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SERVQUAL REVISITED

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Finding Service Gaps in

the Age of e-Commerce

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30

By A. PARASURAMAN

any companies today are tapping

into new technologies to cut costs
and collect huge amounts of data
from customers. With the rise of
social media and other online tools, rms are able
to track information exchanges like never before.
However, most rms tend to collect customer information and dump it into storage. Few
have developed a keen understanding of how
to extract useful information and then use it to
improve service and add value. Its not surprising, then, that businesses continue to launch
services that dont really reect what their customers want or need. This disconnect between
what the customer expects and what a company
provides can pose a real threat to a companys

long-term survival.
In the mid-1980s, my colleagues and I created a system for measuring service quality,
called SERVQUAL. The framework has become
standard for companies in diverse sectors.
Although the business world has witnessed
dramatic changes over the intervening decades, I believe that the SERVQUAL framework
remains just as relevant, if not more so, today.
Many companies, awash with too much information, are struggling to single out which services they should launch or discontinue. Dont
let the new technologies distract you: This
article revisits the long-standing SERVQUAL
framework in light of todays challenges, showing how this and other tried-and-tested assess-

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ment tools can help to give your rms service

eorts much-needed direction and focus in this
age of big data.

Back to Basics: SERVQUAL Scale

of Retailing in 1988, my colleagues and I delved

further into probing customers service expectations through extensive focus groups covering multiple sectors. What emerged was that
customers service expectations exist at two
dierent levels:
DESIRED SERVICE. A blend of what customers believe can be and should be provided that is, the
realistic ideal.
ADEQUATE SERVICE. The minimum level of service
that customers are willing to accept.
In between these two levels is a zone of tolerance, reecting a range of service expectations a
customer has. The zone of tolerance also represents the range of service performance the customer would consider satisfactory.

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The SERVQUAL scale may be familiar to you: It

starts with a questionnaire that illuminates the
gaps between what customers expect and what
they actually perceive about a given company.
Gap scores are determined by subtracting customers expectations ratings from their perceptions ratings on a 22-item scale (see Exhibit 1).
This serves to quantify the service expectation/
perception gap along five broad dimensions,
which are applicable to any industry:
TANGIBLES. The appearance of physical facilities,
equipment, personnel and communications
materials.
RELIABILITY. The ability to perform the promised
service dependably and accurately.
RESPONSIVENESS. The willingness of a company
and its employees to help customers and provide
prompt service.
ASSURANCE. The knowledge and courtesy demonstrated by employees, and their ability to inspire trust and condence.
EMPATHY. The caring, individualized attention
that the rm provides its customers.
After publishing SERVQUAL in the Journal

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Finding Service Gaps in the Age of e-Commerce

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

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No

Thirty years after developing

the well-known SERVQUAL
scale, the author revisits the
original framework in light of
the growing role of technology
in service delivery. As more
and more people turn to the
Internet to purchase goods and
services, he and his colleagues
have recognized the need to
adapt the SERVQUAL framework to the realities of the online experience; specically, to
measure the extent to which a
website facilitates efcient and
effective shopping, purchasing
and delivery, with the aim of
improving the service quality
of websites. This has led to the
development of e-SERVQUAL,

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as well as the technology readiness index to segment customers. As many enterprises

move into new sales formats,
such as integrating online
and brick-and-mortar retail
services, they would do well to
nd out what customers really
value. Many companies, the
author feels, are tapping into
new technologies only insofar
as to cut costs or collect huge
amounts of customer data,
which they tend to dump into
storage. This article shows how
tried-and-tested assessment
tools can help give your rms
service efforts much-needed
direction and focus in this age
of big data.

