Improving Service Quality

Since services are intangible, it is hard to evaluate the quality of a service compared
to goods. Quality and productivity therefore are twinned into creating value for both
the company and ultimately the consumers. Since customers are often involved in
service production distinction needs to be drawn to deliver value as value, it was
Wirtz et al. (2012) who defined quality as meeting or exceeding the customers
expectations... Golder et al. (2012) further elaborated that quality is the most
important and complex component of business strategy due to its competitive nature.
Although, Reeves and Bednar (1994) conclude that no universal, parsimonious, or
all-encompassing definition or model of quality exists
Why?
Because it leads to delighted customers, firms profitability and ultimately economic
growth of nation. To approach quality, I will be looking at the aspect of quality
described by Golder: production, experience and evaluation.
The production process occurs when convergence of firms attribute design and
process design convert into consumable attribute for consumers. Therefore, quality
control methods consist of set procedures to monitor and maintain existing
specifications. Also, discard or improve on attributes that do not meet such
specifications. It is to also note that there is a distinction between: human resources
(physical labour), material resources (raw materials) and knowledge (tacit that
employee or suppliers might possess) with the intention of creating value to the end
consumer.
The experience process occurs when firms delivers attributes measured through
knowledge, motivation, emotions and expectations. There is a fine line between the
customers experience and perception and this is due to customer not perceiving all
attributes accurately or overlooking some of them. Therefore, the experienced
attribute quality is offering delivered attribute relatively to customers ideal
expectations. Further, this attribute types are separated into:
1) Universal attributes- where customer preference is homogenous and
measurement is ambiguous
2) Preference attributes- preference is heterogenous and measurement is
ambiguous.
3) Idiosyncratic attributes- preference are heterogenous and measurement is
ambiguous.
The ability for consumer to assess attribute performance with minimal bias and
objectively is called measurement knowledge. It was Reichheld & Sasser (1990) who
proposed that quality does not improve unless you measure it.
The quality evaluation process occurs when customers compare an offering with
their expectation to form a summary and judgement of quality. It is evaluated using
the Will, Ideal and Should expectations attributes. Quality disconfirmation arises
when should expectations are under met.
Golder therefore proposed (20 strategies) that to improve customers services, firm
should activate a positive emotional filter leading to favourable attributes. Further,
firms may also help customers to overcome anger by providing service to a
delight state. It is to be noted that giving customers freebies to compensate and
match their anger might result in Jay customers with the perception that they are
always right. To overcome this, its to train the front-line employee to be able to
spot such trends and have management give the employees autonomy to make
such decisions and show them the importance of long term customer (Reichheld &
Sasser, 1990). If the company is small, it must be very proactive to the consumer it
attracts. As large organisation might have the resource capability to execute such
actions.
Furthermore, identifying and correcting service quality is also adamant for
organisation, Zeithaml et al. (1985) identified six gaps during design and delivery of
service performance. It is separated into the external (customer and organisation)
and internal gaps (various inhouse functions). It was hypothesised that gaps at any
point of this service design can damage the relationship with customers. However,
every firm needs to follow its own planning process to achieve a CA and furthermore
good service quality. It is therefore adamant to ensure good SQL as an objective.
Gaps model are identified as:
1) Knowledge gap
2) Policy gap
3) Delivery gap
4) Communication gap
5) Perception gap
6) Service quality gap
Firstly, knowledge gap, where management does not always correctly perceive
what customers expects and what customer needs are. E.G- due to individual
differences some students might want different things from education. Therefore, its
proposed that there needs to be an emphasis on educating and managing
expectations, this is done to reduce the gap. Further, customer feedback can be
used to analyse field research on what the problem at the grass root is, this is to
aware the company about new segmented customer needs.
Secondly, policy gap, management might not set performance standards high
enough to meet such desired service quality. Therefore, the firms need to be
rigorous and systematic with a focus on being more customer-centric. Using
standardised repetitive work can create a good level of consistency but might feel
automated and can be perceived by consumer as another cost-cutting activity.
Furthermore, for the ease of self segmentation product can be promoted using
economy and premium goods. However, ultimately, it depends on the employees
to execute such goals, standards and priorities.
The delivery gap, the difference between service standards and the service
delivery. This could be due to poorly trained staffs unable to prioritise such tasks.
Where organisation fail is when they do not take into consideration the needs and
wants of the customer, a lack of being customer centric can affect the gap.
Therefore, a firm may then recruit employees who are better at performing their job
(i.e.- FLE and patience and communication skills, staffs matched with their target
group). Furthermore, integrating the team to see the vision can have a benefit on the
overall performance (i.e.- John Lewis). This gap is a focus on looking after the staff
so that they can execute such strategic actions accordingly.
The communication gap therefore explains the mismatch between company
statement and the perceived reality. The internal communication is what the
company and sales personals think the company can deliver in contrast to the
external overpromise gap. Therefore, managers need to be educated so that the
realistic vision can be articulated to different departments. For example, although
there might be a quota to be met in restaurants (no. of orders) to education (no. of
seats) alignment of sales and production objectives needs to be realistic to execute
operational capacity. Those who do not might fall under the trap of overpromise
and neglect customer satisfaction. Therefore, before executing such plans the
company needs to pre-test their preferred marketing communication style to makes
sure that the content reflects that of the service characterises.
The perception gap refers to the difference between what is delivered to what
customer feel they have received due to inaccuracy of service quality interpretations.
Therefore, there is a need to tangiblise and communicate the service quality
delivered especially if the service required complex executions. By providing physical
evidence the uncertainty and ambiguity can be visually sedated.
And lastly, the service gap, demonstrates the difference in what customer expect to
what is delivered. It assumes that a good weighing of all dimension can create a
good SQL.

