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TQM
23,6 Delighting customers of
management education in India:
a student perspective, part I
644
Sangeeta Sahney
Vinod Gupta School of Management, Indian Institute of Technology,
Received February 2010
Revised July 2010 Kharagpur, Kharagpur, India
Accepted July 2010

Abstract
Purpose – Educational institutions must delight their customers and provide quality of services so
as to be competitive and achieve a leading position. The paper aims to present the results of an
empirical study conducted on students of select management institutes in India with a focus on their
orientation as a customer to the quality paradigm. The study is an attempt towards the integration of
multiple methodologies so as to be able to identify customer requirements and evaluate service quality;
prioritize improvement of service; and guide and develop educational services by incorporating the
voice of the customer.
Design/methodology/approach – The study was conducted across three phases. In the first phase,
service quality was determined through the application of the SERVQUAL; in the second phase, the
Kano model was applied; and, in the final phase, the QFD was applied. This paper, which forms the
first part, is restricted to the application and findings of the first phase of the study, namely
identification of customer requirements and the evaluation of service quality. The second part in the
series is aimed at the establishment of prioritization for improvement of service design of an
educational system through incorporation of the voice of the customer and the generalization of
results.
Findings – The study helped identify customer requirements, measure performance and evaluate
service quality through the SERVQUAL and gap analysis.
Practical implications – The paper can be useful to policy makers, educational planners and
administrators in developing a system that could lead to customer satisfaction and delight.
Originality/value – The integration of the multiple tools and their application to the field of
management education in India has not yet been made available in the literature. The integration of
such methodologies and the comprehension of the findings and relationships could enable policy
makers, educational planners and administrators to assess performance and guide improvement
efforts, with resultant customer satisfaction and delight.
Keywords Customer satisfaction, Quality management, Management education, SERVQUAL. India
Paper type Research paper

1. Introduction
With the quantitative expansion that Management Education in India has witnessed in
the past two decades, the emphasis now, is on quality and customer satisfaction as
strategic issues for survival, growth and success. The conceptualization,
implementation and assessment of quality in education needs to be addressed by
The TQM Journal policy makers, educational planners and administrators as also the various
Vol. 23 No. 6, 2011
pp. 644-658 stakeholders of the educational system. The subject of quality management has
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited been addressed with varying perspectives. While various models, frameworks and
1754-2731
DOI 10.1108/17542731111175257 approaches have been developed and proposed (Cheng and Tam, 1997), the “process”
and “satisfaction models”, prove to be useful at providing at a quality orientation Delighting
especially in educational services. The process model (Cheng and Tam, 1997) defines customers of
quality as an internal process of transformation, including knowledge creation and
transfer as well as administrative and support activities towards both the faculty and management
students; the satisfaction model (Cheng and Tam, 1997), defines quality as the
satisfaction of the various stakeholders, be they internal or external. While the process
model requires an identification of design characteristics that make up the 645
transformation process, and would act as drivers towards customer satisfaction and
delight, the satisfaction orientation requires an identification of customer
requirements.
Starting with a theoretical background, the paper presents the results of an
empirical study conducted on the students of select management institutes in India.
The study was conducted across three phases, after which generalizations were made;
The use of an integrated approach would improve the application of either of these
methods used separately. In the first phase, Service Quality was determined through
the application of the SERVQUAL; in the second phase, the Kano model was applied;
and, in the final phase, the QFD was applied. This paper is restricted to the application
and findings of the first phase of the study, viz., identification of customer
requirements and the evaluation of service quality.

2. Theoretical background
Customers of education
Educational institutions must provide customers with a value proposition. This
requires at the very outset, an identification of the very “customers of education.” A
customer is anyone being served. Customers may be both internal and external,
depending on whether they are served within or outside the organization, and the
frequency of interactions the institution has with them. For a service like education, the
faculty and the administrative staff are regarded as internal customers, and the
student, the industry and the society as external customers (Sahney et al., 2004a, b).
The needs and views of the various customer groups may not always coincide and the
best method of resolving different interests is to recognize their existence and look for
issues that unite the different parties. This study restricts itself to the students as the
primary customer group. With education fast assuming a “product form”, and rising
demands for greater responsiveness and accountability, students today demand a
“quality experience”.