Measuring Quality Online:

The e-SERVQUAL Framework

Since the mid-1990s, my research agenda has

shifted from service quality per se to the role
of technology in service delivery. My collaborations relate to three interlinked, but distinct, research streams relating to the role of technology
in service delivery: e-service quality; the technology readiness of customers and employees;
and network-based service systems.
The traditional approach to marketing and
service delivery is reflected by the Triangle
Model of Services Marketing proposed by marketing specialist Philip Kotler, which is designed
to capture the complexities of marketing services relative to marketing tangible goods. The
three vertices of the triangle are the company,
its employees and its customers, with each side
representing:
EXTERNAL MARKETING. Connecting a company
with its customers, using the conventional
modes of marketing, such as the 4Ps of product,
price, place and promotion.
INTERNAL MARKETING. Connecting the company
with its employees, and emphasizing the need
to view employees especially customer-facing
employees as internal customers, ensuring they
are satised and sold on the company.
INTERACTIVE MARKETING. Connecting employees with customers, and emphasizing the importance of ensuring that all customer interactions
with the companys employees enhance rather
than detract from the companys image in the
customers eyes.
Conspicuously missing from this model is
technology, which is increasingly mediating

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Of these four, customer assessments of efciency and fulllment appear to be the most
critical and have the strongest influence not
only on overall quality perceptions but also on
perceived value and loyalty intentions. As such,
companies should place extra emphasis on website attributes pertaining to these two dimensions, particularly with regard to behind-thescenes infrastructure.
The systems availability is also a critical
contributor to customer perceptions of overall
quality, value and loyalty intentions. Admittedly, its not always possible for companies to
have full control over this dimension, owing to
various factors at the customers end, such as
the type of computer or Internet connection
they have. However, companies should, at the
very least, be sensitive to overly sophisticated
design features that could have negative eects
on system availability. Also, they should be able
to identify aspects of system availability beyond their control and then proactively devise
appropriate scripts in anticipation of customer
complaints.
Privacy considerations vary according to
customers, with some frequent, heavy users
regarding it as a less critical issue. Even so,
our ndings from surveys of Amazon.com and
Walmart.com customers showed that quality/
value perceptions and loyalty intentions were
indeed inuenced by privacy perceptions. Taking a few steps to mitigate security concerns and
reassure customers by providing design cues
and communications that signal the privacy/
security of websites will not go amiss.

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interactions among companies, employees and

customers. Consequently, I proposed a Pyramid
Model of Services Marketing, which recognizes
technologys growing role for traditional external, internal and interactive marketing by placing technology at the pinnacle of the pyramid.
As more and more people turn to the Internet to purchase goods and services, my colleagues and I recognized the need to adapt the
SERVQUAL framework to the realities of the
online experience; specically, to measure the
extent to which a website facilitates ecient
and eective shopping, purchasing and delivery,
with the aim of improving the service quality of
websites.
We developed the e-service quality scale, or
e-SERVQUAL. It helps to quantify a websites
service performance, as perceived by customers, on a 22-item scale, reecting four dimensions that mirror aspects of traditional service
quality:
EFFICIENCY. The ease and speed of accessing and
using the site.
FULFILLMENT. The extent to which the sites promises about order delivery and item availability are
fullled.
AVAILABILITY. The correct technical functioning
of the site.
PRIVACY/SECURITY. The degree to which the site is
safe and protects customer information.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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A. Parsu Parasuraman is the

James W. McLamore Chair in
Marketing and Director of PhD
Programs at the University of
Miamis School of Business
Administration. He holds a
DBA in Marketing from Indiana
University, as well as an MBA
and a BTech from the Indian
Institute of ManagementAhmedabad and the Indian
Institute of Technology-Madras,
respectively. He specializes
in services marketing, service
quality measurement and
improvement, and the role of
technology in marketing to and
serving customers.
He has published more

32

than 100 articles and served

as editor of the Journal of the
Academy of Marketing Science
and the Journal of Service
Research. He has received
many distinguished awards,
including being named one of
the 10 Most Inuential Figures
in Quality by The Quality
Review, being recognized
for his Career Contribution
to the Services Discipline
by the American Marketing
Association, and winning a
2012 Paul D. Converse Award
for his signicant contribution
to marketing theory and the
advancement of science in
marketing.