Five dimensions of SQL (Parasuraman et al. 1988)

RATER: Reliability, Assurance, Tangible, Empathy, Responsiveness
There used to be 10 dimensions but 5 has been identified in order of importance:
Rel, Resp, A, E, T
For example: When you are flying, you want reliability that it leaves on time, and
assurance that there are nice staff looking after you, also tangible on what the
service environment of a plane is like, for example TV.
Why is it important?
Its important to produced good quality, customer satisfaction, loyalty and
performance. Therefore, there is a direct impact on profit/ sales and a spill over to
performance. So how do we measure it?
Perception Expectations
Further, Parasuraman (1988) came up with 22 questions where consumers can use
a Likert scale to match their perception vs expectations. However, this is vague
as mentioned earlier, we dont know the state of the consumers initial expectations
(their will, ideal and should attributes) therefore this will be based on
generalisability. Having such scale is time consuming and likely to be subjected to
central tendency bias (if cross cultural) or people filling the form out for the sake of
filling it out. It should also be noted that this was developed in the 80s for a tyre
company. This suggests that its a good starting point but should be cautious when
using it for strategic decisions related to services.
Finally, the importance of customer feedback should be noted. For competitive
advantage customer feedback system (CFS) can facilitate fast learning and create
a dynamic organisational learning environment. Management can go further and
look at patterns within the firm and motivate employees to conduct a root cause
analysis, which creates a blueprint for the direction that the company was going
and should be going to. Top management has been emphasised enough time to
motivate and foster an environment where the firm and employee can thrive on.
However, this does not mean looking at monthly financial performance as a
benchmark. Strategic tools can be applied to analyse the internal and external
environment so that there are high standards conducted for service. To match the
expectation of consumer, you can make them the proactive instrument within the
service environment such as the self- service technologies (SSTS) although there
is trade-off between human Vs automated. Although you reduce human error the
empathy aspect as described by Parasuraman is now non-existence.
In conclusion, it was Brady & Cronin Jr. (2001) who suggested that multidimensional
framework creates a theoretical base but the need for applicability is key if the
objective is to provide service better than the competition. The importance of service
should not be undermined (Carrillat et al. 2007) as word of mouth is still has a
positive impact on purchase intentions. However, there needs to a caution using
research from the western liberal countries to which validity on applicability can be
questioned. With the rise in digital technology, Cho (2014) concluded the
complication is measuring SQL due to high perception from proactive consumers.
Ordenes et al. (2014) went further to say that companies that manage customer
feedback data regularly are, on average, 5% more productive and 6% more
profitable than their competitors. A favourite is the use of text mining to analyse
trends and focus on being more customer centric especially as the demographic has
shifted towards pleasing Generation Y in both the developed and the developing
world.