Quality in services and customer satisfaction

The term “quality”, has been defined with varying perspectives; as a property of
products or services, or processes producing these products or services. The definition
in the service sector has been elusive; it is highly customer oriented as it is based on
customer’s perceptions of the service experience. Service quality, as perceived by
customers, involves a comparison of what they feel the service should be (expectation,
E) with their judgment of the service they received (perceptions, P) (Grönroos, 1984;
Parasuraman et al., 1985; Zeithaml et al., 1985).
TQM Customer requirement constructs
23,6 Issues related to the conceptualization and assessment of quality in education has been
a subject of debate, more so because of the varied customers and stakeholders and the
numerous expectations. It is important to identify the customers as also the customer
requirements and expectations, so as to provide a customer-oriented service, customer
satisfaction and deliver service quality (Parasuraman et al., 1988; Zeithaml et al., 1990;
646 Babakus and Boller, 1992; Shen et al., 2000; Yang, 2003; Abdullah, 2006). The
educational institutes need to focus on such requirements so as to be able to create,
communicate and deliver value. With the study restricting itself to the students of
management institutions, an attempt has been made to identify and conceptualize the
various customer requirements of this primary customer group. The customer
requirements for this study refer to the expectations of the student as a customer
group. Based on the literature review, the variables and the items for the study were
conceptualized and have been elaborated in the next section.

3. Empirical study
Objectives of the study
The study is an attempt towards the integration of multiple methodologies so as to be
able to identify customer requirements and evaluate service quality; prioritize
improvement of service; and, guide and develop educational services by incorporating
the Voice of the Customer. The objectives of this paper are delineated as follows:
.
to identify customer requirements of students as the primary customer of an
educational system; and
.
to evaluate service quality through the application of the SERVQUAL.

Methodology
The study is confined to undergraduate and postgraduate students of select
Management Education institutions imparting professional degrees/diplomas in and
around Delhi. These management education institutions were Business Schools (as
independent entities), and Schools of Management and Departments of Management
Studies (under the university). There were five such institutions that were chosen
(three as Business Schools, and two as a University Departments). While selecting the
institutions, non-probabilistic convenience and judgmental sampling technique was
used. However, within such institutions, the respondents were selected by stratified
random sampling.
The literature review helped identify the variables that were used for used for the
study. These were adapted and incorporated in a questionnaire that was pilot tested
and finally administered to the students. It is noteworthy that for all the three phases of
the study, the constructs and the items remained the same. The scope of the study as
well as the sampling technique also remained the same; it was only the sample and the
sample size that varied. However, care was taken to draw the sample from the same
institutions.
In the first phase of the study, questionnaires were distributed to 245 students. A
total of 109 questionnaires were found to be complete and valid for analysis, making a
response rate of 44.4 percent. Of the 109 responses, 49 responses were obtained from
undergraduate students and 60 were obtained from post-graduate students (a ratio of
45:55). A comparison between the undergraduate and postgraduate students lay
beyond the scope of this paper and so a comparative analysis was not made. However, Delighting
as a part of the pilot study, the t-test was run in order to check if any disparity existed customers of
between the two groups. The independent sample t-test, being very robust, could be
run on this sample size. The Independent Samples t-test was applied. The Levene’s management
Test for Equality of Variances indicated the F Statistic values for the under-graduate
and post-graduate students with corresponding significance (or p-values),which were
more than 0.05. This meant that the null hypothesis failed to get rejected and that the 647
variances of the sample drawn from under-graduate and post-graduate students were
equal. This failure to reject the null hypothesis implied the application of the pooled
variance t-test. As far as the means were concerned, the associated values of
significance ( p-values), for both, were more than 0.05, and thus, the null hypothesis
failed to get rejected, and the difference in the means was not significant. So the sample
was treated as a pooled sample. The pooled data was finally analyzed through
descriptive statistics and SERVQUAL.