When Things Go Wrong:

The Human Touch
None of the four basic e-SERVQUAL dimensions calls for personal service. In fact, online
companies can deliver superior service with
little or no human contact mainly because most
customers who go online to purchase a product
are simply looking for fast, straightforward, routine transactions, which is why eciency is so
important.
The exception is when things go wrong.
When theres a problem, we have seen that customers want help immediately and preferably
from a human being. Recognizing that websitemediated interactions imply a distinct set of recovery-service dimensions for solving customer
problems, my colleagues and I created a second

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Finding Service Gaps in the Age of e-Commerce

EXHIBIT 1

Mind the Gaps: The Classic SERVQUAL Scale

Tangibles
The rm will have/has modern-looking equipment.
The physical facilities will be/are visually appealing.
The employees will be/are neat-appearing.
The materials related to the service will be/are visually appealing.

Reliability

ow please allocate
points according to how
important each feature is to
you, with more points indicating
more importance, ensuring that
the ve features add up to 100.

Tangibles

The appearance of the

rms physical facilities,
equipment, personnel
and communications
materials.

op
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1.
2.
3.
4.

PERCEPTION

ate separately on a scale of 1 (not at all essential or strongly

disagree) to 7 (absolutely essential or strongly agree) the extent
to which you believe the rm will have (expectation) and has (perception) the following features. Any number between 1 and 7 shows the
strength of this feeling between these two poles.

EXPECTATION

5. When this rm promises to do something by a certain time,

it will/does do so.
6. When customers have a problem, the rm will/does show sincere
interest in solving it.
7. The rm will/does perform the service right the rst time.
8. The rm will/does provide its services at the time it promises to do so.
9. The rm will/does insist on error-free records.

Reliability
The ability of the rm to
perform the promised
service dependably and
accurately.

Responsiveness

Responsiveness

Assurance

tC

10.The rm will/does tell customers exactly when services will be

performed.
11. The rm will/does give prompt service to customers.
12. The employees will always be/are always willing to help customers.
13. The employees will never be/are never too busy to respond to
customer requests.

No

14. The behavior of employees will/does instill condence in customers.

15. Customers will/do feel safe in their transactions.
16. The employees will be/are consistently courteous with customers.
17. The employees will/do have the knowledge to answer customer
questions.

Empathy

Assurance
The knowledge and
courtesy of the rms
employees and their
ability to convey trust
and condence.

Empathy
The caring, individualized attention the rm
provides its customers.
TOTAL POINTS:

100

Do

18. The rm will/does give individual attention.

19. The rm will/does have operating hours convenient to all its
customers.
20. The rm will/does have employees who give customers personal
attention.
21. The rm will/does have its customers best interests at heart.
22. The employees will/do understand the specic needs of their
customers.

The willingness of the

rm to help customers
and provide prompt
service.

SOURCES: Parasuraman, A., V.A. Zeithaml and L.L. Berry. SERVQUAL: A Multiple-Item Scale for Measuring Consumer Perceptions of Service
Quality. Journal of Retailing 64, no. 1 (Spring 1988): 12-40. Parasuraman, A., L.L. Berry and V.A. Zeithaml. Renement and Reassessment of
the SERVQUAL Scale. Journal of Retailing 67, no. 4 (Winter 1991): 420-50.

insight

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Finding Service Gaps in the Age of e-Commerce

The Tech Twist: e-SERVQUAL & e-Recovery SERVQUAL

EXHIBIT 2

nline companies can best use these scales in tandem, with the second scale being administered only to customers who have had problems or questions, to track over time, and across competing websites, customers
overall e-service quality perceptions. Further tracking studies will help identify websites strengths and weaknesses,
and suggest ideas for improvement. These may have to be supplemented with more specic studies to pinpoint the
reasons for deciencies on a particular dimension or perceptual attribute, or to evaluate customer reactions to a new
website feature.

e-Recovery SERVQUAL

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e-SERVQUAL
Rate the websites performance on a scale of
1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree)

Rate the websites performance on a scale of

1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree)

Efciency

Responsiveness

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.

