Volume 64 Number 1 Spring 1988 SERVQUAL: A Multiple-Item Scale for Measuring Consumer Perceptions of Service Quality A. PARASURAMAN VALARIE A. ZEITHAML Foley’s/Federated Professor of Retailing Associate Professor and Marketing Studies of Marketing Texas A & M University Duke University College Station, Texas Raleigh-Durham, N. Carolina LEONARD L, BERRY Foley’s/Federated Professor of Retailing and Marketing Studies Texas A & M University College Station, Texas This paper describes the development of a 22-item instrument (called SERVQUAL) for assessing customer perceptions of service quality in service and retailing organizations. Afier a discussion of the conceptu- lization and operationalization of the service quality construct, the Procedures used in constructing and refining a multiple-item scale to ‘measure the construct are described. Evidence of the scale’ reli- ability, factor structure, and validity on the basis of analyzing data from four independent samples is presented next. The paper concludes with a discussion of potential applications of the scale. Intensifying competition and rapid deregulation have led many service and retail businesses to seck profitable ways to differentiate themselves. ‘One strategy that has been related to success in these businesses is the delivery of high service quality (Rudie and Wansley 1985; Thompson, ‘The research reported in this article was made possible by a grant from the Marketing Science Institute, Cambridge, MA. 12 Journal of RetailingSERVQUAL DeSouza, and Gale 1985). Delivering superior service quality appears to be a prerequisite for success, if not survival, of such businesses in the 1980s and beyond. Unlike goods quality, which can be measured objectively by such indi- ators as durability and number of defects (Crosby 1979; Garvin 1983), service quality is an abstract and elusive construct because of three fea- tures unique to services: intangibility, heterogeneity, and inseparability of production and consumption (Parasuraman, Zeithaml, and Berry 1985). In the absence of objective measures, an appropriate approach for assessing the quality of a firm’s service is to measure consumers’ perceptions of quality. As yet, however, no quantitative yardstick is available for gauging these perceptions. The purpose of this article is twofold: (1) to describe the development of a multiple-item scale for measuring service quality (called SERVQUAL) and (2) to discuss the scale’s properties and potential applications. The basic steps employed in constructing the scale closely parallel procedures recommended in Churchill's (1979) paradigm for developing better mea- sures of marketing constructs. Figure 1 provides an overview of the steps. ‘This article is divided into five sections. The first section delimits the domain of the service-quality construct and describes the generation of scale items (Steps 1, 2, and 3 in Figure 1). The second section presents the data-collection and scale-purification procedures (Steps 4 through 9), while the third section provides an evaluation of the scale’s reliability and factor structure (Step 10). The next section deals with assessment of the scale’s validity (Step 11). The final section discusses potential applica~ tions of the scale. DOMAIN OF THE SERVICE-QUALITY CONSTRUCT In deploring the inadequacy of measurement procedures used in the marketing discipline Jacoby (1978) wrote: Many of our measures are developed at the whim of a re- searcher with nary a thought given to whether or not it is meaningfully related to an explicit conceptual statement of the phenomena or variable in question. In most instances, our concepts have no identity apart from the instrument or proce- dures used to measure them. (p. 92) The need for scale development to be preceded by, and rooted in, a sound conceptual specification of the construct being scaled has been empha- sized by other scholars as well (e.g., Churchill 1979; Peter 1981). The 13Joumal of Retailing FIGURE 1 Summary of Steps Employed in Developing the Service-Quality Scale stra socars sce stows ya pancse eras z T op Beinn Waawnerznag awamananae Ee T eeer& necrosis oer wea ee einaemeneren aes ear he T Samet a aeons pmoncun Zum ae FSS bec sa T piimeayera Feapmncomcnst ose wanrae T r ee T ‘ing armen en oa Tp Foard RCN ay a 14