C Data analysis
This integration of multiple methodologies was used so as to be able to gain insights
into a customer satisfaction programme that could not have been obtained through the
use of the methods or techniques used alone and in isolation. Many researchers have
studied the relationship between SERVQUAL, Kano and QFD, and used them in
complementarity (Franceschini and Terzago, 1998; Matzler and Hinterhuber, 1998; Lim
et al., 1999; Franceschini and Rafele, 2000; Shen et al., 2000; Tan and Shen, 2000; Tan
and Pawitra, 2001; Sahney et al. 2002, 2004c; Pawitra and Tan, 2003; Yang, 2003; Baki
et al., 2009). However, the techniques have yet to be used in conjunction in the field of
education in the Indian context.
After the data was collected, it was analyzed. Keeping in view the objectives of the
study, the SERVQUAL was applied. A subsequent study focused on the Kano and
QFD were applied. This paper restricts itself to the findings from the application of the
SERVQUAL:
.
Descriptive statistics. To identify the relative ranking of the various
items/constructs; and to assess the applicability of the constructs as a measure
for customer requirements.
. SERVQUAL. To evaluate Service quality; to identify the performance minus
expectation gap so as to assess the satisfaction/dissatisfaction levels.

The statistical analysis for conducting the analysis for service quality was descriptive
as well as inferential, and included multivariate techniques through correlation
analysis.

Variable conceptualization and descriptive statistics

Variable conceptualization. The literature review followed by tests of validity and
reliability helped identify a total of 26 items which were grouped under five
factors/constructs namely, competence, attitude, content, delivery and reliability. The
Cronbach’s a values for the different factors of customer requirements during pilot
study ranged from 0.7248 to 00.8097 indicating that the scale was internally consistent
and reliable (Cronbach, 1951; Nunnally, 1978).
TQM Descriptive statistics. The pilot tested items and constructs were used for the final
23,6 study. For analytical purposes, descriptive statistics were used through measures of
central tendency and dispersion. The means and standard deviation were calculated
for the constructs as well as for the items; this helped to establish quantitatively the
items and constructs so identified through literature review. While the Cronbach’s a
values for the entire scale was 0.6935, that of the different factors of customer
648 requirements ranged from 0.517 to 0.712 indicating that the scale was internally
consistent and reliable (Cronbach, 1951; Nunnally, 1978) (see Tables I-III).
As far as the identification of the requirements was concerned, the five- point Likert
scale was used and they were measured on a scale of five points from “not important at
all” to “absolutely important”. The mean scores were calculated for the constructs as
well as for the items; As for the constructs, the mean scores ranged between 4.412 and
3.792, with “content” scoring the highest and “reliability” the lowest; and with all
scoring above 3.600. For the various items, the mean scores ranged between 4.614 and
3.422, with “faculty’s expertise”, and “relevance of curriculum to future needs”, scoring

S. No. Variable Items No. of items a

1 Competence Appropriate physical facilities/infrastructure, 4 0.657

faculty’s expertise, faculty’s teaching abilities and
skills, sufficient faculty/support staff
2 Attitude Effective problem solving/complaint handling, 6 0.620
orientation towards achievement, healthy
competitive environment, willingness to help,
politeness and courtesy, cooperative and collegial
environment
3 Content Learn to apply, clarity of course objectives, relevance 4 0.546
of curriculum to future needs, flexibility of
knowledge being cross-disciplinary
4 Delivery Ease of contact/access to teachers and administrative 7 0.712
staff, proper classroom management, adequate and
proper classroom procedures, responsiveness,
reward structure/recognition for work carried out,
record keeping on performance, orderly environment
conducive to learning
5 Reliability Clearly specified values and aims, consistency of 5 0.517
Table I. practice, clearly specified policies/guidelines, fairly
Variables, items and and firmly enforced rules and regulations, adherence
Cronbach’s a to course objectives