This site makes it easy to nd what I need.

It makes it easy to get anywhere on the site.
It enables me to complete a transaction quickly.
Information at this site is well organized.
It loads its pages fast.
This site is simple to use.
This site enables me to get on to it quickly.
This site is well organized.

Availability

tC

9. This site is always available for business.

10. This site launches and runs right away.
11. This site does not crash.
12. Pages at this site do not freeze after I enter my
order information.

Fulllment

No

13. It delivers orders when promised.

14. This site makes items available for
delivery within a suitable time frame.
15. It quickly delivers what I order.
16. It sends out the items ordered.
17. It has in stock the items the company
claims to have.
18. It is truthful about its offerings.
19. It makes accurate promises about delivery of
products.

Do

Privacy/Security
20.It protects information about my web-shopping
behavior.
21. It does not share my personal information with
other sites.
22. This site protects information about my credit
card.

Effective handling of problems and returns

through the site
1. It provides me with convenient options for
returning items.
2. This site handles product returns well.
3. This site offers a meaningful guarantee.
4. It tells me what to do if my transaction is not
processed.
5. It takes care of problems promptly.

Compensation

The degree to which the site compensates

customers for problems
6. This site compensates me for problems it
creates.
7. It compensates me when what I ordered
doesnt arrive on time.
8. It picks up items I want to return from my home
or business.

Contact
The availability of assistance through
telephone or online representatives
9. This site provides a telephone number to reach
the company.
10. This site has customer service representatives
available online.
11. It offers the ability to speak to a live person
if there is a problem.

SOURCE: Parasuraman, A., V.A. Zeithaml and A. Malhotra. E-S-QUAL: A Multiple-Item Scale for Assessing Electronic Service Quality.
Journal of Service Research 7 (2005): 1-21.

34

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Paradoxically, if you go to many websites today, you

can see that some companies actually discourage
customers from contacting them by phone. In my
view, this is a critical mistake.

levels of education and income. It appears that

people are hardwired in terms of their readiness to embrace new technology. This is relevant when we consider the accelerating pace at
which technology is evolving today.
For instance, it should not be assumed that
all of your customers are naturally growing
more comfortable with each and every new
technological advance. Those who are wary
about the benets of technology and have serious doubts about its eectiveness are not necessarily moving across the spectrum and fast
turning into those who always have to be the
rst to have the latest gadget.
Instead, companies need to be mindful of
the fact that even among their customer base
of young Digital Natives for whom using the
Internet comes as naturally as brushing their
teeth there will still be segments of skeptics,
paranoids or laggards who will have to continue
to adapt to new technology throughout their
lives.
On a supercial level, these segments would
appear to resemble the customer segments related to the adoption and diusion of innovation in general.
However, a critical difference is that TRbased adoption drivers are a priori customerspecic traits, independent of the technology
being introduced, rather than segmenting people according to how useful they perceive and
how easily they adopt a specic innovation that
is being introduced to them. In this sense, TR
scores can help to predict the probability and
timing of customers adoption of new technology-based services.
The technology readiness index measures
people in four key areas. The rst two are contributors to a persons TR, while the latter two
are inhibitors of it:
OPTIMISM. A positive view of technology and a
belief that it oers increased control, exibility
and eciency.
INNOVATIVENESS. A tendency to be a technology

