and managerial implications are presented in the discussion.     

加强自身修养提高服务水平

在社会主义市场经济新形势下,物资企业领导如何提高自身的素质和修养,适应现代物资企业管理和现代化营销工作的需要,带领广大职工在激烈的市场竞争中求生存,求发展是一个非常值得探讨和研究的问题.