Descriptives
S. No. Construct Mean SD Ranking

1 Competence 4.125 0.444 I

2 Attitude 3.888 0.407 IV
Table II. 3 Content 4.412 0.376 II
Descriptives for customer 4 Delivery 3.972 0.436 III
requirement constructs 5 Reliability 3.792 0.452 V
 Delighting
S. No. Items Mean SD Ranking
customers of
1 Appropriate physical facilities/infrastructure 4.256 0.685 VI management
2 Faculty’s expertise 4.614 0.559 I
3 Faculty’s teaching abilities and skills 4.458 0.569 V
4 Sufficient faculty/support staff 3.532 0.701 XXIV
5 Effective problem solving/complaint handling 4.156 0.669 IX 649
6 Orientation towards achievement 4.201 0.717 VII
7 Healthy competitive environment 4.128 0.721 X
8 Willingness to help 3.587 0.748 XXIII
9 Politeness and courtesy 3.422 0.670 XXVI
10 Cooperative and collegial environment 3.834 0.631 XIX
11 Learn to apply 4.467 0.602 IV
12 Clarity of course objectives 4.486 0.554 III
13 Relevance of curriculum to future needs 4.614 0.525 I
14 Flexibility of knowledge being cross-disciplinary 4.082 0.625 XIV
15 Ease of contact/access to teachers and administrative 3.899 0.693 XVII
staff
16 Proper classroom management 4.128 0.734 X
17 Adequate and proper classroom procedures 3.844 0.696 XVIII
18 Responsiveness 4.110 0.711 XII
19 Reward structure/recognition for work carried out 3.798 0.717 XX
20 Record keeping on performance 3.935 0.748 XV
21 Orderly environment conducive to learning 4.091 0.739 XIII
22 Clearly specified values and aims 3.651 0.762 XXII
23 Consistency of practice 3.522 0.834 XXV Table III.
24 Clearly specified policies/guidelines 3.935 0.748 XV Descriptive for customer
25 Fairly and firmly enforced rules and regulations 3.669 0.817 XXI requirement items: level
26 Adherence to course objectives 4.183 0.709 VIII of importance

the highest and “politeness and courtesy” scoring the least, and with all scoring above
3.300 (see Tables II and III). The constructs and items were ranked as per level of
importance.

Applicability of the dimensions as a measure for customer requirements: are the

dimensions valid constructs?
Data was further analyzed to assess the applicability of the various
dimensions/constructs as valid constructs. The data on customer requirements was
subjected to Principal Component Analysis, and the values were then represented
through Scree Plots. The Scree plot is a line graph of the Eigenvalues against all the
factors that are plotted against their order; it plots the fraction of total variance in the
data as explained or represented by each component. The display is used to identify a
useful number of factors to retain by looking for large values that separate well from
smaller Eigenvalues. The graph is useful for determining how many factors to retain
as two-three largest Eigenvalues clearly stand apart from the others. It thus depicts the
relative importance of the factors.
Scree plots for the data set indicated that a single factor model would be most
appropriate (see Figure 1). This was supported by the fact that there was a lack of
coherent structure in the items within the factors so identified. Keeping in line with the
constructs so identified during the pilot study, the mean and standard error values on
TQM
23,6

650

Figure 1.
Scree plot for customer
requirements

the level of importance assigned to the various customer requirements was calculated.
The standard error of a statistic is the standard deviation of the sampling distribution
of that statistic and it is important as it reflects how much sampling fluctuation a
statistic will show. The values of the standard error were small (see Table IV); and this
revealed that the validity of the model/construct could not be negated. It was
statistically significant and the dimensions are valid constructs.
As the constructs proved to be statistically significant and the validity and
reliability of the model/constructs could not be negated, in this phase of the study the
five constructs were maintained. However, during analysis in the subsequent study,
keeping in mind the findings from the Scree Plots as well as the Cronbach a value of
0.6935 for the entire scale, the scales for customer requirements were considered as
uni-dimensional with the items being considered as a single composite set of individual
measures. It can be concluded that these aattributes have an impact on customer
satisfaction regardless of their classification into constructs.

SERVQUAL
Conceptual background. While numerous terminologies and methodologies have been
proposed, direct guidelines/methodologies for measuring service quality remains a
challenge (Babakus and Boller, 1992; Leblanc and Nguyen, 1997). Service quality, as
perceived by customers, involves a comparison of what they feel the service should be