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scale, e-Recovery SERVQUAL, that highlights the

importance of the human touch in situations
that require some type of recovery or redress
for the trouble that the customer is experiencing (see Exhibit 2).
Paradoxically, if you go to many websites today, you can see that some companies actually
discourage customers from contacting them by
phone. Sometimes you have to be a detective to
gure out how to speak to someone. Then, when
you actually do nd the telephone number and
call the company, you get an automated system.
In my view, this is a critical mistake. While
companies may believe this approach increases
eciency and saves money, in reality it turns
many customers o. Even for customers who
are looking first and foremost for efficiency
when buying online such as booking tickets or
carrying out bank transactions there is still a
place for personal, high-touch service.
You also need to judge the nature of the service. If a websites value proposition is to deliver
emotional satisfaction for customers, then eciency will not be as critical as having a creative
site that engages the customer. A gaming site
attracts people precisely because they are looking to have a good time. In such cases, eciency
may need to take a backseat to high-touch, emotional connections online. Striking this balance
involves understanding the preferences of your
customers, as well as employees.

Do

Technology Readiness Index

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My other stream of research, technology readiness, helps companies do just this. Technology readiness (TR) refers to the propensity for
people to embrace technology-based products
and systems.
Our findings suggest people fall into five
segments: 15-20 percent of the population are
explorers, 20-25 percent are pioneers, and the
rest are skeptics, paranoids or laggards.
Interestingly, our studies indicate that these
categories remain stable across all ages and all

35

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rP
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Finding Service Gaps in the Age of e-Commerce

EXHIBIT 3

Service Frameworks Old & New

THIRTY YEARS AFTER SERVQUAL WAS DEVELOPED, THE ADAPTED E-SERVQUAL MODEL CAN
HELP COMPANIES IDENTIFY SERVICE GAPS ALONG FIVE BROADLY SIMILAR DIMENSIONS.

TRADITIONAL
CUSTOMER
SERVICE
EXPERIENCE
e.g., bank,
department store,
car dealership

E- SERVQUAL
DIGITAL
CUSTOMER
SERVICE
EXPERIENCE

RELIABILITY

ASSURANCE

E M PAT H Y

Goods always
delivered on time

Staff are polite,

friendly & helpful

Customers
trust you

Customers feel
understood and
treated on their
own terms

Firm appears
dirty and cluttered,
and does not inspire
condence in the
service being offered

Products
dont live up to
the companys
promises

Staff act as
if they cant be
bothered to wait
on you

Betraying
customers by
making false
promises or ripping
them off

Firm imposes
a one-size-tsall approach or a
sense of cultural
imperialism

PRIVACY/SECURITY

HUMAN TOUCH

EFFICIENCY

FULFILLMENT

AVA I L A B I L I T Y

Fast,
straightforward,
functional online
presence & service

Actual product
reects what
appeared or was
promised online

Website is
always accessible
and fully
functioning

Website gives
the impression of
being highly secure

Real person immediately available

by phone or other
means when a
problem arises

Too automated;
lengthy online
forms requiring
inputs from
customers

Product quality
is inferior to what
was promised
online

Website
is sometimes
unavailable or
crashes during a
transaction

Website
features no
messages or
assurances about
data security

No way of
reaching a service
representative
when a problem
arises

pioneer and thought leader.

DISCOMFORT. A perceived lack of control
over technology and a feeling of being overwhelmed by it.
INSECURITY. A distrust of technology and skepticism about it working properly.
Once youve segmented your customers according to their technology readiness,
you can make more effective decisions about
whether to take a high-tech or high-touch approach in different situations.
Overall, many companies believe that you
can thrust a lot of technology on people both
customers and employees to save money,
as long as you train them to use it. But a lot
of people will not enthusiastically embrace
these kinds of mandated systems. What this
means for companies is that if you switch
overnight to a new type of communication
system, you may be in for some unpleasant
surprises.
Take smartphones: While it may seem
that most people are wedded to their digital

No

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R E S P O N S I V E N E SS

Firm appears
neat, clean and
inviting

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e.g., websites
offering a variety of
products (apparel,
books, CDs,
computers,
electronics,
owers, groceries,
toys)