Construct Mean Standard error

Competence 4.215 0.04

Table IV. Attitude 3.888 0.03
Levels of importance Content 4.412 0.03
assigned to the constructs Delivery 3.972 0.04
of customer requirements Reliability 3.792 0.04
(expectation, E) with their judgment of the services, they received (perceptions, P) Delighting
(Grönroos, 1984; Parasuraman et al., 1985; Zeithaml et al., 1985). This alignment customers of
between customers’ expectations and their perception of the service received is often
referred to as “customer satisfaction”. management
The most widely used and tested service quality survey instrument has been
SERVQUAL, which has been widely used by scholars and researchers (Buttle, 1996;
Lam and Woo, 1997). Originally proposed by Parasuraman et al. (1985, 1988), and 651
refined later by Parasuraman et al. (1991, 1994), it defines service quality as a function
of the gap between customers expectations of a service and their perceptions of the
actual service delivery by the organization.
However, researchers have pointed out that service quality and satisfaction are two
different constructs (Cronin and Taylor, 1992; Kano et al., 1984); while service quality is
encounter specific, customer satisfaction is long term involving both the
encounter(physical process) and the end state (emotional state). Other researchers
have remarked that both service quality and satisfaction are attitudes and the two can
thus be treated similarly (Bitner and Hubbert, 1994; Sureshchandar et al., 2002).
Quality and satisfaction are related; while service quality is a functional and hedonic
judgment related to the superiority of the service, satisfaction is related to a specific
activity/transaction amidst the various processes. Service quality is defined as an “overall
excellence or superiority of a service” (Zeithaml, 1988). Satisfaction is “a summary
cognitive or affective reaction to a service incident (or sometimes a long-term service
relationship)” (Rust and Oliver, 1994). However, incidents of satisfaction over time result
in perceptions of service quality (Parasuraman et al., 1985); and the two terms “services
quality” and “satisfaction” have been used interchangeably (Parasuraman et al., 1994b).
Although most researchers agree with the perception minus expectation theory, and
it being indicative of quality, a number of issues have been raised (Carman, 1990;
Babakus and Boller, 1992; Cronin and Taylor, 1992; Teas, 1993; Andaleeb and
Simmonds, 1998, Brady et al., 2002, Badri et al., 2005), and, other models have been
proposed, namely, objective and subjective by Schvaneveldt et al. (1991); SERVPERF
by Cronin and Taylor (1992); Normed Quality Model by Teas (1993); and,
QUALITOMETRO by Franceschini and Rossetto (1997).
Gap analysis and finding. The SERVQUAL was used to measure Service Quality; with
service quality defined as a function of the gap between customer’s expectation of a
service and their perceptions of the actual service delivery by an organization.
Expectations have been defined as an individual’s belief of anticipated performance
(Gilbert et al., 1982) while, perceptions have been defined as an individual’s formed
opinion of the experienced service (Teas, 1993). The original scale proposed by
Parasuraman et al. was modified; while the terminology was borrowed in the form of
tangibles, reliability and competence (other dimensions were also added), the items that
these dimensions contain, were changed to adapt to the requirements of an educational
service. This is in line with the suggestion made by researchers that some adaptation of
the scale may be desirable when a particular service/industry is investigated
(Parasuraman et al., 1988; Gilmore, 2003; Ladhari, 2008), and that the dimensionality of
service quality “may be a function of the type of service under investigation” (Babakus
and Boller, 1992).
A correlation analysis was conducted on the importance levels of the customer
requirement constructs (see Table V). The results showed that for most of the
TQM constructs, the correlation was significant and that they could be used as scale to
23,6 measure service quality.
The respondents were asked to respond on a scale of five, their degree of
expectation, from “poor” to “excellent” and their degree of actual experience, again on a
scale of five, from “poor” to “excellent”. A total of 109 responses were found to be
complete and valid for analysis.
652 The items in each construct/dimension, were subjected to univariate analysis
through the mean and standard deviation scores for Perception and Expectation. The
mean and the standard deviation scores were calculated for the Perception level (P) and
the Expectation levels (E) and then the Gap (P-E) was calculated. The difference
between the two scores was calculated to obtain the gap scores and determine the level
of Service Quality (see Table VI). The differences in the Gap scores (Perception minus
Expectation, P – E ¼ Gap) for customer requirements was studied so as to identify the
Gap scores (Perception minus Expectation, P 2 E ¼ Gap). Negative scores were
obtained for all the various items; this indicated the need for improvement across
various customer requirements. The largest gap was for Item Nos. 2, 13 and 14,
namely, Faculty’s expertise, Relevance of curriculum to future needs, Flexibility of
knowledge being cross-disciplinary, respectively; while the smallest gap was for Item
No. 9- Politeness and courtesy (see Figure 2 and Table VI).
Items in each construct/dimension were subjected to reliability assessment. The
coefficient a values for the Perception sub-scales ranged from 0.725 to 0.756, and that
of the Expectation sub-scales ranged from 0.725 to 0.796, indicating that the scale was
internally consistent (Cronbach, 1951) (see Table VI). The item-to-total correlation for
individual performance items for customer requirement constructs was calculated to
ensure if the items were from a single construct (Kerlinger, 1978); the results were
greater than the 0.35 cut of value (Nunnally, 1978), and so the correlation between the
item and the rest of the scale was proven. It was observed that the alpha values
denoted the dimension reliability of the scale as it was greater than the cut-off value 0.7
(George and Mallery, 1995) (see Table VI).
For assessing the dimensionality of the scale, exploratory factor analysis was
conducted on each of the correlation matrices of the Perception, Expectation and Gap
scores. A two-factor rotation was adopted. Data on the three correlation matrices
produced very similar results with one factor accounting for most of the variation in
item scores. This led to the conclusion that the scale should be treated as
unidimensional with the items being considered as a single composite set of individual
measures. This supported the findings from the Scree plots. For purposes of checking
the predictive validity, the individual item scores for the Perception, Expectation and

Constructs Competence Attitude Content Delivery Reliability

Competence 1 0.409 * 0.141 0.133 0.174

Attitude 1 0.281 * 0.397 * 0.417 *
Content 1 0.432 * 0.379 *
Table V. Delivery 1 0.387 *
Correlation analysis for Reliability 1
customer requirement
constructs Note: *Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (two-tailed)
 Delighting
Perception (P) Expectation (E)
Items in each dimension X SD Item total cor. X SD Item total cor. Service quality customers of
A. Competence a ¼ 0.725 a ¼ 0.775 P-E
management
Item 1 3.76 0.73 0.565 4.46 0.58 0.680 20.70
Item 2 3.54 0.61 0.624 4.63 0.50 0.686 21.09
Item 3 3.44 0.67 0.748 4.45 0.55 0.769 21.01
Item 4 3.29 0.59 0.491 3.94 0.60 0.646 20.65
653
B. Attitude a ¼ 0.740 a ¼ 0.725
Item 1 3.35 0.68 0.374 4.43 0.58 0.474 21.08
Item 2 3.59 0.79 0.713 4.48 0.57 0.526 20.89
Item 3 3.57 0.71 0.698 4.42 0.59 0.651 20.85
Item 4 3.37 0.67 0.564 3.84 0.51 0.592 20.47
Item 5 3.41 0.69 0.657 3.78 0.62 0.555 20.37
Item 6 3.47 0.67 0.583 4.13 0.64 0.613 20.68
C. Content a ¼ 0.756 a ¼ 0.796
Item 1 3.55 0.72 0.693 4.46 0.55 0.773 20.91
Item 2 3.87 0.81 0.714 4.61 0.52 0.739 20.74
Item 3 3.60 0.72 0.636 4.69 0.48 0.717 21.09
Item 4 3.32 0.82 0.588 4.41 0.64 0.757 21.09
D. Delivery a ¼ 0.737 a ¼ 0.754
Item 1 3.43 0.67 0.482 4.15 0.49 0.601 20.72
Item 2 3.41 0.74 0.646 4.35 0.56 0.649 20.94
Item 3 3.33 0.69 0.662 4.27 0.59 0.751 20.94
Item 4 3.52 0.70 0.616 4.16 0.58 0.663 20.64
Item 5 3.11 0.68 0.518 3.97 0.55 0.515 20.86
Item 6 3.50 0.68 0.597 4.22 0.58 0.631 20.72
Item 7 3.60 0.567 4.18 0.56 0.594 20.68
E. Reliability a ¼ 0.756 a ¼ 0.771
Item 1 3.30 0.75 0.662 4.19 0.60 653 20.89
Item 2 2.93 0.81 0.611 3.94 0.66 0.672 21.01
Item 3 3.59 0.70 0.707 4.23 0.63 0.843 20.54 Table VI.
Item 4 3.56 0.68 0.581 4.32 0.59 0.703 20.76 Service quality/gap
Item 5 3.81 0.68 0.675 4.42 0.53 0.518 20.61 analysis