TA N G I B L E S

op
yo

SERVQUAL

devices, there are also many people who dont

like them and think they lead to addictive behavior such as constantly checking your emails or Facebook updates. Even people who
are heavy users of technology are sometimes
bothered by this.
Companies should keep these segments in
mind when they try to identify new services
that will best satisfy their customers. They
might consider adapting their messages to address the concerns and needs of all segments,
in order to broaden their customer service potential. Or they might need to address security concerns or provide more evidence about
how something will add value for certain
customers.
Few companies have developed a deep
understanding of how to extract useful information and then use it to improve service.
As many enterprises move into new sales formats, such as integrating online and brickand-mortar retail services, they would do well
to find out what customers really value.

insight

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Network-Based Service Systems:

Future Challenges

will emerge and coexist alongside traditional

customer relationship management.
In CMI, customers retain complete control
over data about their past transactions and future needs, and share this information when
appropriate with a chosen group of rms with
which they are interested in doing business.
Thirty years after SERVQUAL was developed, I still believe it can help companies improve service in a tangible way by identifying
gaps between what customers want and what
they receive (see Exhibit 3). The strong, positive reactions we continue to receive from
managers in a variety of companies and sectors
arm this.
SERVQUAL is not without its critics, but
this has stimulated fruitful debate, leading
us to make further renements and improvements to the scale. If anything, the newer eSERVQUAL and TR tools reiterate the robustness of core facets of our original SERVQUAL
framework across diverse sectors, demonstrating the practical, diagnostic value of the data it
generates. More than cost-cutting and data collection, organizations can now put this information to productive use for new-generation
technologies.

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Over the past decade, my third research stream

has focused on network-based customer-service systems. Broadly speaking, this refers to a
wired or wireless system that delivers a service
to a customer either directly via a browser or
smartphone or indirectly via a service representative or consultant. One stream of this research focuses on the design and functionality
of websites arguably the most ubiquitous technology-based interface between customers and
organizations today in terms of meeting user
needs. Although much work is ongoing, this
area of research has yielded several new insights
at the intersection of information systems and
marketing.
DATA COMPLETENESS. Data completeness pertains to a companys comprehensiveness in
collecting data from and about customers, and
its eectiveness in integrating and synthesizing that data to serve the needs and meet the
expectations of distinct segments of customers. The dierent types and levels of data incompleteness that exist in companies leads to
corresponding shortfalls in customer service.
PROCESS COMPLETENESS. This companion construct refers to whether, and the extent to
which, a companys and its partners internal
processes associated with service delivery are
aligned to match the breadth and depth of customer needs/expectations across dierent contexts and customer segments.
As might be expected, the dierent types
and levels of misalignment that exist within
companies require that companies come up
with new strategies for achieving better alignment between internal processes and customers service expectations.
CUSTOMER-MANAGED INTERACTIONS (CMI). Traditional customer relationship management
(CRM) strategies are rm-centric, in the sense
that they involve the rms themselves, based
on their understanding of customers and their
past behaviors, undertaking initiatives to
strengthen relationships with select customer
groups.
Given the deciencies in rms relating to
data and process completeness, and given the
growing power of customers and their ability to
access and store data facilitated by technology,
we predict that new forms of customer-centric
and customer-controlled interactions CMI

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TO KNOW MORE
Q

Parasuraman, A. My Service Research Journey:

Three Decades Long and Still Chugging Along.
Paper Presented at the 18th Paul D. Converse
Marketing Symposium at the University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, April 2012, and
published in the Symposiums Proceedings.
Parasuraman, A. and C.L. Colby. Techno-Ready
Marketing: How and Why Your Customers Adopt
Technology. The Free Press, 2001.
Berry, L.L. and A. Parasuraman. Marketing Services: Competing Through Quality. The Free Press,
1991.
Zeithaml, V.A., A. Parasuraman and L.L. Berry.
Delivering Quality Service: Balancing Customer
Perceptions and Expectations. The Free Press,
1990.

37

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