Figure 2.
GAP analysis
TQM Gap scores were added together to get the scores for each and these were correlated.
23,6 The correlated scores were statistically significant (see Table VII).
The relevance of the Perception minus Expectation gap as a predictor of Service
quality was analyzed; a Simple Linear Regression Analysis was carried out, with
Perception as a predictor and the Perception minus Expectation gap as the dependent
variable. The Regression Analysis indicated a highly significant correlation with a
654 p-value less than 0.05, indicating that the hypothesis that there was no linear relation
between the two variables was rejected. The value of R 2 was greater than 0.50 and this
indicated a goodness-of-fit of the model. The value of F was large and with p-value for
the F being less than 0.05, thus the linear relation was highly significant (see Table VIII).
While researchers on SERVQUAL have assumed a linear relationship between
service quality and customer satisfaction (Huiskonen and Pirttila, 1998; Busacca and
Padula, 2005), the technique has been questioned on issues of asymmetry and linearity
(Kano et al., 1984; Cadotte and Turgeon, 1988; Matzler et al., 1996, 2004); it has been
argued that the relationship may not be essentially linear and one dimensional, infact it
could be asymmetrical, non-linear or even curvilinear (Kano et al., 1984; Oliva et al.,
1992, Anderson and Sullivan, 1993; Basadur and Head, 2001). Further the prioritization
of areas of improvements on the basis of the SERVQUAL has also been questioned.
The numerical value of the gap score is not adequate enough to determine the priority
for improvement (Tan and Pawitra, 2001). With the application of the Kano and the
QFD, the product or service criteria having the greatest influence on customer
satisfaction can be identified and thus, priorities fixed for product/service
improvement. Thus, the Kano model was applied in a subsequent study.

4. Conclusion
Education is becoming much more of a “product” with students expecting a “quality
experience.” Concerns about assessment, accreditation, ratings and rankings are
gaining tremendous attention. There are huge pressures upon the educational system
to become more customer-centric by providing quality services; and they, have been
forced to move towards attempts at not only “consumer satisfaction”, but “customer
delight”. Starting with a theoretical background, the paper presents the results of an

Perception Expectation Gap scores

Table VII.
Assessment of predictive Perception 1.00 0.572 * 0.582 *
validity: correlation Expectation 1.00 20.334 *
between the perception, Gap scores 1.00
expectation and gap
scores Note: *Correlation is significant at 0.01 (two-tailed)

Table VIII.
Relevance of the
perception minus Customer Pearson’s corr. Sig. R2 F Sig.
expectation gap as a
predictor of service Students Perception 0.758 0.000 0.582 105.111 0.000
quality Perception-Expectation: gap
empirical study conducted to propose an integrated framework of quality management Delighting
with a students’ perspective. Based on the literature review followed by a pilot study, customers of
the variables conceptualized, and a study was conducted on select management
institutes in India. The paper is an attempt towards the integration of multiple management
methodologies so as to be able to identify customer requirements and evaluate service
quality with the application of SERVQUAL; prioritize improvement of service through
the Kano model; and, guide and develop educational services by incorporating the 655
Voice of the Customer through the QFD. This paper reports the findings of the first
phase of the study, namely, the application of the SERVQUAL, that enabled gain a
deeper understanding of how customers evaluate products and services.
The correlation analysis conducted on the importance levels of the customer
requirement constructs revealed that for most of the constructs, the correlation was
significant and it could be used as scale to measure service quality. Items in each
construct/dimension were subjected to reliability assessment and findings indicated
that the scale was internally consistent. The differences in the Gap scores was studied
so as to identify the Gap scores. Negative scores were obtained for all the items; this
indicated the need for improvement across various customer requirements. The
item-to-total correlation for individual performance items for customer requirement
constructs was calculated and it was proved that the items formed a single construct;
the correlation between the item and the rest of the scale got proven. The alpha values
confirmed the dimension reliability of the scale. The exploratory factor analysis
conducted to assess the dimensionality of the scale proved that one factor accounted
for most of the variation in item scores, leading to the conclusion that the scale could be
treated as uni-dimensional with the items being considered as a single composite set of
individual measures. The predictive validity for the Perception, Expectation and Gap
scores was found to be statistically significant. The relevance of the Perception minus
Expectation gap as a predictor of Service quality was also confirmed.
With critics having questioned the SERVQUAL on issues of asymmetry and
linearity and with the scale not being able to prioritize the areas of improvements, a
subsequent study was conducted. The findings were further built upon with the
application of the Kano and the QFD in a subsequent study.

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research”, Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, Vol. 13 Nos 4/5, pp. 309-21.

About the author

Sangeeta Sahney is an Assistant Professor at the Vinod Gupta School of Management, Indian
Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, West Bengal, India. Her areas of specialization are
consumer behavior, services marketing, quality management and organization behavior.
Sangeeta Sahney can be contacted at: sangeetasahney@rediffmail.com

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